LETTERS: Strip should try to mirror Laguna Beach

To the editor:

Laguna Beach, Calif., attracts visitors from all over, especially during the days of summer. Its popularity, small size and limited access have created traffic and parking problems over the years, but the city added a wonderful transportation alternative in the form of free trolleys. They are open-air, rubber-tired and bright colored. They look similar to the famous cable cars of San Francisco and generate the same kind of excitement, fresh air, beautiful views, interpersonal meetings and joy as the cable cars.

The trolleys not only significantly reduce the stress on traffic and parking in Laguna Beach, they add another way to have fun for free at the beach. Step on, sit down or stand, and step off. No fares or fears.

We all know how impossible it is to get around the Las Vegas Strip at night or on weekends. Cars and pedestrians both face gridlock in places. Frequent, open-air trolleys with easy on/off access could provide a very attractive alternative for visitors and residents. Transportation experts can add other improvements to the Strip, such as severely limiting vehicle traffic. Perhaps only taxis, group vans, buses and limousines would be allowed during peak hours — no personal cars.

Laguna’s population is under 25,000. Las Vegas has about 90 times that, so it can afford to protect one of its most desirable assets by providing a fun and cheap transportation alternative on the Strip. The city can’t afford not to.

ROD HATTER

LAS VEGAS

Transparent Henderson

To the editor:

I just got done reading the article by Arnold Knightly regarding the city of Henderson wanting to raise our property taxes to help pay for $170 million in infrastructure maintenance and improvements (“Taxes back on the agenda,” Tuesday Review-Journal). I went to TransparentNevada.com and looked up the salary of our city manager, Jacob Snow.

Here you go: In 2012, Mr. Snow’s base pay was $164,423, plus benefits of $45,760, for total compensation of $210,183 over nine months, since he started in April 2012. His base pay in 2013, his first full year, was $225,000, plus other pay of $6,490 and benefits of $67,733, for total compensation of $299,223.

Now don’t come crying to me and seek to raise my taxes. Maybe some of Mr. Snow’s compensation could have gone toward money needed for future planning works.

CHERYL PANIK

HENDERSON

Good deeds, minus God

To the editor:

I was pleasantly surprised by Steve Bornfeld’s story, “Less God, more good works” (Aug. 30 Review-Journal). I’m a closet atheist who somewhat knows how gays might feel in this Christian-dominated country. I was abused by Catholic nuns in school because I did not go along with their fairy tales.

I’d ask questions such as, “If God’s so smart, why do boys have nipples?” or “Were there any Indians, Eskimos or black people on Noah’s ark?” They told me daily I would burn in hell if I didn’t repent. So much for God’s love.

Since then, I’ve had death threats from fundamentalists and have been called a devil worshiper. Well, I can’t worship what I don’t believe exists. Most of my family and friends are Christian, and even they can’t agree on anything in the Bible. They like to pick out the good stuff and disregard most of the Old Testament, which clearly shows the Bible was written by homophobic, woman-hating, slave-trading men who didn’t like bacon or shellfish. And to think that Christians today believe that the goat herders who wrote the Bible 1,800 years ago were smarter than the scientists, biologists and physicists of today.

God wants his children to put aside logic and reason, to rely on faith, which requires believing something with no evidence. God also needs lots of money. We have megachurches everywhere, with homeless people right outside starving. If churches paid taxes, or actually gave out, they could feed, clothe and house all the homeless in America. Giving out Bibles and a sermon does not change anything. And prayer is their excuse for doing nothing.

Good deeds can be done by anyone. Christians don’t hold the patent.

HENRY SPALDING

LAS VEGAS