Question for a Nevada Boomtown: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

There’s conflict brewing just below the surface of this otherwise tranquil Nevada-Arizona border town that was little more than a dusty Interstate 15 truck stop a decade ago.

In 1990, fewer than 2,000 residents and the Hafen Dairy herd called Mesquite home. It was a town in search of its first stoplight.

Today the booming little city has that stoplight, four hotel-casinos and a 24-hour supermarket. It has become a regional destination instead of merely a pit stop for truckers to play the slots before rolling into Utah.

The cows are still there, but now they wrinkle the noses of duffers who play nearby on fairways lined with new and under-construction homes for snowbirds.

Mesquite, estimated population 15,500, is the nation’s fastest-growing small city. And officials project the town will double in size in the next four years. That means two new stoplights along with ballfields, parks, a senior/community center and a $5.5-million city government complex.

It shares many of the same issues facing other fast-growing communities in the Southwest, including lack of medical care, poor roads, and public services that can’t keep pace.

But in this community 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, there’s another troublesome issue: Growing pains are dividing neighbors and causing a split among local leaders that residents say is hurting the quality of life that attracted them here. These people just can’t seem to get along.

At the center of the civic cyclone is the mayor who breezed into City Hall with a vow to clean up the town, a self-styled Matt Dillon without the sidearm who says it’s time to rid the city of sweetheart deals that benefit developers and casinos.

Chuck Horne is the tough-talking newcomer who said he’s willing to take on the good-old-boy network to make sure things go by the book. And if that’s not enough, Horne is more than willing to grab the book and write it himself. If that’s still not enough, Horne will throw it; Horne has sued his own City Council--and won.

And then he threatened to sue them again.

“The conflict has been over the rules of government,” Horne said. “Are we going to have government that follows the rules--just like we ask citizens to do--or government by whim that massages the rules for favorite special interests?”

Horne didn’t take long to make enemies. A posse full of townsfolk want Mayor Horne recalled but lacked the votes to run him out of office in August. It was the second failed recall effort.

“He’s supposed to be a hood ornament, and he’s holding the town back,” said Kirk Lee, the Chamber of Commerce president and a recall organizer describing Mesquite’s weak form of government that doesn’t give the mayor a vote at council meetings.

Lee, marketing director for the city’s largest resort, thinks the mayor’s slow-growth platform is hurting his efforts to attract industry other than casinos. “We need to bring in some white-collar industry,” he said.

Outside the year-old recreation center, lifelong resident Melanie Carter said she enjoys the amenities paid for by growth.

She is frustrated, however, by the mayor’s litigious nature, which is eating up tax dollars that could be used for more recreational services. For example, Horne tried but failed to have the Clark County district attorney press perjury charges against Lee during the first recall effort.

“I think it’s definitely dividing the town,” the 33-year-old said.

Paul Henderson, the former city manager who is now on the City Council, says there are people who show outright animosity toward each other “because of all this nonsense. The last couple of council meetings have been a little uncomfortable.”

It’s gotten so nasty that some folks have had enough and have put their homes on the market, said six-year resident Jim Saunders, who moved to Mesquite from Ohio.

On a weekday afternoon, Saunders listens to a ballgame and waits for a customer to stroll into his otherwise empty barbershop along the city’s main drag.

He believes the failed recall attempt is not so much a vote in favor of the mayor as against the City Council.

“The new people are tired of the good old boys running the city,” he said. “But we’re still waiting to see what he’s [the mayor] going to do. The City Council has proven itself. He hasn’t.”

Councilman Paul Henderson, however, believes the mayor has shown himself by creating his own city charter, which would ultimately give the mayor’s office more power.

A charter commission--handpicked by the mayor and council--outlined a form of government for the city that Henderson described as “pretty representative” of the community.

Horne didn’t like it because it retained the council-manager form of government he has been butting heads with. So Horne wrote his own charter and gathered the required number of signatures to place it on the November ballot as an initiative.

Opponents say that’s illegal, suggesting Mesquite’s new charter is likely to wind up in another court fight.

In the meantime, residents say they are frustrated that much-needed services like a hospital and a senior center have taken a back seat to the infighting. They want the differences between the council and the mayor resolved as evidenced in the letters to the editor in the local weekly paper. The resounding message is, “Let’s move on.”

“It’s hurt the city,” Saunders said. “People are moving out because of the conflict. It’s sad because it’s a great town, overall.”