Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Retired teacher amused by investigation involving VEA

Oh VEA! You are so funny! “We have investigated ourselves and we find that we are innocent!” Ha ha ha!!! (I am a retired public school teacher and 20-year resident who loves Pahrump.)

Sincerely,

Susie J. Hagloch

Violence not the way to settle differences

It is no secret that I greatly disagree with President Trump’s foreign policy.

Painfully, recently a young white man went into a Southern California synagogue and brutally murdered innocent Jewish citizens. Even more agonizing, six months ago another white man butchered Jewish worshippers in Pennsylvania.

Physical violence is not the way to settle our differences. Verbal is.

I am very angry with both of those men. My apologies to the Jewish residents of Southern Nevada for these actions.

Sincerely,

Janice Gilmore

Reader frustrated by slow drivers in her area

I’m frustrated with people that slow down to 25 mph at the park when there are NO CHILDREN around. People - you can continue the posted 35 mph if there are NO CHILDREN around…. Read all the words on the sign post!

Pam Crawford

Legislative bill will not be good for rural voters

The ‘Letters’ section caused me to reflect upon our legislative body in Carson City (Congresswoman’s remarks…) If AB186 passes, it will make ALL NEVADANS minorities, by the stroke of a pen.

The National Popular Vote would do away with the Electoral College in the election of our president, making our state somewhere that the candidates need not stop by to woo our votes, due to our small population. They will not need to share their ideas with us, personally, on how they can make things better. They also will have no further need to listen to us, or our ideas.

Our founding fathers helped to insure minorities were heard, were engaged, and were significant in the process, by establishing the Electoral College. By its existence, all of the less populated states maintained a seat at the ‘table’ in the decision process. With the National Popular Vote we will be told that we are insignificant, nothing more than a ‘fly-over’ state.

Next stop? A democracy where 50 percent plus one will decide many crucial decisions, and leaving the smaller, less popular states out in the cold, minorities waiting for the coastal elites to decide our fate.

Kenneth Searles

Treasurer’s office turning over historical rocks

During my four plus years as a Nye County citizen I have heard several adverse experiential chapters told by people having suffered from actions meted out by members of the ‘Nye County Family’, a vernacular reference to county management.

When figuratively fitting these verbal jigsaw pieces into place, one is able to create a mental picture of an interconnecting protective network held in place by a core of influential elected and appointed county employees. There is also a shining counterpoint in these verbal jigsaw pieces pointing to a purposeful lack of qualifications held by individuals filling select seats within county government.

The projected tax revenue budget for Nye County, signed in June of 2017, states a need for collecting $18.9 million in taxes spread across 11 funds. The budget also contains 51 governmental funds with estimated expenditures of $78.7 million and two propriety funds with estimated expenditures of $2.1 million. (These values were taken directly from Nye County’s internet web page.)

During the past ten years there has been a mix of county treasurers floundering in this multi-million dollar sea. It becomes obvious such a vast sea of dollars attracts sharks and with a succession of inexperienced treasurers, unaccounted lumps of dollars have disappeared. The lack of technical professionalism exhibited by former treasurers can be noted by the state placing Nye County on fiscal watch from time to time due to late and sloppy reporting.

Beginning in January 2019, a new large piece entered the jigsaw picture in the person of an ‘outsider’ appointed treasurer holding a solid background in finance and he is turning over metaphorical rocks hiding an assortment of money – creatures the ‘Family’ does not want to be made visible.

Looking backward, when historical pieces are carefully mixed into this new picture, these older pieces will cast alarming shadows on the future of our treasurer. It is easy to predict the ‘Family’, using old character assassination pieces as patterns, will craft new pieces to color him with malicious innuendos, smears and administrative roadblocks to thwart his casting light on how taxpayer money evaporates from the county treasury.

The immediate question facing Nye County citizens is contained in an age-old truism, “The past creates the future.” Will Nye County taxpayers remain apathetic to how their tax dollars are managed by “The Family”? Or will they support our treasurer as he turns over historical rocks to shine light on old dark practices?

Dwight W. Hunter