LETTERS: Region needs building moratorium

To the editor:

We continue to build in Las Vegas. Depending on what website you look at, there are 30,000 to 50,000 available houses, condominiums or apartments. Over the past week, I’ve heard about developers wanting to build 40,000 more homes.

My question is: Where is the water to support the population growth? Lake Mead is about 6 feet from its all-time low, yet our city and state officials continue to see dollar signs at the expense of the current population of Southern Nevada.

A building moratorium needs to be put in place as soon as possible.

PHIL MERTZ

NORTH LAS VEGAS

VA bonuses

To the editor:

Morton Friedlander suggests in his letter that Veterans Affairs needs a larger budget and is questioning where the increased funding can be found for hiring on the health side of the house (“VA hospital staffing,” June 8 Review-Journal). Why isn’t anyone clamoring for the discontinuation of those ridiculous bonuses to officials in the VA’s upper echelon?

That bonus money could instead be redirected toward those providing medical care to veterans.

No one living off of taxpayer money should be getting extra bonuses in any government entity. It is a slap in the face to taxpayers, most of whom get far less in salaries.

BERNICE POLIANDRO

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Inform voters earlier

To the editor:

Regarding the editorial about some of the candidates running for office (“Primary candidates who don’t pass muster,” June 7 Review-Journal), I don’t think the average person can remember everything he or she reads about a particular judge or politician. Why doesn’t the Review-Journal write these types of editorials earlier in the voting season? I had already voted, and I didn’t happen to vote for any of the bad ones mentioned in your editorial, but I wish I had known more about more of them earlier.

I saved and read the Review-Journal’s Voter Guide describing the choices, and I took notes from previous articles I had read, but I still didn’t have all the facts. I sure can’t make up my mind just from seeing all the numerous messy signs around town. They don’t tell me a thing. I don’t have time to delve into every name on the ballot between the time I receive it and the time I have to mail it.

I sure hope I made some wise choices, especially since not many people are voting. This might have been the one time when my vote would count. The Review-Journal needs to write more articles exposing the dirty laundry, especially before November’s midterm election.

LYNN MCHATTON

LAS VEGAS

D-Day accounts

To the editor:

Thank you for the Ernie Pyle D-Day series in the June 4 and June 5 editions of the Review-Journal. I was only 3 years old when he wrote them, so I’d never read them before. They bring that grim and awful day to life in all its horror. I’ve traveled to the D-Day beaches, cliffs and hedgerows by bicycle and have cried in the American cemetery just above Omaha Beach.

Of the five beaches the Allied forces stormed that day, only Omaha was a disaster; a terrible tactical mistake. We should have bypassed Omaha, with its overwhelming defenses, its miles of mines and hedgerows, its steep beach and its treacherous surf. Instead, we should have joined the troops landing at the other beaches, then circled behind and destroyed the German defenses above Omaha, thus saving thousands of American lives.

Yes, it’s hindsight, but there is no doubt that Omaha Beach was one of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s worst mistakes.

RANDY SCHLACK

BOULDER CITY