Letters to the Editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Resident: Town board merely advisory, nothing more

A town board is just that, a town board, no enforcement or regulatory authority. It is typically comprised of people who feel they need a voice and rarely, if any offer true benefit.

Ultimately, whatever they do or say is “purely advisory” and nothing more. Simply being a citizen actually makes you a town board, a so-called formal town board for Pahrump is unnecessary and will only add to confusion and usually a waste of time and effort.

Jimmy Gomes

Veteran gets personalized plate after 4-year wait

October 13, I picked up my new license plates from the Pahrump DMV which reads; CIB69, Nevada. I first tried to get them way back in September 2021, only to be told that I could not personalize a Purple Heart license plate. They did not explain to me why this could not be done, but after investigating why, I found it was not written into law, as others were.

The Purple Heart, along with other personalized prestige license plates such as the Congressional Medal of Honor, Silver Star, and Bronze Star, were not granted the right to personalize these plates. It seemed to me to be an oversight. This I learned after contacting many Nevada lawmakers.

In 2022 I took upon myself to actually write a bill changing the law to allow for these plates to be personalized. I sent my bill to all Nevada senators and assemblymen, along with the governor. I received many positive responses from them. Pahrump’s personal assemblyman, Gregory Hafen II, stated to me that he would be happy to sponsor my bill. Mr. Hafen then adopted my bill, made some changes to the bill and was Assembly Bill No. 203. The bill passed with zero NO votes and was made into law at the 82nd Session of 2023. However, the bill was not set to be used for a period of two years.

After the two-year wait, I applied for a personalized Purple Heart plate being, CIB69, meaning I was awarded a Purple Heart and a combat infantryman’s badge in the year 1969 in Vietnam. This year, 2025, in June, I applied for this plate, only to find that my request had been denied. The reason: the number 69 has some kind of sexual connotation to it and is regularly denied to citizens. This number that I requested has nothing to do with sex and is only the year I served, 1969.

This was nothing new to me, as I had the same reaction in the state of Utah, where I previously resided. There my representative, Lowry Snow, wrote a bill, and I appeared with him before the Transportation Committee in Salt Lake City to vouch for the bill. There it passed the committee and when the bill was before all the of lawmakers it passed with only one NO vote.

With my new denial of this license plate, I set in motion a series of appeals, and the committee that hears these kinds of appeals, voted to allow me to get my license plates, resulting in finally getting my plates at the DMV today October 13, 2025, after nearly four years of my first request.

Arnold Breitenbach