Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Maria Silva, filling in for Amber Renee Dixon while she is on maternity leave.

Well, take a look at scams.

You need to be aware up in just a moment.

But first, the Nevada legislature is close to wrapping up its first month.

And joining us now to talk about what's been going on in Carson City is Tabitha mueller from the Nevada Independent to have it there.

You've been busy up there.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks so much for having me.

Let's talk a little bit about there were some rallies being held this week up in Carson City, the big one, the Culinary Union.

Biggest takeaway from that rally.

We actually saw three significant takeaways from that rally.

We saw, you know, a push for rent caps tied to cost of living, maxed out at 5% increases.

Reforming of the eviction process and also a call for creating a state lottery that would provide funding for youth mental health.

And that's really interesting because hearing about a state lottery, not the first time we've heard about this.

Any chance that it might happen?

What are you hearing?

Well.

It'll be interesting to see because as you've noted, we have not had a state lottery go through yet.

Obviously, Governor Lombardo's administration has said that mental health is a top priority for them, along with education.

But I think it remains to be seen whether it will pass through.

We have seen some legislation discussing it or at least some drafts of legislation kind of maybe speaking out.

But I think that it's going to be sort of something that will be difficult to get through.

Now, this time around, they are talking about, as you mentioned, mental health, which is so important.

They're also talking about youth mental health.

They did have quite a bit of our kids from Nevada up there as well at that rally.

What else did we see there?

I mean, I think you saw a lot of calls for saying, hey, housing crisis, rental prices are increasing.

And and even though we have seen rental prices decreasing in recent months, they're still higher than what people are normally used to.

I think that this is going to be something that we will hear cries from a lot of folks on.

We saw a push earlier this year from the Culinary Union to get a North Las Vegas rent control ordinance passed.

That was unsuccessful.

But it will be interesting to see how they sort of address it this legislative session.

Yeah, neighborhood stability, a big issue throughout our state and speaking of that, to some degree.

Let's turn now to Tesla.

They're asking for some more big tax breaks.

They've received a very lucrative tax incentive and breaks back in 2014.

What are they asking for this time around?

And why are some lawmakers actually pushing back and saying, not so fast?

So we saw a tweet in 2014, Tesla was given some tax abatements.

It was written into law that if you have a certain amount of money that you are going to be investing in the community, that you will receive a tax abatement on that.

As Tesla pledges to donate, I believe it's three and a half, more than three and a half billion dollars that's going to be coming up.

Now, Democratic lawmakers have pushed back against this, saying, hey, we've already given Tesla so much, you know, so many tax abatements in the past.

Let's review it.

Let's slow down.

But on the other side, Governor Lambert, his office has said, no, we are going to keep things right on schedule and we'll be learning more about that sometime on Monday.

And let's talk a little bit about the fact that they do contributing to our economy, especially up in northern Nevada.

But there's also that negative impact when it comes to housing in those, again, neighborhood stability, those high prices when it comes to homes.

Tesla came in and I had an interview with Reno Mayor Hillary Scheib a while back where she said, look, we did not, as a local government, did receive any money to create new housing.

The influx of workers has really stressed the housing market here.

There's some transportation issues and just trying to get folks out to where the factory is.

And this time, I think we are seeing some discussions and beginnings about how do we build workforce housing for groups coming in with these large investments and not just Tesla, but also groups like Redwood Materials, which is a lithium battery recycling facility up in northern Nevada as well.

So it will be interesting to see what happens next week on that.

I'm sure you'll be on that and give us an update next week.

But let's also talk about our nurses.

We talk about culinary holding its rally quite a bit.

100 plus nurses are up there in Carson City as well.

What are they asking for?

So I think what we're experiencing right now up in here in Carson City is nurses saying, hey, there are not enough nurses and this isn't just coming from the nurses.

This is coming from the Nevada Hospital Association.

This is coming from doctors.

We are just seeing a shortage of care providers.

And this has been going on for a while, but it was especially exacerbated during the pandemic.

Tabitha, we talked about nurses.

Of course, that goes with health care, quite a bit of things coming up next week.

When it does when it comes to health care, what do we have going on?

What's So I don't know specific bills yet that are coming through.

I still have to look at the agenda for next week, but I definitely think we're going to hear kind of conversations around that nursing shortage.

Right.

How do we how do we get more nurses to Nevada, a nursing compact where, you know, nurses that are allowed to do nursing in other states can then be allowed to practice here?

You're going to see some legislation surrounding you're going to see some legislation possibly surrounding, you know, trans rights and trans inmates, too.

That I think potentially up next week.

And then obviously, education and we'll see where it goes from there.

And also water rights.

Correct.

And and water legislation, too.

I mean, there's a meeting today and we're going to keep hearing about bills.

I think there's quite a few water legislation pieces on the table.