Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

LETTERS: Teachers should support competing districts

To the editor:

I have mixed feelings about state Sen. Sandra Tiffany's latest move in her ongoing campaign to split up the Clark County School District.

As a taxpayer, and one who has lived in a city with multiple school districts, I am completely opposed to the split. The result can only be a situation in which there are the same number of students and the same number of teachers, but twice as many administrators. Most of the complaints about the current district have to do with excessive administrative costs. Splitting the district can only make those costs significantly higher.

As the husband of a teacher, however, I can see an advantage. With more than one district, my wife might be able to improve her pay and benefits by moving to whichever district offers the most. With two school districts within easy driving distance competing for quality teachers, salaries and benefits for teachers here in the Las Vegas Valley can only improve.

WALLACE J. HENKELMAN

HENDERSON

Parental help

To the editor:

I don't get it. Gov. Kenny Guinn and Clark County School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia keep telling us we need to spend more money on education. Yet at West Middle School, only 23 percent of parents took advantage of free computers ("Not on the same page," Sept. 24).

If parents don't care about their children's education, why should the rest of us pay? I don't want to pay more taxes for an education that parents and children don't seem to want.

Let taxpayers pay taxes based on the number of children they have in school. Maybe then parents will take a more active role in their children's education.

MIKE ECKMAN

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Critical rights

To the editor:

Thank very much for Thomas Mitchell's excellent Feb. 23 column, "Arrest him! He hurt my feelings." Might I suggest that to save time, we just repeal the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. We could use them for floor mats at the urinals in the Legislature.

Additionally, instead of spending money on new prisons (that is assuming we don't start burning these "terrorists" at the stake on national television so we can feel safe), let's just put a double-walled electric fence around the entire state since we're all liable to "intimidate, frighten, alarm and distress" at some time or another. Just put the whole enchilada under the control of the Department of Corrections.

In the meantime, since Mr. Mitchell obviously sometimes criticizes the government in his columns, when he's sentenced, please let me know where he is incarcerated for this terrorist propaganda and I'll send him letters from time to time in support. Oh wait, that would be "material support." Never mind.

DOUG ANSELL

LAS VEGAS

Out of control

To the editor:

Congress is now considering passage of the Patriot Act 2, giving more powers to the government (read: Attorney General John Ashcroft).

If you think you are safe with Big Brother headed by the likes of Mr. Ashcroft, look only how his Justice Department has raped and pillaged the citizens of Oregon over their Death of Dignity law, and Ed Rosenthal and the citizens of California in the recent marijuana case in Oakland.

An out-of-control politician, backed by out-of-control federal judges, armed with your tax dollars, are just as dangerous to your safety as the gun-toting criminal on the street.

DON B. LAWS

LAS VEGAS

Salton Sea

To the editor:

I think it would be an absolute outrage if one drop of water that could've gone to Las Vegas goes to the Sonny Bono Wildlife Refuge (In Depth story, Feb. 23). The story should have been subtitled "I've Got Your Water, Babe."

To paraphrase Sonny again, the beat goes on -- Californians, particularly environmental interests, are trying to beat us out of water to "save" the Salton Sea. But what would we be giving up some of our water to save? A cesspool of irrigation runoff and industrial waste and sewage from Mexicali? It might be better if the thing dried up.

The Salton Sea is a man-made creation. From time to time, the Colorado River would change its course and flow to the west, filling up the Salton Sink until the water reached the Gulf of California. Then eventually the river's course would silt up and the river would flow to the south again and the water of the sea would recede.

This latest incarnation was a result of the inadvertent return of the river's flow to the west for two years in the early 1900s as a result of a seasonal flood. Somehow the Salton Sea has maintained water instead of evaporating, as its predecessors did, due to the flow of industrial and irrigation runoff.

If this lake is so essential that we must take water and keep it filled, why not build a canal or lay a pipe from the Gulf of California and use sea water? After all, it is a salt lake and not a freshwater lake. The lake is well below sea level so the water line could be gravity fed and flow downhill so little or no energy would be expended to operate it. Perhaps sea life could even be maintained. But then again, how important is this lake?

The travesty of this whole water situation is that the water is there, even in this drought. It's just politics, namely interstate rivalry, and environmentalism keeping the water from where it's needed.

There's enough water in the Sacramento River alone that had the Peripheral Canal been built, California's overdraw from the Colorado River might have been eliminated or at least greatly reduced. Further north, water from the Eel and Klamath rivers flows into sea. There might be enough water in California to take care of that state's needs altogether without any Colorado River water. Of course, it would be years and probably decades of legal wrangling before there would be any changes.

Anyway, my point is this Salton Sea situation, like the rest of it, is political. That the refuge is named for a politician is apt.

MARK KOSTNER

LAS VEGAS

Med mal

To the editor:

With the death of Jesica Santillan resulting from a botched organ transplant operation, does anyone in Nevada still question why, when a physician makes a mistake, a victim or their family sues their doctor?

Does any rational person in Nevada still want to limit the liability of a physician or his insurance company to $250,000 when these mistakes occur? If an error regarding mismatched blood types can occur at Duke, arguably one of the finest hospitals in the United States, it can happen just as easily in Clark County.

How much is the life of your loved one worth? Apparently many people in Nevada believe only $250,000.

LYNN CONANT

HENDERSON