To the editor:

There should be no leeway whatsoever on background checks of doctors in the state of Nevada. The Nevada Board of Medical Examiners and its paid lobbyist recently suggested softening proposals that all physicians undergo criminal background checks. All of the doctors in the state should undergo these criminal background checks -- not one of them exempt.

Assembly Bill 208 should carry the same tough requirements that many other states adhere to. There should be no free pass because a person has M.D. or D.O. behind their name. Nevada especially, because it has a very transient population, should have a very rigid and tough law requiring background checks of all doctors wishing to practice within this state.

The attorney for the medical board uses the old excuse: the cost of background checks for 5,000 doctors would be high. Rubbish. The doctors should pay for their own criminal background check like many do in other states. It is just a cost of being allowed to practice. It should not be on the state to pay for the doctor's licensing requirements.

Most doctors are clearly squeaky clean. But like all professions, there are a very few who are criminals out to take advantage of the public. For example, pediatrician David Evans, who is accused of molesting children in Las Vegas and California. We need this law to ensure that those doctors who are practicing in Nevada are who and what they say they are.

Doctors who feel they should be exempt from a background check should talk to police officers, all of law enforcement, corporation administrators, teachers, clergy, day care workers and even those people who work in casinos each and every day. They subject themselves to a criminal background check before they are hired. What makes a physician any different? Nothing.

Doctors, go through the background check like all the other professions and doctors in most other states. If you are a criminal, you deserve to lose your license. If you are a safe, caring practitioner, you have nothing to fear.

The medical profession should be held to a higher standard than most. Doctors hold our lives in their hands. Make them accountable. The good, dedicated, hard-working doctors should want to police their own and rid its ranks of felons and criminals.

BRADLEY KUHNS

LAS VEGAS

To the editor:

I would like to respond to Louis C. Kleber's Thursday letter of complaint about the construction of Red Rock Station.

"We can all see this travesty under construction. It is even worse than imagined," Mr. Kleber complained. He and the Friends of Red Rock Canyon would have you think that Red Rock Station was being built, by itself, right in the middle of pristine land, displacing endangered species and ruining an otherwise pristine view of nature.

I must confess that during the 2003 debate about the casino, before construction began, I wasn't sure exactly where the site was. But now that signs have gone up, I know. In fact, I have been going to that area for years. Red Rock Station is right across the street from Costco, Best Buy, Office Depot and a dozen other businesses and restaurants.

Red Rock Station is conveniently and properly located, and I look forward to its opening.

Ari Stotland

LAS VEGAS

To the editor:

The Clark County School District is recruiting teachers in the Philippines (Monday's Review-Journal). The reason given for this insulting move is that qualified teachers are not available in the United States.

Come now. Isn't the true reason qualified teachers cannot be lured to join our district is that the salaries offered are offensively inadequate?

Lynette Collins

HENDERSON

To the editor:

According to Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins and Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, Nevada ranks near dead last on per-pupil spending for kindergarten through grade 12.

I don't have the resources of these Democratic leaders, but I can access the Census Department's Web site. According to the latest figures available, Nevada ranks 23rd in taxes collected per capita for the first three quarters of 2004. And, to add fuel to the fire, Nevada ranked 15th in property tax collections per capita in 2003 -- way before the obscene increases predicted for this year.

Just where is the Legislature spending the hard-earned taxes collected from the citizens of Nevada? I would think we should be in about 23rd place for education spending.

Either the Legislature has higher priorities than education, or we are being lied to and education spending, per capita, isn't as bad as we're being told.

Perhaps Speaker Perkins, Majority Leader Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, could ask for an analysis of the budget and tell us where we are spending our funds. All I ever hear is we are near last on funding for specific items. For once, I would like to hear where we are spending near the top. If we knew this, we would know whether we should rearrange our priorities.

Dan Burdish

LAS VEGAS

THE WRITER IS CHAIRMAN OF NEVADANS FOR TAX RESTRAINT AND THE FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

To the editor:

The owners of more than 100 buildings adjacent to the "Big Dig" in Boston, the largest public construction project in the United States, have joined in a lawsuit against the management of the highway project, alleging damage from shifting foundations, flooding and cracking of their properties.

One owner described his building like this: "The building on Fulton Street in the North End is directly adjacent to the Interstate 93 tunnel, and has wall cracks, fallen ceilings, buckled floor and ceiling tiles, sloping floors, cracked windows and glass doors that do not close. The building appears to have separated from the attached building next door."

Thank goodness that we don't have the Big Dig's managers, Bechtel Parsons/Brinckerhoff, managing Nevada's Yucca Mountain Project. Problems like these could be disastrous if they occurred near tons of stored nuclear waste. We sure are lucky to have Bechtel SAIC at Yucca Mountain.

Or are we?

Robert Duggan

HENDERSON

To the editor:

I read the Las Vegas Monorail bonds have been downgraded to junk status. Now the bonds match the equipment.

Kyle Otto

LAS VEGAS