Reporter’s Notebook

GOV. JIM GIBBONS LAST WEEK SPOKE to the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce, an audience that included a visiting delegation of Thai businessmen. After his speech, which focused on the economic promise of renewable energy, he took a couple of questions.

An audience member relayed to the governor that one of the visitors from Thailand liked what he had to say and wanted to bring the ideas about renewable energy home with him.

Gibbons' response: "We want him to invest in Nevada, not in Thailand."

MOLLY BALL

ANYONE WHO KNOWS THE GOVERNOR knows he doesn't have the fondest regard for the media.

In an interview last week, asked about the controversy over his staff salaries, Gibbons decided to turn the question around on the questioner.

"First of all, I think there's a great deal of media misinformation put out by people who do not understand the facts, i.e., you," he said.

The reporter asking the question had never written a single word about the salary issue.

MOLLY BALL

AFTER A CONVOLUTED AND OFTEN CONFUSING DISCUSSION, school board members asked Superintendent Walt Rulffes for his take on school zoning changes.

"Madame Chairwoman and members of the board, I wonder first if I think I should make sure I know what you think you're doing," Rulffes said.

JAMES HAUG

DURING A HIGH-PROFILE TRIAL LAST WEEK, District Judge Michelle Leavitt questioned jurors after one of them blurted out to a court marshal that he thought the court might be keeping secrets from the jury.

Most jurors who heard the remark told Leavitt that they thought it was meant as a joke.

One, however, told the judge he felt he was being ostracized by everyone in the courthouse. He was told jurors are told not to communicate with anyone while serving on a jury.

"It's almost like we're lepers," he said.

DAVID KIHARA

BEFORE A TOUR OF DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT PROJECTS last week, Las Vegas City Councilman Ricki Barlow recounted fond boyhood memories of playing among the rail cars in what is now Union Park.

Back then it was a working rail yard, which means it wasn't the most environmentally safe place to play.

"Maybe that's why I'm here," Barlow said. "That brownfield made me crazy enough to run for political office."

ALAN CHOATE