By Arnold M. Knightly, Boulder City Review

You know the old adage, something is better than nothing? When it comes to Boulder City’s desired truck band during an upcoming road construction project, the city ended up with something.

Transportation officials in Nevada, Arizona and the federal government have reached an agreement to restrict some truck traffic through Boulder City during upcoming road-widening construction on U

.S. Highway 93.

The Nevada Department of Transportation said June 14 that many large trucks traveling southbound on the highway through Hemenway Valley will be rerouted during peak traffic hours, approximately 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The restrictions will include all trucks and commercial vehicles exceeding 26,000 pounds in gross weight.

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By Mike Miranda, Boulder City Review

Teachers and parents at Garrett Junior High took a stand Monday to inform the community about the devastating effects of the budget cuts facing the education system in Nevada.

Garrett science teacher Kate Elle distributes leaflets to passing motorists before the start of classes Monday, May 2. The teachers are protesting the loss of 15 positions in Boulder City due to Clark County School District budget cuts. Photo by Steve Andrascik.

The Clark County School District is facing a $407 million shortfall in its education funding. While the budget isn’t finalized yet, the tentative funding is going to eliminate 15 positions from Boulder City’s four public schools.

The teacher’s union, the Clark County Education Association, organized Monday’s district-wide event that had teachers wear black shirts and work to their contract. For Garrett teachers that meant going into their class at 7:40 a.m. and leaving at 2:51 p.m. and not bringing any work home. Twenty teachers and parents spread out around the school by 7 a.m. holding signs and handing out fliers to parents.

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By Chuck Muth, Muth’s Truths

Sen. John Ensign finally did the right thing, apparently one step ahead of the law, but it was too little, too late. If he’d quit from Day One, Rep. Dean Heller might already be a U.S. senator and Harry Reid might not be in office.

But that’s all water over the bridge and under the dam now.

Odds are it won’t take long for Gov. Brian Sandoval to announce that Rep. Heller is his pick to fill the Ensign vacancy (heck, it could be done by the time this gets published).

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By Arnold M. Knightly, Boulder City Review

Two bills that would allow toll roads in Nevada were passed out of the Senate Transportation Committee by a unanimous vote on Friday, setting the stage for possible Senate votes next week.

However, a state transportation official said that if the Senate does not vote on the measure by Tuesday, April 26, the bills will die.

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By Chuck Muth, Muth’s Truths

Assembly Speaker John Oceguera’s recent claim that Gov. Brian Sandoval “has made himself irrelevant in the budget process” for refusing to put tax and fee hikes on the table is, itself, irrelevant.

The only thing relevant here is reality, and the Speaker is dealing in delusion.

Here’s the budget reality: Gov. Sandoval has submitted a $5.8 billion general fund budget.

He has given the Legislature considerable latitude in how they can spend that $5.8 billion. But $5.8 billion is their allowance. Period.

Now, the only way the Legislature can increase their allowance is to get every Democrat state senator and three Republican state senators to not only vote to raise taxes, but to override the governor’s inevitable veto – which ain’t happening.

So the governor’s position of taking tax and fee hikes off the table is the only relevant factor in the current budget war as long as at least eight of the 10 Senate Republicans keep their word and stick with him.

The Democrat majorities in both the Senate and the Assembly are relevant in that they have the flexibility of moving money from one department to another, or from one priority to another, but they simply don’t have the votes to increase the overall pot of money they’ve been given to play with. Period.

Indeed, the only truly irrelevant entity in the budget process is, once again and as usual, Assembly Republicans.

Unlike their Senate colleagues, Assembly Republicans opted not to produce and sign a united letter of support backing their fellow Republican governor’s no-new-taxes budget at the beginning of the session.

But as long as Gov. Sandoval has the support of Senate Republicans, no tax bill can make it out of the Assembly, through the Senate, and to his desk regardless of what Assembly Republicans do. Period.

Making matters worse, GOP Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea is on record saying he’s willing to actually negotiate with the Democrats to support extending more than $800 million worth of “sunsetted” taxes which would otherwise expire this June. However, everyone and their uncle knows that Goicoechea’s stated “demands” will never be met by the Democrats. Period. So how is that relevant?

But even if Democrats did agree to the demands, any tax hike produced by the Assembly, even with GOP votes, won’t make it past the Senate, let alone past the governor’s veto stamp. So Assembly Republican leaders have sold out the tax issue, their fellow Republican governor and their fellow Republican state senators for….um, nothing.

In any event, it’s not Gov. Sandoval who is irrelevant to the budget process. His no-new-taxes position is actually the MOST relevant aspect of it.

And the sooner Speaker Oceguera, Senate Majority Leader Horsford and Minority Leader Goicoechea accept that reality, the sooner we can move forward.

Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. He may be reached chuck@citizenoutreach.com

By Arnold M. Knightly, Boulder City Review

Gov. Brian Sandoval spent the majority of Friday in Boulder City dedicating a solar plant and visiting the Veterans Memorial Cemetery and the Nevada State Veterans Home.

It was Sandoval’s first official visit to the city since October and since becoming governor.

Sandoval’s visit to the veterans home and the cemetery were private. But the dedication of Sempra Generation’s Copper Mountain Solar Plant was a media event that drew city officials and renewable-energy executives and managers.

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By Carl Winder, Special to Boulder City Review

Andrea Anderson, a regent for the Nevada System of Higher Education, is fighting to keep the only higher education facility in Boulder City open in the midst of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget cuts.

The College of Southern Nevada is the only higher education institution with a campus in Boulder City, but because of $160 million in proposed higher education budget cuts the campus could be closed.

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By Chuck Muth, Muth’s Truth

If you act stupidly … and you can’t fix stupid … then by definition you are stuck on stupid. Which brings us to another depressing Republican episode of “The Price is Right.”

The tax-hike war in the Assembly is over without a shot being fired. Republicans, under the (mis)direction of Commanding General Pete “Tax My Meat” Goicoechea, have preemptively raised the white flag, dropped their weapons and are dutifully marching in a straight line, sheep-like, off the cliff.

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By Chuck Muth, Muth’s Truths

It required a do-over, but Republicans in the Nevada state Senate appear to have now gotten with the program and are foursquare behind the no-new-taxes budget proposed by fellow Republican, Gov. Brian Sandoval.

A couple weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness and Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea inked a joint letter to Sandoval pledging to back the governor’s insistence on balancing the budget without raising taxes or fees.

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By Arnold M. Knightly, Boulder City Review

Gov. Brian Sandoval took Boulder City’s message of traffic woes to Washington D.C. during last week’s gathering of the nation’s governors.

Sandoval met with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Saturday to urge that tractor-trailer traffic be rerouted during upcoming construction to widen U.S. Highway 93 in Boulder City, a statement from the governor’s office said.

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