NRS318.0952. Election areas within district: Procedure for creation; election of trustees; alteration or abolishment of election areas.

  Except as otherwise provided in NRS 318.0953:

      1.  Trustees may be elected in the alternate manner provided in this section from election areas within the district.

      2.  Within 30 days before May 1 of any year in which a general election is to be held in the State, 10 percent or more of the qualified electors of the district voting at the next preceding biennial election of the district may file a written petition with the board of county commissioners of the county vested with jurisdiction under NRS 318.050 praying for the creation of election areas within the district in the manner provided in this section. The petition must specify with particularity the five areas proposed to be created. The description of the proposed election areas need not be given by metes and bounds or by legal subdivisions, but must be sufficient to enable a person to ascertain what territory is proposed to be included within a particular area. The signatures to the petition need not all be appended to one paper, but each signer must add to the signer’s name his or her place of residence, giving the street and number whenever practicable. One of the signers of each paper shall take an oath, before a person competent to administer oaths, that each signature to the paper appended is the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be.

      3.  Immediately after the receipt of the petition, the board of county commissioners shall fix a date for a public hearing to be held during the month of May, and shall give notice thereof by publication at least once in a newspaper published in the county, or if no such newspaper is published therein then in a newspaper published in the State of Nevada and having a general circulation in the county. The costs of publication of that notice are a proper charge against the district fund.

      4.  If, as a result of the public hearing, the board of county commissioners finds that the creation of election areas within the district is desirable, the board of county commissioners shall, by resolution regularly adopted before June 1, divide the district into the areas specified in the petition, designate them by number and define their boundaries. The territory comprising each election area must be contiguous. One trustee must be elected from each election area by a majority of the qualified electors voting on the candidates for any vacancy for that area as provided in subsection 7.

      5.  Before June 1 and immediately following the adoption of the resolution creating election areas within a district, the clerk of the board of county commissioners shall transmit a certified copy of the resolution to the secretary of the district.

      6.  Upon the creation of election areas within a district, the terms of office of all trustees then in office expire on the first Monday of January thereafter next following a biennial election. At the biennial election held following the creation of election areas within a district, district trustees to represent the odd-numbered election areas must be elected for terms of 4 years and district trustees to represent the even-numbered election areas must be elected for terms of 2 years. Thereafter, at each biennial election, the offices of trustees must be filled for terms of 4 years in the order in which the terms of office expire.

      7.  Candidates for election as a trustee representing any election area must be elected only by those qualified electors of the district residing in that area. No qualified elector may vote in more than one election area at any one time.

      8.  A candidate for the office of trustee of a district in which election areas have been created must be a qualified elector of the district and must be a resident of the election area which the candidate seeks to represent.

      9.  Election areas may be altered or abolished in the same manner as provided in this section for the creation of election areas and the election of trustees therefor.

      (Added to NRS by 1967, 1690; A 1971, 1050; 1977, 530; 1985, 1800; 1989, 1880; 1995, 177)