The Nevada towns of Fernley, Wadsworth, Silver Springs, Fallon, Stagecoach, Nixon, Lovelock, Gerlach, Yerington, Hazen and Mason have been growing in population since the Reno area became a Port of Entry into the United States and many employers out there have set up warehouse and fulfillment center operations along USA Parkway with another burgeoning center for warehousing and FC's setting up shop in and around Fernley and Hazen, but they still suffer from a lack of choices in supermarkets with some of these towns literally a step or two away from becoming "food deserts".

There isn't much choice in many of these towns between the more expensive stores like Safeway in Fallon and Lovelock and Raley's in Fernley and Yerington to the lower-cost alternatives like Grocery Outlet in Fernley and the Family Dollar/Dollar General stores in Fallon, Fernley and Silver Springs.

And then there is Walmart, which operates a store in Fallon and a smaller one with less of a selection in Fernley.

There are at least 80,000 permanent residents in Lyon, Churchill, Pershing and eastern/northern Washoe counties that could benefit by having a WinCo store located closer them, like either in Fernley or Silver Springs, perhaps even in Nixon, which is on the Pyramid Lake Reservation and would be a larger employer closer to where these folks live.

Currently, the nearest WinCo store is on Pyramid Way in Sparks, which is 30 miles away from Fernley and Wadsworth and then there's the store on North McCarran in Reno, which is 35 miles away from Fernley and Wadsworth.

When I talked to people at the McCarran Winco last year, they told me that Fernley was a "Walmart town", which doesn't make a whole lot of sense being that the Fernley Walmart is the smallest store in Walmart's northern Nevada district and that many shoppers in Fernley and Silver Springs drive the extra miles to the Fallon store, where they have more services and a larger selection of groceries to shop from.

WinCo shouldn't be afraid of setting up shop in this area, as not only will it be a better alternative to shopping at Walmart, but even a fresher one if my experiences with the various WinCo stores in California (Pittsburg, Eureka, Modesto) and Nevada (McCarran) are an indication, especially with produce, baked goods and packaged salads.

The Fernley Walmart has a hard time keeping shelves stocked and even people employed there while the Fallon Walmart seems to be better run and less cluttered and given the communities it serves, including far away places like Gerlach and Empire and some of Loveclock (if they can't drive to Fallon).

These communities need better, low-cost alternatives than what they already have as well as a wider selection of groceries to choose from.

And if it is a matter of setting up a new distribution facility to keep a future Fernley or Silver Springs store stocked, with possible expansion into areas like Fallon, Lovelock or even Yerington and Hawthorne down south, where there is a Family Dollar and a Safeway serving the civilians and not much else serving the servicemembers and their retirees living out there, it might be worth setting up that DC in Fernley or Hazen as there are new warehouses being built these days.

The highway system has Interstate-80 as well US-95 and its alternate, US-50 and its alternate as well as a future I-11 once it gets built into northern Nevada and Fernley would probably be the best place to have a DC these days, which could also service the Reno stores and the new one in Sparks as well as support future growth into Carson City and Dayton, which already has Grocery Outlet, Dollar General and Smith's Food & Drug.

In the Summer months, there will be an influx of tourists and travelers in the area as they check out the scenery in northern Nevada and drive the "Loneliest Road" as well as attend festivals like "Burning Man", where those shoppers will buy several hundreds of dollars in a single trip and both the Fernley and Fallon Walmarts can't keep their stock on the shelves when the "burners" are in the area.

At this point, I hope that this petition moves WinCo to do another economic feasibility study out here and hopefully make some decisions about not only putting at least one new store in Fernley or Silver Springs and possibly a new DC in Fernley or Hazen, or even along USA Parkway for that matter, where Walmart has both a DC for its stores out there as well as an FC for the folks who order online.