LETTERS:
Give thanks for a brave, honest public servant
To the editor:
Las Vegas residents owe a vote of thanks to Lori Wohletz, the city's environmental officer, for her moral courage in risking her job for the sake of professional standards and good public policy ("Official: Deal will cost city," Wednesday).
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Ms. Wohletz had warned City Manager Doug Selby before the City Council's Nov. 2 vote in favor of developer Bill Walters that converting Royal Links Golf Club into a residential community could cost the city as much as $30 million to keep an adjacent city sewage treatment plant from violating odor rules. An independent panel had recommended strongly against putting houses next to the sewage facility.
But she and the sewage plant manager were not told by anyone that a proposal to change the golf course to a residential area was going on the Nov. 2 City Council agenda. Mayor Oscar Goodman invited a handful of people to appear at that meeting, including Mr. Walters, but not Ms. Wohletz. The City Council was, in fact, told that city staff favored Mr. Walters' plan! This was the second recent change of a document that deleted unwanted professional findings (a memo pointing out the hazards of methane gas had also been "altered").
Because she came forward by answering a reporter's phone call, Ms. Wohletz sensed that City Hall's culture might require her to resign if she wanted to uphold her integrity, and she offered to do so. As of this week, she had not been terminated and had not resigned. But her willingness to speak when some might have remained silent deserves our gratitude. She acted on our behalf.
For those in city, county or state public service who may not feel safe in coming forward, they need to know that NRS 281.611 through 281.671 is entitled, "Disclosure of Improper Governmental Action." It seeks to protect men and women of integrity in public service, and it spells out what counts as intimidation and retribution. It makes both of them illegal and specifies the authority to punish anyone who uses intimidation or retribution in order to punish public employees for upholding the laws and fulfilling their responsibilities on our behalf.
Craig Walton
LAS VEGAS
THE WRITER IS PRESIDENT OF THE NEVADA CENTER FOR PUBLIC ETHICS AND AN EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ETHICS AND POLICY STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS.
Take the land back
To the editor:
When will Clark County and city of Las Vegas officials and residents realize that doing business with Bill Walters only benefits Bill Walters? Changing deed restrictions to accommodate his business interests can, at times, prove to be a bad deal for Southern Nevadans.
Royal Links Golf Club, Stallion Mountain Country Club, Wildhorse Golf Club and the 275-acre parcel Mr. Walters said he would develop into a golf course are deals that come to mind. I've also heard rumblings regarding his deals for the Bali Hai and Desert Pines golf clubs.
The county caved in on Stallion Mountain and the 275-acre development by allowing 61 acres to be rezoned for Mr. Walters' benefit. Do you see a trend here?
In my view, to protect the city in the Royal Links deal and to protect the surrounding area, local government should exercise eminent domain over Mr. Walters' property and turn it into a city-operated public golf course.
L.L. Rose
LAS VEGAS
Mining legislation
To the editor:
John Leshy, the former solicitor general of the U.S. Department of the Interior, made a career out of coming up with cockamamie interpretations of federal mining law. So nobody should be surprised that his take on Rep. Richard Pombo's mining law amendments is goofy, too ("Allowing greedy miners, builders to plunder parks," Nov. 11 commentary).
The amendments from Rep. Pombo, R-Calif., would allow mining companies to privatize their claims so that valuable infrastructure (roads, power lines, pipelines, etc.) can remain on the land after mining, and the land can be re-used for other purposes. Rep. Pombo developed these provisions in response to testimony from rural Western mining communities who told Congress that removing this infrastructure is tragic because it forecloses sustainable economic development opportunities for the rural West.
Mr. Leshy's assertion that Rep. Pombo's bill would precipitate a land grab by real estate developers is silly. Maybe the former solicitor general hasn't seen many mines. After all, most are hard to get to. They are located in remote locations where expensive infrastructure has to be built in order to develop the mineral resources. These areas lack the types of improvements, such as roads, that real estate developers typically find attractive.
Mr. Leshy's allegation that developers would privatize old, abandoned mining claims throughout the West doesn't withstand scrutiny, either. The bill specifically requires companies that want to buy claims to make a substantial investment in mineral development work in order to qualify the land for purchase. Old claims with old work simply do not meet this qualification criterion.
Yes, it is true that many Colorado ski resorts are located on what used to be patented land that was purchased from the government for as little as $2.50 per acre. Everyone agrees that this price is way too low. Rep. Pombo's bill solves this problem by raising the fee to $1,000 per acre (a whopping 400 times more than the current rate), or to fair market value, whichever is greater. If a company wants to purchase mining claims in areas with high real estate values, the fair market value of this land will reflect its price.
The hand-wringing over how this bill would be used to develop isolated mining claims stranded inside the boundaries of national parks is especially amusing. Rep. Pombo offered an amendment that would have clearly eliminated all lands within national parks and other special areas from his bill. However, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., made a counteroffer that was approved during markup negotiations that allows claims with a valid mineral discovery in protected areas to be purchased.
Those who are worried about the potential purchase and development of the 900 valid claims in protected areas (most of which are in California) should first direct their concerns to Rep. Udall. Then they should consider the difficulty in bringing power and water to these small islands of claims surrounded by protected lands. Or, simply think about how hard it is to build a new power line anywhere in California, let alone in a national park or a wilderness area.
What if Mr. Leshy is right and some developers actually buy old mine sites? In order to do anything with them, they would first have to make a very substantial investment in cleaning up these abandoned sites prior to building something of value on them. That would be a good thing.
During his tenure as Interior Department solicitor general, Mr. Leshy often pointed to the problem of old, long-ago abandoned mines. Perhaps an unintended but very positive consequence of Rep. Pombo's legislation is that a few developers will invest private-sector funds to restore and then redevelop these sites. If this occurs, Congress will have inadvertently created a partial solution to the abandoned mine problem.
Laura Skaer
SPOKANE, WASH.
THE WRITER IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NORTHWEST MINING ASSOCIATION.
The reality of sex
To the editor:
It's always fun when a phony, humorous story is presented in the media as serious, on-the-level news. The front page of Thursday's Review-Journal had one of the best and funniest examples I've seen in a long time: "Sex and the high desert," a story about a Nye County brothel's plans to offer male prostitutes to female customers.
Just about any woman has her pick of any one of several hundred thousand men who would be more than happy to cater to any of her whims, after first buying her an expensive dinner. The idea that any rational woman is going to take a long drive out into the boondocks in order to pay for sex with a disinterested stranger is absolutely hilarious.
James Moldenhauer
NORTH LAS VEGAS
No respect
To the editor:
I read Vin Suprynowicz's Sunday column, " 'Posing a threat to civil aviation,' " and I thought I'd send a little story. Last week, I was coming home from Phoenix, and when I arrived in Spokane, Wash., I found that my bags had not made the trip with me. The baggage agent said the Transportation Security Administration had held the bags for examination and the bags hadn't made the connection. She said the problem was very common.
I should note at this point that I rarely fly if I can help it anymore, and when I do I put a copy of the Fourth Amendment on top of my clothes inside my luggage, in the hopes that some screener may read it and rethink his or her career choice.
My bags were delivered the next day. I opened my suitcase to find a TSA slip on top of my copy of the Fourth Amendment, and the screener had thoughtfully written a large "Yeah, OK" across the amendment.
Just goes to show the arrogance and lack of respect that these goons have for both us citizens and the Constitution that is supposed to protect us.
