Sunday, September 11, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

WEEK IN REVIEW: Reporters Notebook

The broom: It's not just for sweeping anymore. Drivers wanted. Otto Dude need not apply.

DURING A LATE AUGUST SCHOOL BOARD MEETING, Gina Greisen was baffled by Clark County School District officials' explanation of a new contract with McGraw-Hill Cos., which happens to be former Superintendent Carlos Garcia's new employer. District officials said at the time that McGraw-Hill was the only textbook supplier that could provide a particular service to test students whose primary language isn't English and that the state required they use the company's product.

On Thursday, Greisen returned to the School Board having conducted Internet research she claimed showed other textbook companies could have provided the same service.

"I don't want CCSD to stand for Curious Contracts and Sweet Deals," Greisen said.

ANTONIO PLANAS

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: During a conversation between a female police officer and a female dispatcher came this exchange:

"Right now it's called Johnny Love."

"Johnny Love?"

"I know. Give me a break."

AT A NEWS CONFERENCE TUESDAY TO ANNOUNCE LOCAL EFFORTS to house and assist several hundred Gulf Coast evacuees, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman was curiously silent. It didn't go unnoticed. "I think this is the longest Mayor Goodman has kept his mouth shut at a press conference," observed one wag in attendance.

JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD

AS HE WELCOMED A GROUP OF NEW ORLEANS EMERGENCY WORKERS to Las Vegas for a few days of recuperation, Goodman played a thankful voice-mail from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. But in the middle of the message, a freight truck at the airport loading dock where the news conference was taking place rumbled away, making the message impossible to understand. "We missed the good part," a peeved Goodman said. "I'm going to play it again because the jerk in the bus couldn't wait." But after fumbling with a few buttons, he gave up.

BRIAN HAYNES

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: "Nobody's armed with a broom anymore."

AMONG THE LOSSES IN THE WAKE OF HURRICANE KATRINA is the meaning of the word "exclusive." Fox News touted the phrase during a so-called "exclusive" peek last Sunday at the New Orleans Naval Air Station, a staging area for troops and supplies headed to the storm-ravaged city.

It was the same base that Review-Journal readers had learned of in that morning's paper (in fact, an R-J reporter watched the "exclusive" report from a TV set at the base). And seen at the base the previous night were staffers from ABC News, a TV station in Sacramento, Calif., and a newspaper from Portland, Ore.

Adding to the irony, the voice-over accompanying the "exclusive" footage was provided Fox's Bill Hemmer, who at that moment was broadcasting not from the base, but from Baton Rouge, La.

OMAR SOFRADZIJA

WHILE SPEAKING WITH A SPEECH PATHOLOGIST OUT OF WORK because schools in the hurricane- ravaged Gulf Coast states have closed, Clark County School District Associate Superintendent George Ann Rice let her know there's plenty of work to be had in Las Vegas.

"I told her we have three jobs for her," Rice said. "And I told her she can drive a bus in the morning if she wants, too."

LISA KIM BACH

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: "He was in the back seat, and he managed to get into the front seat of the patrol car." Heard just after burglary suspect Robert J. Huck slipped out of his handcuffs, stole a police car and then a minivan, and led police on a high-speed chase through Las Vegas.