Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

The story of a cat named Norman

Almost two years ago we awoke to one of our cats in the window blinds. I got up and grabbed a hold of the cat. Turns out this cat had a collar and ours don’t. This lovely cat meowed and just wanted to go outside. I took down the telephone number on his tag. I called and was told by a young man that yes, his cat had been missing for two days. I told him he was in our home unbeknownst to us. I asked him what the cat’s name was and he said, “Norman.”

Several months later we saw Norman again. He was skin and bones with no collar. I called the number that I had and the phone had been disconnected. How can people just leave without a care for their pets?

Norman is a survivor and to this day because of us and two other neighbors, is being looked after and fed. None of us can let him inside for different reasons. For us it’s because we have a spoiled little female who doesn’t like him. The others have elderly folks and are afraid of them tripping over him.

I want to find a good home for him. He needs total care with being able to get out of the cold and heat. He is a beautiful gray cat with a white chin and seven toes on his right front foot. He is so loving and purrs when I hold him. He has been neutered and is about five years old.

Norman deserves someone out there and if you are interested please call 775-751-1327. We would love to see him in a good home.

In closing … don’t abandon your animals!

Sharon Sheppard

Please wake up and save our town, part 2

As I stated in my first “Save Our Town” letter, wake up, get involved, and save our town by establishing (or re-establishing) local town governance.

From that letter (PV Times - March 6, 2019 edition) I have received many positive responses from residents who want to join the efforts to save our town. I received only one negative response that stated, “We don’t need a town board because they don’t listen to the people.” I contacted that person and explained that the Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) sit as the Pahrump Town Board and asked if the person was aware of that and satisfied with the way they listen to the people. The person admittedly did not know that the Nye County commissioners’ function as the Pahrump Town Board.

I said it in the first letter and I’ll gladly repeat it here … “this letter is not to minimize the responsibility or importance of the Nye County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC). Personally, I believe that they are doing the very best they can but are overwhelmed by this vast responsibility of caring for the county of Nye (their jobs) and the town of Pahrump (OUR job).” And I will reiterate that even though four of the five commissioners live in Pahrump, they remain COUNTY commissioners, Not TOWN commissioners and they need not be involved in the day-to-day operation of Pahrump.

A written response to my earlier letter came from Commissioner John Koenig in the PV Times March 15 edition. I have a lot of respect for Commissioner Koenig and there won’t be a debate between us because he brought up some excellent points. He also mentioned one or two negative points (depending on who you’re talking to) that occurred by a Pahrump Town Board that existed for over 30 years. By the way, the Pahrump Town Board was paid no salary and no stipend; they were “elected” volunteers. That also means that there were no tax savings when they left and no tax expense when we bring them back.

I do find it difficult to understand why any of the commissioners would resist having a Pahrump Town Board while the majority of the population in Nye County (at least 85 percent) is centered in Pahrump. And note that Pahrump is the largest unincorporated town in the state of Nevada and the only large town without local government. For Pahrump, there is no town board and not even a town advisory board. Why is that?

The BoCC could easily create a town board for the town of Pahrump by using NRS 269.016 and 269.0165 or 269.017 to 269.019 inclusive. Why don’t they even want to consider it?

Let’s look at other towns (smaller than Pahrump) that have town boards:

1. Amargosa

2. Round Mountain

3. Tonopah

Now, let’s look at towns with a town advisory board:

1. Beatty

2. Belmont

3. Gabbs

4. Railroad Valley

NOTE: Pahrump, with a population of nearly 40,000 has no town board nor a town advisory board.

It’s very obvious that the BoCC can’t provide the expertise to manage the town of Pahrump. They are wisely advised by the same boards/committees that previously advised the former Pahrump Town Board members. All members of these committees are appointed “volunteers.” These are the:

1. Arena Advisory Committee

2. Nuclear Waste &Environmental Advisory Committee

3. Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee

4. Public Lands Advisory Committee

5. Tourism Advisory Committee

6. Veterans Memorial Advisory Committee

Please DO NOT assume that I am opposed to the BoCC because that is not my stance. I would definitely encourage all residents of Pahrump to work with the BoCC because as we strengthen Nye County, we strengthen our town.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am in favor of local town governance through a town board form of government (Pahrump residents whose primary focus is the town of Pahrump) which would also ease the burdens of the BoCC and could also eliminate errors and/or potential errors made against the town.

So, it remains my hope that the residents of Pahrump will demand of the BoCC to create an appointed town advisory board, an appointed town board, an elected town board, or place the item on the next ballot for an elected town board. All of these can be done by a BoCC agenda item.

As I stated in my previous letter, we can never replace the previous town board that served the town of Pahrump for over 30 years because of the change in Nevada laws but we can retain a town that can provide its own governance.

So, as I stated at the beginning of this open letter, wake up, get involved, and save our town.

Dr. Tom Waters

Thank you for support of theater production

On behalf of the Shadow Mountain Community Players, I would like to thank the town of Pahrump for the tremendous support given to our community theater group. Our last production of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” was a complete sellout on the last weekend of the show.

A thank you also goes to Nevada Treasure RV Resort for giving us the space to perform and to Mark’s Grill for catering the event.

Thanks to all the late nights and hard work put in by our actors, Jay Webb, Michelle Clines, Alyssia Statz, Dennis Twitchell, Adrian Espinoza and Maaike Matheson. New actors to our group were Serenity Lewis, Alicia Lewis and Jessica Kennedy.

A special thanks to Kymberli DeMonte for stepping into a major role three days before opening when the original actress quit. The energy Kym brought to the show was outstanding.

Also, thanks to the media outlets for their coverage, the Pahrump Valley Times, especially to Robin Flinchum for her great pre-production story; Deanna O’Donnell and Maria Guerra from Station KPVM and the Pahrump Life Magazine.

Hope to see everyone at our next show. It will be the melodrama “Shoot-out at Sadie’s Saloon” as part of the Wild West Extravaganza on May 3 and 5.

Carlton McCaslin

Opinion from the Nevada Republican Assembly

Last month, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford decided he could represent all of Nevada when he joined a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency to fund a border wall he has promised to build dating back to his presidential campaign. According to Ford, “President Trump cannot side-step our Constitution for a political ploy,”

According to the Washington Post, there have been 30 national emergencies declared in recent years. There are 28 currently active. During their presidencies, Obama declared 12 and Bush declared 13 of these emergencies. Some of them have had to do with the Sudanese government, the Western Balkans, Albanians in Macedonia and Zimbabwe. All protections for people of these countries. To our knowledge, there has never been a suit to stop a president’s declaration of a national emergency.

In all actuality, Trump’s declaration of emergency isn’t for a wall; the emergency is that we have a dysfunctional Congress, whose House refuses to work with the president. Democrat members of Congress and even past Democrat presidents including Obama, have all wanted to secure our southern border with a wall. But now that Trump finally wants to protect the American people, rather than spending most of our defense dollars overseas for other countries’ protection, the hypocrites in Congress come out in force against him.

It’s particularly unconscionable for Ford to have signed on with this suit, considering the recent murders by an illegal alien, of Jerry and Sherri David, and Connie Coontz and Sophia Renken. If a stronger, more secure border wall had been in place, the murder of these four innocent people, in three separate incidents, may very well not have happened. The Angel Families in this country would agree.

For those who say there’s not an emergency, Border Patrol agents and property owners along the border would disagree. Just one sector is getting 1,000 illegal entries a day. That’s 7,000 a week! How is this NOT an emergency? In just 2018, there were 266,000 criminal record arrests at the border, 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, 25,000 burglaries, 4,000 kidnappings, and 4,000 violent murders, committed by illegals who were trying to sneak into our country.

The incarceration rates for illegals is THREE TIMES as that for American citizens. Do we really want our tax dollars spent on putting these illegals in prison here? Wouldn’t it be better if they just NEVER got over the border to commit crimes here? EVERY crime committed by an illegal, is one that should have NEVER happened.

Who gave Aaron Ford the right to speak for Nevadans? He does NOT speak for us! His action tells Nevadans and the rest of America, that he cares more for illegal aliens than U.S. citizens.

Sincerely,

Juanita Cox,

President, Nevada Republican Assembly

Dr. William Tarbell,

President, Washoe County Chapter of the Nevada Republican Assembly

Should VEA replace the board of directors?

There is a group of VEA customers that seem to be intent on replacing the board of directors. The question is, should that board be replaced. I believe that the present and past boards have done a good job in managing our electric company. So why try to create an entirely new one?

If you look at the operational success of VEA and the rate structure for residential electricity, you will find that our rates are entirely within industry standards. After a little research I have found that electric rates vary greatly from state to state. Some states are paying as little as 9 cents per KWH while others are paying as much as 32 cents per KWH. The average throughout the country is right at 13 cents per KWH. So the new VEA rate of 11.956 cents per KWH looks pretty good.

Take into consideration that the area served by VEA is physically large, ie, it requires a lot of infrastructure (service lines and equipment) to serve a physical area that is very large and a population that is relatively small. This would increase operating expenses over a company that serves a densely populated area.

While our board of directors has not always made the perfect decision, they have generally made good decisions. If you think you can find a “perfect” board of directors you don’t have a grasp on reality.

Perhaps the board’s decisions not to incrementally increase rates very little and very slowly over the past years has been a mistake. By putting off that “dreaded” rate increase they have placed themselves in a position of having to put in an approximately 8 percent increase all at once. Perhaps incremental increases of 1 percent over the past years (when called for) would have been easier to take for those customers who are excessively sensitive to rate increases.

Charles Kostelaz

Disregard for human life is crime against God

Vice President Pence’s recent visit to honor Jewish Holocaust victims at Auschwitz reminded me about America’s still ongoing inhumanity and disrespect for human life.

We are shocked about how Nazi Germany, under Hitler, became so inhumane that they murdered millions of God’s elect-Jewish people, trying to exterminate them. They displayed total disregard for human life in this horrific crime against God and humanity.

And we should also be alarmed that Iranian leaders want to “kill all Jews and annihilate Israel.” They have been fed hate toward God’s chosen nation for so long that they say it is “legal and acceptable” to exterminate them.

They sure do not know that God said He would bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse Israel. With such hate they only curse themselves.

A society which believes in killing innocent human beings is a morally sick society. God’s just Commandments were edged in stone by God’s fiery finger, and given to Moses, to create a just and orderly nation/world, and so that Israel would be a blessing to the world.

After more than 400 years in captivity in Egypt, God kept His promise to Abraham, and gave the land of Canaan as inheritance to Jacob/Israel, one of Abraham descendants.

The people in that land had become morally corrupt and God passed judgment upon them to cleanse the land. Parents were spilling their children’s blood by throwing them into the fire in worship of idols.

In the last several decades America has gone so far away from God that it is now even more corrupt, than Nazi Germany and Canaan. Respect for God, and for His God-given human life, is sorely missing. Individual and national judgment is coming. Time to repent!

Manuel Ybarra, Jr. Coalgate, OK