MJ, what's the latest on the whole data center conversation? I know,

I feel like we need to start with like previously on CityCast because it's been like an ongoing series.

Like if you've recalled, like we're talking about, there's been reporting out of the Nevada Current and the Nevada Independent about what's happening in Boulder City and the Review Journal, I should say.

But in Boulder City, there was a proposed data center on city land that got a lot of outrage from city residents.

And so the owner of the proposed data center actually decided to go around the city and look at nearby BLM land.

A ruling coming out this week, that's the latest development, is actually putting pause on that development.

So when the site they're looking at, the town site, uh solar was looking at was originally applied for it was for a solar project and they didn't go through uh another environmental review when they tried it to turntable and look at a data center on that exact same land uh again against kind of the wishes of the residents of that area but part of the interior judge ruled this week hey maybe you should have actually done an environmental study like By the way, this

So, MJ, my question to you then, playing off of what Layla just said there, like, is there any sort of economic diversification that you think would help fix the wage problem, like of what we could do to target in terms of business to bring in here?

So what the hell, you know?

You know, there's...

You know, got to protect some billionaires, as an aside.

But yes, but there are a lot of cuts.

There's been so much slashing of federal budgets.

We're talking about things like U.S. Forest Services, National Park Services, the Bureau of Land Management.

There's been all these cuts to the budgets for these.

Ripple effects, yeah, big time.

And that's where the community comes in to help, right?

I mean, out of reporting from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Bobbi Mullins, the owner of Raw Memories, she mentioned that she did have property insurance, but still figuring out if that is enough to cover the full damage of everything.

And right now, everything's just so much more expensive.

Life is just so much more expensive.

And so- Being a business owner in general is just hard enough.

And so even with community support, and I think there is going to be a lot of community support because she was a fixture in the community and this was something that was needed.

There are, I am curious, the logistics that she's going to face and the barriers she's going to face to bring it back to the full vision.

You know, what do you think needs to be done more so in the area of like AI training to prevent things like this happening? Like, does the state need to step in in order to kind of do this stuff?

MJ, what exactly is he trying to say that he's not to blame for here?

Right.

So this comes from reporting from Dana Gentry, my colleague over at Nevada Current, kind of looking at some of the ads that have been coming out of the Lombardo camp about just everything that he's done and kind of talking about his legacy over the last few years.

And so the question was brought to him about kind of what he's done for the economy and kind of what the affordability process issues that people are facing.

And he responded saying, the federal space is different from the local space.

When we talk about affordability and inflation and everything, I can't control that.

But the thing that we wanted to compare that to was a few years ago when he was running for governor against incumbent Democrat Steve Sisolak, he actually attacked the governor on...

MJ, what do you think? What are you hearing in your reporting that people are kind of concentrating on more?

Like, are we playing catch up? Or was there something that we maybe missed that they were trying to get ahead of things that just maybe hasn't come to fruition yet? I think

we are in a sense playing catch up because we've seen cities like Arizona that have had some of these longstanding policies that have looked at other things that we're still not lucky into.

We've talked about this on the podcast before, too, and I think Nevada Current has done reporting on this.

One thing that I think in particular is cooling pavement technology.

That's something that's been looked at in other cities, and that's still something we're not here discussing at a meaningful level.

And so I think we are playing catch up.

But to be fair, so much has happened over the last two decades.

On the local level, what can actually be done to slow these things down to help us get ahead of the data center boom?

It's actually increased over the last two years, right, MJ?

Yeah, to be fair, it's actually increased over the last decade.

Last time that we had a point in time report in 2024, I think that was our 13 year high on numbers of number of people that we've counted that living on the street or living housing insecure.

And so, but yeah, another...

Report came out from a point in time count from January that found, yet again, a 12% increase.

Right now, we're looking at the time.

They count out 8,859 people that were experiencing homelessness.

And what do you think is attributed to that?

Why exactly is that?

Yeah, so for kind of a little bit of context, for years, a lot of civil rights groups and criminal justice organizers have been fighting actually to change our system where we criminalize traffic tickets.

So essentially, if you get pulled over for maybe like a broken taillight or something to that effect, A lot of times in previous years, people were, if they weren't paying their fines, they were ending up with bench warrants and ending up in jail.

And so in 2021, after a long, long, long time of advocating, our state joined a bunch of other states in decriminalizing traffic tickets, making it a civil matter.

That legislation went into effect in 2023 and it created a new traffic code.

But one of the inadvertent things that happened from that is instead of criminalizing people, which is Great to not be jailed for low-level traffic offenses, but instead of that, people are finding themselves having their driver's licenses suspended.

And so when the Fines and Fees Justice Center did a presentation about this to the Interim Judicial Committee this week, and they said that when they did a request for the DMV data, they saw that 139,000 people had their driver's licenses suspended.

It just seems like this is snowballing into some major issues on our roads, right?

So, MJ, as you kind of take stock of this entire story and what's going into it, what's your reaction just to kind of the convolutedness, if I can create a word here, of everything that's going on?

It's funny because it feels almost like a very Nevada and politicky thing that happens.

Just because there's so many overlapping names and overlapping people tied to this story, which is very common in Nevada.

I hate that my mind immediately jumps to the election side of it because everything that's coming out right now is just like, how is this going to impact the election? Even though water should be a top priority of of concern for elected officials up and down the ballot, including the governor of the state.

I don't know how big of a role this is actually going to play, to be honest, because like, even though it is super important, it's a lot, the biggest thing on voters' minds.

And so that's what I'm curious, like, Even though there is a lot of eyebrow-raising information in this saga, in this never-ending saga, I'm curious at the end of the day if this is going to have any impact on Joe Lombardo's election, babe.

Yes.

Open the floodgates.

[laughs]

I know.

Sad that it's this list, but because of that, we've seen so many heat-related deaths.

And so last year, during this le- legislative session, lawmakers mandated that cities in both northern and southern Nevada adopt heat mitigation strategies.

Strategies could include things like access and creating cool spaces, public access to drinking water, cool building practices, shade areas.

And so earlier this year, during the interim committee, lawmakers were updated by municipalities about where they're at.

And there's still a lot that has to be done, to be frank.

Yeah

Mm

...

in the long haul, not.

But it would deprive the highway trust fund of needed dollars.

Um, right now, like, the highway trust fund, as it operates, has, like, a...

It has not been sustainable for a very long time, and there's been longstanding calls to reform that.

And so if this gas tax that Trump wants is congressionally approved, again, it needs congressional approval, it would save a few cents for people, which yes, every cent counts right now.

Well, and this recently just got extended till 2036, right? Back in November, I believe it was.