PUC avoids case alleging racism in Fallon's refusal of utility service

CARSON CITY - Nevada utility regulators won't intervene in what the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe calls a racially motivated refusal by Fallon to provide utility service to tribal property.

The state Public Utilities Commission decided to stay out of the dispute pending resolution of a related lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Reno, a PUC official said Monday.

Tribal lawyer Treva Hearne said the commission may be asked to reconsider. Earlier, the PUC staff said Fallon should provide the services and that a downtown "island" of Indian land is the same as any other undeveloped parcel within the city.

The PUC staff had concluded denial of services "constitutes discriminatory treatment which could subject the city to antitrust and equal protection legal claims."

While Hearne has said the city's stance was racially motivated, city attorney Michael Mackedon said race has nothing to do with the dispute.

"This can't be reducible to racism," said Mackedon. "It's a question of an area being subject to the authority of the city or the authority of the tribe."

The controversy involves 36 acres of land dubbed the Fox Peak development near Churchill County Hospital in Fallon. The tribe bought the land in 1997 at a cost of $1.3 million - money coming from a water settlement and earmarked for the tribe's economic development.

Under a federal water settlement law, the tribe was authorized to buy land for economic development purposes. The tribe- like all American Indian tribes - is a sovereign nation and the reservation land isn't subject to local laws and rules.

The land has 500 sewer connection credits. A sewer line extension, paid for by the tribe, runs through the property.

The tribe wants to develop the area and long-term plans may include retail shops, office space, and an assisted-living development for elders.

First-phase plans called for a service station and convenience store. When the tribe applied for sewer service for those buildings last year, the city council refused the application and said it wouldn't grant the tribe any utility service.

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