Monorail seemed like a good idea at the time
To the editor:
The Las Vegas non-Strip Monorail to Nowhere is refinancing again, replacing worthless bonds with even more worthless bonds and projecting financial balance in 10 years ("Rail's survival in doubt," April 30 Review-Journal). This from a company that isn't sure it can open its doors on Tuesday.
It is the old axiom: If you are going to scam, scam too big and get so many people involved that no one can let it fail. There have been a couple of examples of that philosophy here recently. And the excuse given reminds one of the answer given by Chris Guinchigliani years ago when she got a bill passed in Carson City to give tax breaks to businesses who went "green," only to see the hotels jump on it as yet another way to further cut their tax burden by putting in a few solar panels. Her comment: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
It's not as though there weren't voices calling for more investigation before OK'ing the monorail project, but the development-mad and melodramatic-solution-driven officials steamrolled ahead, and what is the result? A financial hole so deep we might as well keep digging all the way to China and hope they will be so impressed by the new travel corridor they'll pick up the tab. After all, we have a federal administration with the same philosophy.
KENT RISCHLING
LAS VEGAS
Give credit
To the editor:
Only a scant 18 months ago, a newly ensconced Obama administration decried the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" even when those methods produced vital intelligence that would save American lives. They postured and rattled sabres toward Jay Bybee, a federal judge who as a Bush administration official had opined that such techniques, historically, had precedent and were not considered war crimes by their nature or application. They threatened him with criminal prosecution and disbarment.
Well, after all that preening and posturing, the Obama administration was still quick to use the intelligence gained from one of the few such interrogations conducted to identify and trail Osama bin Laden's most trusted courier to the bin Laden compound and make a quick end to this miscreant's unfortunate life.
My question: After vilifying and attempting to destroy Judge Bybee for opining that, in extreme cases, such enhanced interrogation would be acceptable, will the Obama administration now express appropriate thanks to Judge Bybee for a procedure that ultimately led to bin Laden's demise?
The good Lord knows that we've heard enough about how Mr. Obama "organized and assigned" the SEAL team (which had been in training long before he took office). Perhaps it's time to give credit to those who put their careers on the line for the country?
Ronnie Garner
Henderson
No furloughs
To the editor:
In response to the Wednesday story, "Lawmakers reject Sandoval pay cut plan":
While I understand that Democrats want to soften the blow of pay cuts for state workers, the Legislature needs to understand something.
I am a lieutenant with the Department of Corrections. The DOC is not like any other state agency. It is an entirely different animal. Furloughs put all of us inside correctional institutions in danger -- and they put the public in danger -- because I don't have the staff to man certain posts that could help keep one of the inmates from going over the fence.
I am responsible for putting together a schedule to man an institution with 1,800 inmates that is set to have a specific number of people working it. Unlike some state agencies, like the DMV, I cannot just shut down a window. When I don't have the staff, officers can get hurt and inmates can get hurt or escape.
I already have to schedule around things like annual leave, sick time, training and other things that take up two hours out of my day. If you set a furlough day for the officer, I have to replace him, which means I have to hire a different officer on overtime at a rate of 1.5 percent plus shift differential overtime. If you would just leave things alone and not furlough the officer, the state could save the money and make me more productive because I would not be spending all that time trying to do the schedule and having to hire the additional officers to cover the vacant spot created by the furlough.
When it comes to the DOC, the furloughs hurt us and cost you more money. So do us a favor and just take the damn money from us and get it over with. You are not helping us at all.
Doug Orr
North Las Vegas
No cuts
To the editor:
Year after year it is demonstrated that the quickest way for the government to empty a taxpayer's purse is to adopt another Democratic budget "cutting" plan. This party has an insatiable appetite for ever more tax dollars in order to fund its patronage support. It always turns out that a "cut" is actually an increase.
Lord -- and Gov. Brian Sandoval -- please deliver our suffering state from the Democrat Party greed!
JOHN TOBIN
LAS VEGAS
