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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The plan to merge Wendover, Utah, into adjoining West Wendover, Nev., appears dead and the funeral may be next Tuesday.
That is when the West Wendover City Council will decide whether to bury the proposed annexation pending Utah coming up with $27 million.
"We've done everything we can do," West Wendover Mayor Josephine Thaut said Thursday. "The sad part is, West Wendover didn't ask to take in Wendover, Utah. We had everything to lose, and they had everything to gain."
But the Nevada side has been hearing nothing from the east, and, "When you don't see any movement from the other side, you have to move on," Thaut said.
Wendover officials began pursuing annexation about five years ago, arguing tax revenues from West Wendover's casinos could buoy public works, social services and education in the sagging economy on the no-gambling side. The plan envisioned moving the state line toward the east to add the Utah property to Nevada.
Nevada officials said an annexation could not include debts incurred by Wendover, Tooele County and the Tooele School District.
The Utah debt was believed to be in $6 million to $8 million in November 2002, when residents of both towns voted in favor of the annexation. A 2005 report by the Nevada Legislature said the debt has grown to $27 million.
"It would be good for both sides. But Nevada won't take us unless we're debt-free," said Wendover Mayor Brett Shelton, who took office in January. "We'd like to pursue it. But the annexation is not a possibility now because Wendover, Utah, cannot finance all the debt."
Since the 2002 vote, many representatives pushing the deal on the Utah side have left office, said W. David Patton, director for the Center of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Utah.
The CPPA had made a fiscal analysis of the proposed annexation and brought various entities together in 2004.
"We got an agreement with the school districts, and we got the cities talking," Patton said. "But some of the (school) superintendents, (county) commissioners and mayors have gone, so we'd have to build it all over again."
Patton said other obstacles include reluctance of the Tooele County Commission to part with Wendover's airport.
"A lot of this is centered on the airport and the economic feasibility of developing around the airport."
Wendover's airport has been doing better, with people flying in to gamble in West Wendover, said Tooele County Commissioner Dennis Rockwell.
"We've got one flight coming in every day. It's really turned around," he said.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
