EDITORIAL: Nye County official opens mouth and removes all doubt

The folks out in wide-open Nye County — home of Area 51 and the late paranormal enthusiast and national radio host Art Bell — have long had an eccentric streak. They even elected a dead brothel owner to the Legislature.

But Nye County Commissioner Donna Cox’s recent rant against Gov. Steve Sisolak’s wife can’t be forgiven as merely quirky or off-center. It was inappropriate, inexcusable and xenophobic.

Speaking during last week’s commission meeting, Ms. Cox blathered on about COVID-19 restrictions, including the governor’s mask mandate. “I started out believing from Day One that this was some kind of a political virus,” she said. “Well now I think it’s turned into a monetarial virus.”

Ms. Cox proceeded to theorize that certain COVID statistics were “lies” intended to exaggerate the threat so that nefarious interests could financially capitalize on government pandemic edicts. “I think a lot of people stand to lose money in this if they don’t keep forcing this thing and forcing this thing and forcing this thing it’s never going to stop,” she continued.

She then turned her attention to Kathy Sisolak, the governor’s wife.

“I’m going to tell you all something about the governor,” she said. “Well, a few months after he won, he married his wife. Now how long he’d known her I have no idea, but she is Chinese. And you put two and two together, they actually said that her family in China own a company that’s making a lot of money off of this issue. That she’s here in the United States promoting and selling all these masks and emergency equipment and everything, and they’re all being shipped over from China. … Is there any better reason in the world to do a mask mandate?”

Ugh.

We can argue about the effectiveness of masks to fight COVID, and it’s understandable that many people suffer from pandemic fatigue. But Ms. Cox wants us to believe that Gov. Sisolak issued a mask mandate because it will financially benefit his wife and family? The commissioner must have a healthy supply of Reynolds Wrap for her summer hat collection.

Ms. Cox never offered any evidence for her bizarre, racially tinged conspiracy theory because there isn’t any.

Kathy Sisolak is a native of Ely — which is only about 40 miles across the Nye County line — whose father was the first Chinese card dealer on Fremont Street. She was a founding partner in Hobbs, Ong and Associates, a well-respected Las Vegas financial consulting firm. She married the governor in 2018.

Ms. Cox is entitled to her own opinions and to make a fool of herself in public. But the residents of Nye County should hold their elected officials to a higher standard. Ms. Cox’s comments were just plain dumb and hurtful. She owes the governor and his wife an apology.