Congressman Mark Amodei recently informed county leaders that things are “going smoothly” with the Burning Man festival at the federal level. The Bureau of Land Management recently issued a special recreation permit for the event that opens August 27 in the far northwest corner of Pershing County.
Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen told county leaders things are not going that well from his point of view.
This will be the third Burning Man since Allen was elected sheriff and his concerns have not changed. There will be inadequate law enforcement to ensure public safety due to the inadequate funds provided by Burning Man and there will be children at what he believes should be an adult-only event.
“It’s not going as smoothly for us at this level,” Allen told county leaders. “There’s a constant rub with Burning Man and the Sheriff’s Office. I don’t presume to know what goes on at the commissioners’ level and the district attorney’s level. My issues are old things that Burning Man doesn’t seem to be able to move past to get a good planning session going. There’s lots of internal issues we need to deal with.”
Safety concerns
Allen is responsible for public safety at the festival but, in his opinion, he cannot guarantee that safety with the limited resources and personnel he has for the event. County leaders signed a settlement agreement with Black Rock City, LLC, organizer of the event, to end BRC litigation over fees. The agreement limits BRC payments for county services related to the event, including law enforcement.
“The main issue that I have, and this is both a personal issue and an issue as the elected sheriff of this county, is that we are being dictated to by a private entity and it doesn’t sit well with me,” Allen said.
The budget is based on event attendance — permitted this year for 70,000 ticket-holders by the BLM. The total of $240,000 must be shared with other county agencies, including the district attorney’s office. After radios were purchased from BRC, Allen said he has $175,000, not enough for personnel and supplies in his opinion so he is forced to share resources in an “integrated” command with the BLM.
“Our hands are so tied, we are not allowed to do the job the way the job should be done because of the budgetary constraints,” he said last week. “In no city of, let’s use Burning Man’s numbers, 70,000 people, is 16 sheriff’s deputies per day adequate. Nowhere is that acceptable. We need at least double that for reactive policing. If we were to do proactive policing, we would need much more than that.”
Allen paid $10,000 for the portable radios offered to the county by BRC. In previous years, the radios were provided at no cost to the sheriff’s office but this year the radios would be sold if the sheriff’s office did not purchase them. The used radios have been essential tools for the event and the price was right. New radios would have cost the county about $50,000 to $60,000, Allen said.
Allen contends Burning Man organizers are saving money at the expense of public safety and the county. Additional law enforcement resources are available if needed but the response time for those resources, such as SWAT teams from Humboldt or Washoe County would be at least an hour, he said.
Drug culture
Although possession of small amounts of marijuana is now legal in the state, it is still illegal to light up and smoke pot in public. Allen said he plans to enforce state laws regarding marijuana possession and consumption at Burning Man. Marijuana use in the privacy of tents or trailers will be tolerated but not outside, in what Allen considers public space, especially if there are minors around.
“They are under the opinion that because now recreational marijuana is legal (in Nevada) there will be less enforcement and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said. “And, it’s still illegal federally.”
Marijuana is less of a concern for Allen than the “harder” drugs that he says are common at the event.
“If they were only to bring marijuana out there, things would be better but that’s not usually what we see. We see the harder drugs — cocaine, methamphetamine, mushrooms,” he said. “The last two years, they have been heavy into the hallucinogen drugs, LSD and mushrooms and prescription medications. We’ve found some new synthetic substances people are coming up with that we’ve never seen before.”
Allen questions why children are permitted at an event where drugs, alcohol and nudity are common.
“Why is Burning Man still allowing people under 21 to attend when the majority of what they do out there is for 21 and older persons,” Allen said. “Their response to me is that it’s a family-friendly event.”
Shared resources
Allen would prefer a “separate command” and a “cost recovery” system that would pay for more county personnel and equipment rather than sharing resources with the BLM and other agencies.
Instead, his deputies and BLM officers will again share vehicles with federal agents backing up county law enforcement and vice versa. It’s one of the few advantages of integrated command, Allen said.
“The benefit for the participant is if it happens to be a BLM issue, there’s a BLM ranger there to handle the issue with PCSO to back up that officer,” he said. “If it’s a Pershing County or a state issue, Pershing County is there to handle those laws and BLM is there to back us up. No matter what call it is, there’s one of each person there to take care of the call and [the] other one backs them up.”
Logistical support by BRC and the BLM allows Allen to hire temporary personnel from other counties. Meanwhile, the rest of the county needs law enforcement and Allen is short-staffed with two vacancies to fill. Last year, he had to investigate a Lovelock shooting incident as Burning Man was about to start.
“To their credit, Burning Man does provide us with a lot of things behind the scenes,” Allen said. “They allow us to use their shower property in Gerlach, access to their water, hook-ups for our trailers and food on the playa since I’ve taken over. There are things Burning Man provides over and above the settlement agreement. Otherwise, I would only be able to provide three deputies per year.”
Planning ahead for Burning Man is a time-consuming, year-round project for the sheriff’s office.
“We start expending personnel time as soon as the other (Burning Man) is over,” he said. “Unfortunately, a lot of that personnel time is covered by our regular (county) budget. We can’t cover everything that we need with the fixed amount of money that we have (for Burning Man).”
Unpaid bill
Unexpected costs not in the 2016 budget were submitted, but the bill is still outstanding, Allen said.
“Last year, Burning Man cost this county $40,000 more than the budgeted amount,” he said. “The bill has been sent but they are still arguing about that at higher levels than me. I try to the best of my ability to stay within my budget but, even in my regular budget, things come up that we haven’t planned for.”
As radios, vehicles and other equipment must be replaced, there is no room for those future expenses in the current settlement agreement and it will be seven years before it can be re-negotiated, Allen said.
“Until the settlement agreement is re-done, that’s always going to be a sticking point for the sheriff’s office,” he said. “The biggest constraint for the sheriff’s office is that there is absolutely no mechanism in that document to garner more money if something goes wrong.”
Burning Man spokesman Jim Graham said Pershing County agreed to the terms of the settlement agreement and that Allen has again agreed to an integrated command that saves money for the county.
“Sheriff Allen has chosen an integrated command structure each year where he works with BLM personnel, uses BLM’s resources, drives in BLM vehicles and integrates patrols with BLM to support BLM traffic stops and drug searches,” Graham said. “BRC pays for all of this in addition to the cash payments we make three times a year to Pershing County. In addition, the County receives revenue from the fines that result from PCSO arrests and citations at Burning Man.
Graham said his group disagrees that more law enforcement is needed at the event and that Allen “is not able to demonstrate he requires more resources to police what we view as a safe and secure event.” Plans are in place with other law enforcement agencies in case more resources are needed, he said.
“Police agencies at special events and in cities across the nation do not staff at daily levels for the lower risk of a natural disaster or man-made emergency,” Graham said. “Burning Man has done extensive work for years with our cooperating agencies to include planning and training exercises in conjunction with the Washoe County Regional Emergency Operations Center to address this very issue.”
Playa concerns
Traffic is up on the road to the playa with recreational vehicles and big rigs hauling staff and equipment for an event that uses about 4,400 acres of public for seven weeks. Set-up starts in early August with final clean-up in early October. Public safety issues have already been reported according to Allen.
“Burning Man has been out there for a week setting their stuff up and we’ve already had some calls for service out there,” he said. “We had somebody that was alleged to be harassing other people and chasing them down with their vehicle. In the settlement agreement, Burning Man says this is an eight day event but as soon as people hit the playa that’s when it starts becoming an issue for us.”
About six or more miles of the narrow two-lane road between Gerlach and the event is in Pershing County. Wet weather and heavy traffic could jeopardize the road, Allen said. He’s also concerned about the playa that Burning Man organizers and the BLM say is dry enough to support the heavy traffic.
“Apparently a lot of the surface water is gone but the playa is kind of a tricky thing. It may look dry on the surface but it’s not necessarily dry underneath,” Allen said. “There’s an old saying about alkali flats. If it’s gray, stay away. If it’s white, it’s alright. It has to be really, really white to not sink in it.”
