News - April 1, 2026 - by Ray Hagar

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Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson, seeking re-election in 2026, is trying to earn the votes of his constituents in a unique way:

He's telling them property taxes should be increased -- perhaps a kiss of death for other political campaigns.

"Contrary to a lot of belief, our tax system in Nevada is the worst in the country," Lawson said recently on Nevada Newsmakers. "So we're trying to run a city on a percent-and-a-half increase in property tax each year. That just doesn't pencil out.

"Our expenses over the last five years have gone up 55 percent," Lawson told host Sam Shad. "Revenues have gone up 35 percent. We have a broken system."

Currently, owner-occupied primary residences in Nevada are capped at 3 percent annually and 8 percent for commercial properties, thanks to the passage of Assembly Bill 489 in the 2005 Nevada Legislature.

The system protects homeowners and investors from sudden tax spikes, especially in rapidly-appreciating markets like Reno and Sparks.

Yet it does little to help those cities pay for the growth, said Lawson, who is running for re-election for the second time, after first being appointed mayor in 2020, following the passing of former Mayor Ron Smith.

Lawson acknowledged his 2026 campaign strategy may be risky. However, he wants to be honest with voters.

"So you know what? I'm willing to take that risk because when you dial 911 and we put you on hold because we don't have enough dispatchers, or we don't have enough policemen, or we end up like, Flint, Mich., where, they don't investigate homicides for hours ... We are literally on that path."

Lawson is also seeking re-election because he wants to see the Congressional Truckee Meadows Public Lands Management Act come to fruition.

"We're still working on the lands bill," Lawson  said. "I've been working on that for probably 10 years. I feel better about it now than I have in a long time."

The federal lands bill, sponsored by Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, and Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nv., would transfer thousands of acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service land to Sparks, Reno, and Washoe County to address housing shortages and enable industrial growth.

"I think it is likely to happen this Congress," Lawson said. "It would be a game changer."

Without it, Sparks may struggle, city officials have said. The city currently has little room to grow and needs the transfer of federal land to build affordable housing, expand the city's industrial base and stabilize the tax base.

If it is passed, "Now I can actually grow," Lawson said about his city. "(We could) change the tax mix in Sparks to be more industrial and where we get a higher tax (rate) instead of being the bedroom community area where we get a lower tax rate."

Lawson bristles at Sparks being considered a bedroom community for Reno, although he acknowledges that's how the Rail City was marketed in the earlier decades.

Traffic snarls

Another major problem Sparks faces is overwhelming traffic caused by the city's rapid expansion. Traffic in East Sparks is slow and bumper-to-bumper during morning rush hours and afternoons and evening from about 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., residents have said.

The most serious choke-point of traffic snarls in Sparks is the 9-to-12-mile stretch on Interstate-80 from Sparks to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center.

The extreme congestion has lead to around 150 crashes a year on that stretch of road -- about one every other day -- according to the Nevada Department of Transportation.

Many solutions have been proposed, including the expansion of I-80 between Sparks and the TRIC and a rail line between Sparks and TRIC.

Notably, the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada (EDAWN) paid the Boring Company $50,000 to produce designs and a feasibility report for a nine-mile tunnel project between Sparks and TRIC, according to Fortune magazine.

Expansion of I-80 is estimated to be a $1 billion project, and NDOT is short of the necessary funding, Lawson said.

"The simple math is there's no money at NDOT," Lawson said. "I mean, they have a $1.3 billion budget, but $300 million of it goes to police and DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). And then they split $1 billion with the rest of the state. And because Clark County has 70 percent (of Nevada's population), they get 70 percent of that. So it leaves us $300 million for the rest of the state to build roads.

"The math doesn't work out," Lawson said.

Lawson also doesn't think the Union Pacific Railroad, whose tracks run cross county through Reno and Sparks and past TRIC, would be willing to help with a commuter light-rail line. He mentioned past negotiations between Sparks and the Union Pacific were unsuccessful on other issues.

"I don't think there's one snowball's chance of UP letting us have anything along that line because of their amount of freight traffic and Amtrak," Lawson said. "So if we had a wreck or a breakdown or anything, they just won't tolerate it."

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