Does commission represent unions or taxpayers?

To the editor:

Here is a big thank you to Jane Ann Morrison for her great column in Thursday's Review-Journal ("Taxpayers paying the price for delayed road project"). I find that more and more I first turn to Ms. Morrison's column on Monday, Thursday and Saturday before I read the rest of the paper.

Ms. Morrison is a great writer and a fearless reporter. She seems to always have the best interests of the lowly taxpayer front and center -- and this is evidenced again in her column highlighting the abuses of our Clark County commissioners in handling a contract dispute for a road project. Our commissioners should be ashamed of their pro-union, anti-taxpayer bias in this matter.

By what legal right do our commissioners reject the low bid from a qualified non-union shop and accept a higher bid from a union shop? Do the commissioners represent the best interests of the taxpayer or do they represent other interests?

Our commissioners rejected the low bidder and attempted to award the contract to a company whose bid was $5 million higher. Then they agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit from the low bidder. Wow! The pro-union bias of our commissioners cost the taxpayers at least $7 million. Apparently, the commissioners are more beholden to the unions than they are to their constituents.

As for those local resident workers who will actually be employed on the project, they will receive the same pay, whether the contractor is union or not, as the project undoubtedly requires all wages to be paid in accordance with the Davis-Bacon Act. Furthermore, the contractor, union or non-union, will be required to submit weekly payroll reports documenting all of the above. In fact, I would venture to guess that many of the workers on the project will be union members whether the contractor is signatory or not to a union contract.

So the result seems to be that the commissioners can be assured that they will receive the support of union management at election time. As for costing the taxpayers an additional $7 million? Well, not to worry because they will forget all about it by election time. Won't they?

Lew Spitzer

Las Vegas

Get real

To the editor:

When are these well-paid, well-fed Republicans going to stop talking about future generations and get real about the current generation?

Remember, it was a Republican president who plunged America into the Great Depression in the '30s, and a Republican president who illegally put us into a war with Iraq which caused the loss to this country of trillions of dollars. This loss continues to this day and for years to come as we are now entrenched in the Arab nations.

JANETTE JARRETT

LAS VEGAS