Rural Nevada tour puts Gibbons in his element

TONOPAH -- Geologist-turned-politician Jim Gibbons explained to a small group of hikers Tuesday how volcanoes and earthquakes created the odd-shaped rock formations here in a chalky colored canyon.

"They are welded tuffs," said Gibbons, looking at the finger-shaped rocks found off a bumpy dirt road 35 miles northwest of Tonopah. "This came from the flow following a real violent volcanic eruption."

Gibbons signed legislation in June that appropriates $100,000 for the state to take the initial steps to acquire 6,400 acres here from the Bureau of Land Management for a state park. Actual costs of creating the Monte Cristo Castle State Park have been estimated at $3.4 million.

"People fly over the state and see nothing but mottled browns and think of how dry and hot it is," Gibbons said. "Not until they get on the surface and off the highways do they realize how beautiful this state is."

The 62-year-old governor clearly is in his element under the vast skies of uncrowded rural Nevada.

From the polls that show his popularity jumped after legislators in June yielded to his demand not to raise taxes, Gibbons realizes he has an issue that connects with people from Denio to Laughlin.

"I'm a governor who is going to find ways to do things without raising taxes," Gibbons said during a stop in Yerington.

He spent this week riding in his bright blue "Gibbons for Governor" recreational vehicle on a 1,000-mile trek through rural Nevada.

Out here no one was asking him about the Department of Justice's investigation into allegations that he took nearly $100,000 in bribes from Reno businessman Warren Trepp. They didn't ask whether there was any truth to waitress Chrissy Mazzeo's charge he tried to sexually assault her last October in a Las Vegas parking garage.

"The more the press beats him up, the more people will vote for him," Hawthorne resident Paula Reed said during Gibbons' stop at the Army Ammunition Depot.

"He is a man of good character," added Pauline Sciaran when Gibbons stopped for lunch at the Yerington Senior Citizen Center. "Every time someone slings mud at someone else I try not to listen. People are tired of it."

Longtime Lyon County Democratic Party Chairman Charlie Lawson said without question Gibbons appeals to most rural Nevadans.

"His no-tax stand is his anchor," Lawson, a resident of Stagecoach, said in a phone interview. "Most folks out here will live and die on no taxes. Not just Republicans. Democrats, too."

Democrats can make gains in rural Nevada, he added. But only if they also wander regularly into the hinterlands and emphasize they also oppose taxes -- except when they are needed to resolve a specific problem, such as a lack of roads.

"People will favor some taxes if they get a direct benefit from them," Lawson said. "They have to be informed of the reason for the taxes."

The message adorning the governor's blue RV says this is Gibbons Country, and the ruralites don't object to that characterization.

"He's a straightforward fellow," Silver Peak resident Nancy Boland said. "A lot of bureaucrats don't understand or try to understand how difficult it is to live out here. He owes his election to rural Nevada."

Gibbons carried every county but Clark last November in defeating Democrat Dina Titus by 4 percentage points in the governor's race.

Previously, he won five consecutive Congressional District 2 races by landslide margins.

His 110,000-square mile congressional district covered all of rural Nevada and most of the state's urban areas, except for the most heavily populated portions of Clark County.

As a congressman, Gibbons spent a week or two every summer touring rural Nevada. As governor, he has decided to continue the annual tours. Next month he intends to gas up the bus and visit rural communities in Clark County.

"We are bringing state government to you," Gibbons told one luncheon crowd. "We realize a lot of you can't take time off work during the week to come to Carson City."

He talked often of how he didn't raise taxes and found a way to raise $1 billion during the Legislature to build and repair highways. But there were some impromptu conversations as well.

When wandering around the Farmers Market in Tonopah Monday evening, Gibbons encountered a Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair. The man complained loudly about the sidewalks he must navigate in downtown Tonopah. He demanded the state rebuild them before someone is hurt and files a lawsuit.

Gibbons countered by saying sidewalks are a local government responsibility and property owners usually are assessed higher taxes to repair them.

"You are wrong," the veteran responded. The Nevada Department of Transportation must fix them, he continued, noting he wrote seven letters to the agency and never received a response.

Their debate drew a crowd. The two never resolved their differences, but Gibbons made sure his rural coordinator, Jodi Stephens, got the man's name and telephone number.

A verbal exchange between Gibbons and the hikers at Monte Cristo Castle also wasn't dominated by the governor. Tonopah motel owners Andrea Robb-Bradick and her husband, Frank Bradick, challenged Gibbons when he insisted that acquiring the land for a state park from the BLM might be cost prohibitive.

The Bradicks have been the key advocates to establish a new park, and Frank Bradick told Gibbons there would be no cost to the state to acquire the land for a park.

Gibbons eventually relented and acknowledged Bradick might be right. But he said the biggest problem will be winning congressional approval.

"Someone in New York or Washington, D.C., will say 'Why should we give up our land in Nevada?' Environmental groups will oppose it. They don't want any cattle or even people here."

Gibbons pledged to work with the Bradicks. Sounding like someone who wants to serve a second term, he stressed he intended to return before he leaves office to dedicate the Monte Cristo Castle State Park.

On Monday, Gibbons listened as several Lyon County residents complained during his appearance at the Yerington Senior Center that the Walker River water they need for irrigation declines every year as politicians let it flow past their farms down the river to fill Walker Lake.

Two hours later, downriver Mineral County residents complained at another hearing just as strongly that farmers in Lyon County were getting the water that Mineral County residents need to fill rapidly dwindling Walker Lake.

"We need to know exactly what our water resources are," Gibbons told the Mineral County crowd, noting a bill he proposed to accomplish that objective was killed by the Legislature.

He added the sparse winter snow pack in the mountains and the never-ending drought have hurt all of rural Nevada and contributed to the disastrous summer wildfires.

Gibbons contends his popularity in rural Nevada isn't due just to his no-taxes stance. He said he works hard for their interests when in Congress and shares their values and tastes.

Visiting a farmers market isn't just a political gimmick, he added.

"These people know who I am," Gibbons said. "They want leaders who are interested in and care about them. I can't answer everything. But I always have come out here and spent time. Rural Nevada. It's gorgeous."