Be afraid: Nevada taxpayers’ worst nightmares of 2015
All snug in your bed, with visions of sugar-plums dancing in your head? Not anymore. The cold sweats are back with the realization that government is never done wasting your money.
I give you the five worst taxpayer nightmares of 2015.
5. The North Las Vegas VA Hospital. There's just no waking up from this bad dream. Back in 2005, the medical center was projected to cost $286 million (with free land) and open in 2009. When it finally was finally supposedly done in January 2013, the price tag was $1 billion. But the emergency room was built too small to do any good, so the VA went about the process of expanding it. The job was supposed to be done last summer, but completion has been pushed back to spring 2016, at a cost of millions more dollars. And the medical center's long-promised rehabilitation and hospice center won't be done until summer at the soonest. Don't hold your breath.
4. The city of Henderson. It was a banner year for the insular local government. It kept city elections off its website home page well into the candidate filing period; threatened employees with termination if they talked to journalists; imposed significant recreation fee increases that many residents can't afford because it said other cities charge more; and tried to impose a policy for watching video footage from police cruisers that prohibited note-taking. Accountability? What accountability?
3. The Service Employees International Union Local 1107. The bargaining unit that represents Clark County's exceptionally well-paid workers dragged out negotiations more than two years beyond its contract's expiration, thanks to absurd compensation demands that mirrored the excessive costs of its pre-Great Recession deals. Then, when the Legislature passed major labor reforms that denied some SEIU members pay raises, the union tried to argue that it already had a contract in place after all. The union is trying to have a labor board effectively reverse its binding arbitration loss. They'll never tire of coming after your money.
2. Carolyn Goodman. The Las Vegas mayor almost defended last year's well-deserved crown. She pushed mightily for a taxpayer-funded downtown soccer stadium no one wanted, in defiance of a petition against the plan. Then, after it died, she moved forward with a parking garage at the Symphony Park site that's certain to be empty years after it's completed. Her latest bad idea for your money amounts to the creation of a city Department of Education, even though the city has no role in funding or managing schools. Somebody make her stop!
And now, put your Freddy Krueger claws together for Nevada taxpayers' worst nightmare of 2015!
1. The sage grouse. The ground-dwelling bird, which lives across Nevada and the West, isn't exactly thriving thanks to federal land management failures including nonexistent predator control and persistent wildfire threats. The Interior Department decided against listing the bird as an endangered species in 2015, but still wants to impose a conservation plan than leaves millions of acres off-limits to economically productive use. That prompted some Nevada counties and the state to sue Washington and further chill the relationship between Attorney General Adam Laxalt and Gov. Brian Sandoval, who's trying to ease sage grouse restrictions through negotiation. However it plays out, the bird is certain to kill jobs and hurt economies across the Mountain West throughout 2016.
One, two, the sage grouse is coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Fix, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, gonna stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again.
— Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal's senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. Listen to him this Monday at 10:30 a.m. on "Live and Local — Now!" with Kevin Wall on KBET 790 AM.
