Mayor, Marano confer on city manager’s first day

Mayor Robert Crowell and Nick Marano, Carson City’s new city manager, met Monday morning with a few city staff people as Marano assumed his new role.

As Crowell and Marano paused briefly from a City Hall conference room planning meeting for a photography session in the mayor’s office, Crowell said progress appeared possible on a Nevada 150 Fair parking issue that pre-dated Marano’s arrival.

The mayor said things may be worked out with the Nevada Department of Transportation on using a dirt site the state has near the eventual end-point of I-580 at U.S. 395, which is to the north and across the highway from Fuji Park and near that location for the fair scheduled for July 30-Aug. 3.

“The proof will be in the pudding,” said Crowell, speaking of ongoing negotiations and any final resolution. There also were indications from the office of Rudy Malfabon, director of NDOT, that any issues could be resolved.

Last week, city Transportation Director Patrick Pittenger informed a local fair planning committee he had been told by an NDOT official that fair parking couldn’t go on the dirt site despite it being unused during the five-day period for this summer’s fair. Fuji Park has room for only 125 or so parking spaces, so off-site parking and shuttling of fair-goers is planned.

Marano, meanwhile, spent a busy first day meeting staff and getting off to the running start he promised when he was interviewed by the Board of Supervisors last month. He was hired early in May after surviving a screening process that earlier included 70 applicants. That group was pared first to seven and then to five finalists seeking the job of running the city’s day-to-day operations.

The mayor and four supervisors chose Marano unanimously and he is being paid $171,500 a year. A retired Marine colonel who spent a couple of years as a management consultant after leaving military service, Marano ran Camp Pendleton toward the end of his time with the Marine Corps. That top camp community post capped a career that had included service in Europe, the Middle East and the United States.