Letters to the editor

Roundabout might ease traffic at intersection

Since the city is planning to have Buchanan Boulevard torn up for utility repairs, I suggest that it might be a good time to install a roundabout at the Buchanan-Adams boulevards intersection. Surely the roundabout would be preferable to the current four-way stop in light traffic.

And, I believe, studies have shown it is also safer and more efficient than either four-way or stop-lighted intersections.

William Belknap

Education Initiative will help students, schools, economy

I am writing in response to the Aug. 28 letter opposing The Education Initiative by Lex Adams, president of RW Group. I don’t know who this individual is, but I’m sure he/she is not an educator, does not work in the public schools, and does not live in Boulder City.

There are real effects when public education is not adequately funded and we (specialists, teachers, support staff) feel those effects every day. I have worked as a speech-language pathologist in Clark County School District for 20 years. I love what I do helping children and their teachers/parents to enable nonverbal or unintelligible children to acquire understandable communication skills.

When children can communicate effectively, a world of opportunity opens to them. For years, public education has suffered huge cuts. Caseloads have grown and time with students has shrunk to meet these increased demands. Imagine the benefit additional minutes of intervention would give to students who are struggling with speech skills, which are directly related to reading and written expressive language skills.

There is no broad-based business tax in Nevada. Businesses are not paying their fair share. Our students are suffering because businesses in Nevada put profits over students and teachers. Everyone in the community should be held responsible for student success, because everyone will benefit.

Business has a long record of using scare tactics to preserve profits for their out-of-state shareholders and executives. Their hypothetical doomsday scenario is overshadowed by the real crisis we are facing every day in our schools. We know businesses bypass Clark County because we rank lowest in education.

We know investment in education will boost our economy and create jobs. We must do more to provide our children with the opportunity to succeed. The Education Initiative, Question 3 on the ballot will help students, schools, and the economy. Vote yes on Question 3 to help all three: students, schools and the economy.

Come learn more about The Education Initiative at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the monthly American Association of University Women meeting held in the Boulder Dam Hotel, Gene Segerblom meeting room in the Boulder Dam Museum on the second floor. The president of the Nevada Education Association (Ruben Murrillo) and the executive director of Progress Now Nevada (Annette Magnus) will present information on this initiative to provide more funding for our schools.

Valerie J. McNay

Speech language pathologist, Clark County School District

Twenty-year resident of Boulder City

Building owner needs to fix own parking problem

In regards to Pepper Coombs’ letter last week, I find it interesting that you are complaining about the parking issue downtown. The employees of the businesses that are in your building on Elm Street do the exact same thing you’re complaining about.

At any time, you can drive down Elm Street and see a minimum of four cars parked on Elm Street in front of the other businesses, even though they have their own parking lot.

Unless you want to straighten out that parking situation, you shouldn’t complain about other people’s employees.

Carl Harris,

Elm Street business owner

Senior center staff, board offer thanks

The staff and board of directors of the Senior Center of Boulder City would like to thank everyone who contributed toward Tammy Copelan’s, our executive director, parting gift.

Also, we would like to thank everyone who came to her “going away party,” those who spoke kind words and those who participated by their presence.

Senior Center of Boulder City

A tax on signs would solve many issues

It took a while for my mail and the city’s sign survey to catch up to my summer wanderings. Then it lay on my desk while I had more important things to do rather than massage a bureaucrat’s ego. Originally, I filled out all of the blank spaces in my illegible handwriting. That would be a quick trip to the wastebasket. Am I too late?

The preamble to your survey says it all. This is not a survey of ideas; this is a declaration of a fact: Boulder City is going to have signage regulation. The only question is who wins and who loses. The appointed city sign czar will be the big winner, closely followed by the attorneys who will be required to make it comprehensible. Those losers will be the privately owned businesses that did not get an exemption and that cannot afford the legal fees and bribes required to get a favorable ruling.

So who are the lucky ones who get the exemptions? Obviously, the big winner is politicians who clutter up the city with tacky “vote for me” signs that say nothing about their agenda.

In second place, real estate brokers who put out a standardized 18-foot-by-24-foot sign that say nothing about the property for sale.

How about the churches that advertise next Sunday’s sermon? Or the high school that promotes an athletic event, a theatrical performance or the prom? All of these are part of the visual clutter that makes a “less attractive community.”

The solution: Tax ’em.

History has shown that whenever government applies a direct tax on an item we get less of that item and the tax revenue declines. For example, alcohol and tobacco.

Conversely, prostitution and drugs are not taxed and the billions we have spent on law enforcement have done little to control them.

When it comes to advertising, post office junk mail is subsidized and we are overwhelmed. You do not receive any junk mail via United Parcel Service or FedEx, which require payment in advance. Likewise the Internet; your email account requires a spam filter because spam is free. If somebody could figure out how to charge one penny for every email sent, the bulk spam senders would be out of business.

But TV advertising is very expensive and still we are overwhelmed. However, the location is excellent, right in front of your couch in millions of homes. If we, the receivers, could charge a fee to the senders, a 60-minute football game would not take three and a half hours to watch.

Make signage a taxable item, based on size and location. You will enrich all of our so-called dedicated public servants with more money to squander, and at the same time decrease the incentive to advertise.

Curtis Clark

Taxpayers should not be pay for lawsuit

Why does the city want taxpaying residents to pay the almost $500,000 fine in its losing lawsuit to prevent taxpayers from voting and circulating petitions? These were strategic lawsuits against public participation.

The city attorney (Dave Olsen) told us years ago that resident taxpayers of Boulder City are not the city. In these decisions, is the City Council the city? The City Council then should pay the judgment, not the people they sued.

The city attorney also said voters had their chance to vote. That never happened as we were allowed to vote only on advisory questions, which he then said the city (and council) was not legally obligated to recognize. Then, the council sued to challenge the legality of three petitions.

What is the council telling us? It won the lawsuit but the taxpayers must pay the judgment? For the council’s law violation?

If the council had been held accountable for its disastrous financial decisions with taxpayer money, Boulder City residents would be able to vote on these decisions.

No wonder the council doesn’t want us to vote on it; it bears no responsibility for how much of resident taxpayers’ money it wasted.

Al Wengert