MARK WAITE / PVT Nye County Manager Rick Osborne stands in front of the administrative wing. HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Bill Browning, of Nye County Buildings and Grounds, checks out the spacious county commission meeting room at the new Calvada Eye administration building. Advertisement

The public has been attending meetings at the Bob Ruud Community Center since the 1960s, a white, concrete building erected thanks to a $50,000 bond issue.

Those days will be over beginning with the July 22 Nye County Commission meeting when both it and Pahrump Regional Planning Commission meetings will switch to the new space in the administration building at the Calvada Eye.

The meeting room includes 202 theater seats with space for wheelchairs, County Manager Rick Osborne said last week during a tour. Osborne said some people jokingly asked where the cup holders were for holding drinks.

"The building has certainly served a purpose in Pahrump Valley. No. 1, when that was first built, it was an awfully nice building. It was built out of cement block. It was just a very, very, nice building. We've had everything in there," said Harry Ford, a Pahrump resident since 1946.

The Bob Ruud Community Center -- named after former County Commissioner Bob Ruud -- hosts a number of community events as well, from appearances by Santa Claus to craft shows and even family events like a quinceanera.

The bond issue to build the community center became possible after Pahrump residents voted to become an unincorporated town, Ford said. He said at that time, in the 1960s, there were a number of changes, Pahrump Valley received electricity, telephone service, and a paved road was completed north to Highway 95.

Besides comfortable chairs, the new meeting room contains high-tech features. Two giant, 7-by-11-foot projection screens in the front of the room will let everyone see the speaker's podium. Osborne pointed to a separate entrance for county commissioners, like judges use in a courtroom.

"That's what I call the commissioners' escape route," Osborne joked.

Another back room will hold electronic equipment.

The meeting room will eliminate the need for four county employees to set up and take down chairs, video-conference equipment and other items for the twice-monthly commission meetings at the community center and the monthly RPC meetings.

The public will enter through a separate entrance on the east side of the building, fronting on the duck ponds. Instead of standing outside the Bob Ruud Community Center facing a parking lot and Highway 160, the public will be able to stand outside and discuss politics by the duck ponds, which are themselves being rehabilitated.

A $1.43 million agreement was signed with Pac-Van Inc. to purchase a modular building last August, using $2 million set aside in the Payment Equal to Taxes. Buildings were shipped to the Calvada Eye and assembled on-site.

Last December, commissioners purchased a $110,000 video conference system for the new county administration building and spent $80,000 to replace the video-conference system in Tonopah at the same time.

The county administration offices have shuffled from East Basin Avenue to a shopping center on Frontage Road to the trailer now being used on the Calvada Eye. The Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Office will continue to use the trailer.

Visitors who want to transact county business outside of the meetings will enter through a door situated off the duck pond on the south side of the building, walk through a lobby and then to the left, where they will talk to receptionists sitting behind a glass window.

Osborne boasted the building has a number of energy-efficient fixtures, like motion detection lights that turn on when someone enters the room.

"One of the things we've been able to do is reduce the number of air-conditioners. We've gone with R-50 insulation for the roof," Osborne said.

There will be space in the 11,000-square-foot building for 10 offices, including two for the human relations department; offices for three county commissioners and a visiting commissioner; a room for closed sessions; offices for the county manager, assistant county manager and grants administrator; a conference room, a copy room, break room and file room.

"People will never believe this is a modular building. Pac-Van told us they're going to nominate our building for an award for the way it came together," Osborne said.

The remaining work includes installation of water lines this week, which will be followed by paving the parking lot. Building inspector Bill Browning said there will be parking for 60 vehicles on both sides of the building.

"If we don't have everything ready for the move, we're going to have a temporary certificate (of occupancy) which will allow us to have the meeting," Osborne said. "We have to play it by ear to know for sure when everything is done."

"This was $1.7 million when we started. We're going to bring it within the budget. But now that didn't include the landscaping and some of the things we're going to do," he said.

There hasn't been any determination yet whether the Pahrump Town Board will use the meeting room, Osborne said.

"I'm waiting for them to ask. I've had conversations informally with the town manager," he said.