Letters to the editor

Importance of President Hoover overlooked

In the coverage of the Boulder Dam Hotel story, your reporter omitted the most important guest in history at the hotel. That would be Herbert Clark Hoover, the 31st president of the United States.

Hoover made all you see here happen. Hoover was a constant critic of Franklin Roosevelt’s progressivism, so when he became president, FDR changed the name of Hoover Dam to Boulder Dam, just to spite Hoover.

Hoover was a Quaker, and after World Wars I and II, he led relief efforts that saved tens of millions of Europeans that were dying as a result of the devastation. He also put in place many of the assistance agencies that provided help during the Great Depression (that he was completely blameless in causing). He was also the most charitable of all American presidents.

President Harry Truman restored the name of the dam to Hoover Dam to honor his monumental accomplishments. Yet today, few Americans know anything about Hoover.

This is what ruthless politicians will do to great men that oppose them.

O.T. Neal

Editor’s note: According to Dennis McBride, author of “Midnight on Arizona Street: The Secret Life of the Boulder Dam Hotel,” an expert on Boulder City history and director of Nevada State Museum, Herbert Hoover never stayed at the Boulder Dam Hotel.

Do city’s actions reflect citizens’ preferences?

I appreciate the Boulder City Review coverage of the recent City Council meeting where hundreds of acres of desert were designated for development. I do not believe this issue has been adequately explained by our city leaders.

I want to clarify my concern with the manner large tracts of land for development are being made. I believe all residents should ask themselves why they live here.

As a native of Boulder City, I have mixed feelings about our unique controlled growth. The ordinance was approved by voters in 1979 shortly after I graduated from Boulder City High School. It was controversial then. It coincided with the explosive growth of the Las Vegas Valley and housing tracts such as the Del Prado neighborhood in Boulder City.

I did not view it as positive. It was certainly a factor in why I and a great majority of my classmates found a home and employment elsewhere. But it was determined by a majority of the citizens.

Controversy occurred over the years. A few short years ago the hands of the council were tied to prevent the sale of more than one acre without citizen approval.

This being an outgrowth of the financial albatross Boulder Creek Golf Course continues to be for our city. The citizens again voted to limit growth.

When the recession hit, the council issued dire declarations that Boulder City was doomed financially; citizens voted to sell the land around the course. The land has not been sold and Boulder City continues improvement.

My concern is the decisions our elected and appointed officials make are contrary to decisions in place for decades with little discussion and no publicity.

Again, why do you live here?

Do the recent and rapid decisions of our elected officials reflect your desires or those of minority special interests? Is a truck stop at our door and pie-in-the-sky drone testing proposals what you asked for?

Kiernan J. McManus

Home tour proves smaller can be better

My congratulations and thanks for a well-organized and very interesting tour Saturday of Boulder City historic homes. As one who presently lives in Sun City Anthem in Henderson, where all 7,144 homes are less than 14 years old, it was refreshing to see homes built in the 1930s that displayed loving restoration. Dealing with small square footage, the owners made charming and efficient use of limited space.

I am a Realtor for seniors, many of whom, as empty-nesters moving from large family-size homes, struggle to downsize their belongings so that the couple can comfortably fit into a home of less than 2,000 square feet. They should learn from those who are pleased to live in Boulder City’s famed historical district.

Owners in this district have accomplished the trick of purchasing small antiques while they reject large furniture. For example, I noted the Boulder City owners of homes on the tour, who were short of wall space without windows, avoided the new extra-long, flat-screen TVs in favor of several TVs in several small rooms — a lesson learned, money saved and increased choices of stations watched — fewer battles for the remote.

I also saw very creative enjoyment of rear yards. In Sun City Anthem the rear yards are larger but less used. BCers seem to have more fun in less space.

In Boulder City, many homes have small garages if at all. In Sun City Anthem, double garages often serve as excuses for those who should be downsizing the seldom-used parts of their belongings to, instead, load up the garages of their new abodes.

I would hope that Boulder City can be recognized for setting the example that newer and bigger is not necessarily better. As Frank Lloyd Wright taught us, there are solutions for making small houses look big. AAUW demonstrated small houses can look warm, inviting and efficient. Congratulations. A fitting contribution to Boulder City.

Bruce Ricks

Doctor got everyone’s GoatFeathers

So Dr. Wendell Butler, the owner of two GoatFeathers stores here in town, robbed Peter to pay Paul to the tune of $20,000. Pilfering from the GoatFeathers’ business account and the wallets of his vendors whatever reason is theft. To have the audacity to say he was “sorry but saving lives was more important than any retail items” really rubs salt in the wounds of those people who got hit financially, especially those who can’t afford the loss.

Butler’s vendors must have had contracts with this “business” owner and those contracts should be legally enforceable. So why hasn’t Wendell Butler been arrested?

Linda Monilaws

BCHS counselors deserve respect for their expertise

I wish to convey my strong disagreement with an article published in the Boulder City Review on Oct. 17 regarding the counselor-usurping seminar of Roxanne Dey.

This article is distasteful in its portrayal of the counseling staff at Boulder City High School, which, according to the article, lacks motivation to aid students in their determination of a desired (and appropriate) career and their successful entry into college. There is a substantial implication that the counselors accomplish so little with pertinence to their students’ preparation for college entrance that it was necessary for someone to step in and assume the position of academic guide.

As a former student of Boulder City High School, I take extreme offense to this article. Dey’s quote at the beginning of the article stating that her two-day seminar can provide students with knowledge that they “may learn over the course of high school” from the counselors is rude and insulting to their profession, and should not have been placed in this work.

The counseling staff were the solitary advisers during my high school years, and it is derogatory to insinuate that their effort (or lack thereof, according to the article) pales in comparison to Dey’s instruction. Due to their aid, I became one of few students to attend college solely on local scholarships, receiving nearly $10,000, including the largest local scholarship awarded from generous donors I never would have acknowledged in the absence of counselors.

This article inaccurately frames Dey as an expert in the field of college entrance essays. There are approximately 34 years of counseling experience between the two counselors of the high school, and over 45 years in education experience, but this is belittled in the authoring of this article.

The notion that the counselors are neither credible in their field nor conducive is offensive to both the counselors themselves and to the students who had the privilege of working with them, including students who were accepted with nearly full scholarships to Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and the Georgia Institute of Technology. It will be a cold day in my apartment buried in student loan debt when I regret replacing a two-day seminar with the counselors of Boulder City High School.

Brittany Simpson

Naughty residents earned these lumps of coal

With all the good cheer and holiday niceties it is too easy to forget the boys and girls who have been naughty instead of nice. It saddens me to see these kids overlooked at this time of year when the mischief they cause brings shame upon themselves and disrepute to our community.

Were it not for the laws against aggravated assault and breaking and entering, I would gladly beat them around the head and shoulders with a lump of coal in a sock, or at the very least, make sure that the stockings they hung up by the fireplace were filled with coal. The little heathens will get off lightly this year as their lumps will be delivered in print.

I present the first lump of coal to whoever has been handling the city’s code enforcement program. By my reckoning the temporary banner announcing the Two Wheel Fun Pub, aka Milo’s II, at the derelict gas station downtown is entering its fourth year as one of Boulder City’s most visible code violations. Here, kiddies, is proof that it is who you know and not whether you have been nice that gets you special treatment from City Hall.

A lump and a half of coal to each member of the Sunrise Rotary for continuing to sell beer at the annual Weenniefest to fund their drug/alcohol-free event for graduating high school students. I would say this is a most inappropriate contradiction, but the people I am writing about would probably think that was some type of mixed drink and miss the point.

A bucket of coal to the night shift of the Boulder City Police Department for taking over the new 24-hour Winchell’s Donuts. All-night doughnut shops exist to serve the party crowd. It is sad to think of someone coming home after a hard night of drinking beer being denied the sugar fix they need to avoid a hangover because some cop is seated between them and the jelly-filled doughnut they are craving.

My largest lump of coal goes to the self-described captain of industry who claimed, in a letter to the editor, that he had not accepted any tax dollars for his renovation of a downtown business. An astute reader nailed down the fib with a letter to the editor that gave an exact dollar amount. I am sorry my piece of coal is not as big as your ego, but it is the biggest I have to offer.

Two lumps of coal go to each member of the Noontime Rotary. It is one thing to exercise questionable judgment in fundraising and altogether another to expect the taxpayers to raise funds for you. The members of the Noontime wasted no time in requesting redevelopment funds to finance a scheme to promote the city. If given a choice, I suspect that Boulder City’s taxpayers would have preferred to have kept their money and promoted themselves.

Lastly, a broken lump of coal goes to our broken city manager, David Fraser. I emailed two requests for public records to City Hall and both were ignored. I next emailed the same request to Mr. Fraser and was again ignored. I then sent the requests by certified mail to Mr. Fraser and was ignored yet again.

Finally I wrote the matter up in a letter to the editor. I was ignored for more than a month, then Fraser called me. Fraser said that he had heard that I had written something about him in the paper and wanted to meet to discuss it. At that point, I lost all interest in Mr. Fraser and my earlier inquiries.

If Mr. Fraser cannot take the time to respond to his emails, or answer his registered mail or even read the weekly news about the community that pays his salary, why should I waste my time talking to him?

I am sorry, but I must stop here because I have run out of coal. I will wish everyone the best for the holidays, not because I mean it but because living in Boulder City has taught me to say what sounds good at the moment.

I thought I would at least give that a try because insincerity seems to work well for so many folks here, at least until they get caught. What I will say, truly and from the heart, is try to be good for goodness sake, and do not compromise on what is good. For you see, in any compromise between things good and things bad, it is only the bad that stands to gain.

Dick Farmer