FROM THE EDITOR: Andy Alberti owes me some money

Shocked, I’m shocked, I tell you.

How can it be? How can it BE? I was so sure that this time, this one, single, solitary time, that finally for once in his whole life Andy Alberti would be right on the money.

The state’s commission on ethics, however, after a lengthy investigation, found ZERO merit to Alberti’s complaint alleging some sort of crooked shenanigans involving the public service position gained by Joni Eastley back in January when she left her seat as a county commissioner.

Zero evidence. No foundation to move forward. That’s the word from up high.

Like Andy, I was pretty sure that she-devil Eastley (God, she’s just so SMART, and EVIL!) somehow conned her way into that plush public service job she got. Like Andy, I was certain that FINALLY Nye County would be getting a little bit of justice — Andy Alberti style justice, not Brian Kunzi style justice, not Tony DeMeo style justice, nope, ANDY ALBERTI style justice (It’s a cross between Louie DeCanio style justice and a can of Beanee Weenee.)

Andy’s not right about much. Actually, he and his friends are wrong just about 100 million percent of the time. But you can always take this to the bank, when Alberti speaks, people listen.

Of course, most of them with an IQ over 75 fall over sideways, guffawing until their eyes swell with tears and their face turns a deep shade of maroon, choking as they are on a potent Alberti cocktail of silliness and shame with a twist of kooky and a splash of blood red conspiracy drivel served at room temperature in an empty can of Van Camp’s Beanee Weenee, shaken, not stirred.

In all seriousness, Andy Alberti, you owe me money. (Think George C. Scott’s “Bert Gordon” to Paul Newman’s “Eddie Felson” in that 1961 classic film The Hustler, “I WANT MY MONEY!”)

And I want my money now.

I do with every fiber of my being believe that Andy Alberti owes every taxpayer in this county who chipped in to pay for the legal bills amassed by his wild and woolly goose hunt. If not cold hard cash then at least an equally expensive apology.

The polite bureaucrats will say nice things like, “Well, Andy did bring up some really great points with his complaint, and though none of them quite checked out (shocking!), we always appreciate hearing from citizens who have concerns with our elected leaders and the process that blah, blah, blahbbity, blah.”

Not a fat chance. He’s not getting away with it that easy. Andy Alberti, you owe me some money!

Incidentally, you didn’t just cost Nye County taxpayers $50,000, you stole precious, precious time from our leaders, from people we depend upon to do serious work, to manage our public resources, whose days are better spent doing said work than defending themselves in hours-long interviews with state investigators over bupkis brought on by someone with one foot in an alternate universe and the other in his mouth.

You may be thinking I’m being a bit too harsh on Mr. Alberti. Far from it. You see, Mr. Alberti has made a sport of me lately in his own columns and on his little “Fighting Corruption” Internet radio show, ever since I reported the FBI raid on his good friend County Assessor Shirley Matson. He’s questioned my ethics for doing my job as a reporter, suggesting that I somehow slant stories or make up facts or include opinion in my news reporting. I’ve asked Mr. Alberti to please, particularly if he’s going to denigrate the newspaper or attack me personally, to point out for his readers/viewers specific examples of where I’ve crossed the line. That way I can defend myself or at least understand from his perspective what he’s talking about. He has repeatedly failed to cite any specific examples.

Much like most of what he says, it’s all nonsense and a total waste of everyone’s time and effort.

In fact, it’s not me, but Mr. Alberti who has found himself on the defensive lately for writing inaccurate portrayals about a company supposedly utilized as a subcontractor on the county’s new jail that have gotten him in some pretty hot water. That company demanded a retraction of a recent column he wrote and then the company filed a criminal libel complaint with the sheriff’s office. Ouch!

Alberti accuses me of being obsessed with our lovely assessor — she does have great eyes — because I just happened to get a tip that the FBI was raiding her offices and followed up on it with news coverage of the event. Yet, he blatantly attempts to ruin the reputation of a private business, suggesting that it hired illegal workers, all in some cockamamie effort to prove that Matson was somehow right all along three years ago when she wanted the sheriff to check jail construction workers’ identifications — by the way, that’s as unconstitutional now as it was then. The company Alberti referred to by name, unfortunately for him, didn’t even do any work on the jail.

Talk about getting your facts straight, sheesh.

In fact, the Pahrump Mirror, my favorite valley tabloid publication, circulation 4, that publishes Alberti’s wonderfully inaccurate columns on Thursday even ran a big fat CORRECTION pointing out Mr. Alberti’s excruciating mistake. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the editors over there also included a never-before-seen editorial policy distancing itself from any utterance ascribed to Andy Alberti, or any of its other dandy opinion writers, into perpetuity. PERPETUITY! (That means forever, Shirley.)

Amen, pass the Beanee Weenee.