Speaking yesterday in favor of a bill limiting a public entity’s ability to hold closed-door meetings, Democrat Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley said, “Public officials should not be allowed to discharge their duties in private, preventing accountability to the public for their actions.” Maybe Assembly Republicans should call her bluff on this one. Maybe they should propose an amendment to the bill to include now-secret, behind-closed-doors collective bargaining sessions for public employee unions. Maybe then they’d be a true, opposition party. Maybe then pigs would fly.
* Gov. Gibbons announced his opposition to a state lottery this week. Good. We have the government competing with the private sector enough already. And any government-run lottery in which the bulk of the “profits” go to government only allows the government to grow bigger. Thanks, but no thanks.
* Legislators are mulling legislation to ban employers from pooling tips and redistributing them equally among employees. While some tipped employees are understandably upset with such a policy by their employer, the solution isn’t government or a new law. If an employee doesn’t like the employer’s tip policy…GO WORK SOMEWHERE ELSE!
* Legislators are fighting over the governor’s empowerment plan. Sen. Steven Horsford (D-North Las Vegas) laid down the law this week, stating categorically that the $60 million to fund the program cannot come from an incentive program which the state’s school superintendents have said doesn’t work. Yeah, that makes sense.
It should be noted, however, that Horsford says he supports the underlying concept of empowerment schools, but that empowerment “is not a silver bullet” to kill public school failure. In addition, Horsford said we have to have full-day kindergarten, higher teacher salaries and more spending on vocational education. Not surprisingly, Horsford’s “mo’ money” silver bullets don’t include school vouchers so that parents can opt out of the lousy public school system. Go figure.
* To hear legislators such as Dennis Nolan (R-Las Vegas) talk, the biggest problem facing Nevadans right now is road construction. As such, the Legislature is looking to spend $170 million of this year’s surplus on essential highway projects in Las Vegas, which many are complaining isn’t near enough. At the same time, legislators are also mulling a proposal to spend $110 million for the construction of a non-essential Health Sciences Center for the university system. Hmmm, I have an idea…
* Last week, a multitude of undercover Carson City law enforcement personnel were busy crossing streets back-and-forth in an effort to entrap motorists who didn’t properly stop for them. No, seriously. They really did that. And on Saturday night this week, they’ll be setting up a German-style checkpoint on the border between Lyon County and Carson City where every motorist will be stopped to verify that they have a drivers license. “Papers, please.” Yet we’re told almost daily that the biggest problem in the state today is meth. Hmmm, I have an idea…
Posted on March 28th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
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