Thursday, March 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Quick and Dirty: A notebook of news and politics

Emergency or reality

The Southern Nevada Water Authority's newly formed Drought Citizens Advisory Committee held its first powwow Monday night, and director Pat Mulroy started right off with the bad news: We're still in a drought, unless the snow really dumps on Colorado and Utah. "As you know, the rainfall doesn't do anything--it adds inches to a 60-foot problem," Mulroy said.

Then SNWA's Kay Brothers gave a detailed introduction to the Law of the River, supply and demand, and the genesis of Southern Nevada's water system, and walked the group through the stages of drought planning: drought watch, drought alert and drought emergency. Guidelines for water use have been set for the first two stages. And this committee's mission is to develop guidelines for the third, emergency, stage. Much to their credit, when they finally began to speak the committee members veered immediately off track into a more long-term problem: conservation. "Conservation is going to have to be part of [the plan]," said John Hiatt, who represents environmental interests. "It's only a matter of time before we have to start thinking about this again."

The young committee will no doubt be steered back into focusing strictly on the emergency plan. But perhaps its preoccupation with the bigger picture will leak into the public consciousness and we'll all suddenly learn that, drought or no drought, we still live in a desert.--HW

Marzette's trippin'

Longtime community activist Marzette Lewis knows to pick her battles wisely, but her latest skirmish--with the library district over a racist memo that library officials say is a forgery--is starting to look increasingly ill-conceived. More than two weeks after the memo surfaced, Lewis still believes the epithet-riddled memo was written by Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Executive Director Daniel Walters, despite his denials--and despite a wealth of reasonable evidence backing him up.

"I do believe in my soul that he and maybe somebody in the office got together [to write this], because he was so damn mad at [the Feb. 13 board meeting]," Lewis says. That board meeting was attended by Lewis and other protesters, who spoke out against the district about a pending sexual harassment lawsuit. Lewis theorizes that Walters penned the outrageously racist memo in a fit of anger a day after the meeting. More likely, an enemy of Walters--or of Lewis, or both--dashed the thing off to ruffle some feathers.

But never mind reality. Now Lewis says she's going to make "thousands of copies," and distribute them at area churches and other community gathering points. "If [Walters] wants to come after me, he can," she says. "I don't got anything but me."--AK

The film lobby rises

Movie theaters aren't known for their political activism, at least on the local or state level. They're owned by big out-of-state companies and seem to rarely show interest in what's happening in individual communities. But Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposed amusement tax, which would hit their customers, has awakened the theater industry. Theater companies are distributing postcards to moviegoers and asking them to fill them out, expressing opposition to the 7.25 percent amusement tax that would add about 60 cents to the cost of a movie ticket. But that's not all. The theaters also are attacking the amusement tax on screens before the previews start running. While the Guinn administration defends the amusement tax as a small price to pay for good schools, critics point out that it's a regressive tax, that, in the case of movie tickets, is levied primarily on 14-year-old boys.--GS

Weapon of mass distraction

Freedom of speech is a right we all cherish, or should, but sometimes it's a heavy burden to bear. Take, for instance, Mark and Mercedes, the morning team on KMXB 94.1-FM, debating the impending war with Iraq. Sure, those who can't stomach this swill can change the channel, but unfortunately you will be exposed to a ballistic missile's worth of inanity before you realize you must act or begin losing brain cells at an exponential rate.--GS

UNLV courts disaster

Reports suggest that UNLV administrators and professor Dave Hickey aren't getting along. Hickey's wife, Libby Lumpkin, is battling the administration over tenure, while Hickey and his art department colleagues don't see eye to eye on things. Hickey, a respected fiction writer and art critic, now teaches in the English department. The upshot is that Hickey and Lumpkin could be on the way out at UNLV. This would suck on several levels, not the least of which is that Hickey, who won a MacArthur genius grant in 2001, is UNLV's most revered professor and gives the university a level of intellectual weight that it's sorely lacking otherwise.

Rather than risking his angry departure, UNLV should be doing whatever it takes to keep Hickey happy and on board. The most recent evidence of this is the April issue of Harper's magazine, which includes an article by Hickey on the famed architect Andrea Palladio. Hickey is his typical lucid, thoughtful self in the in-depth piece, and, true to his reputation, seeks to explore new territory on a heavily covered subject. One is hardpressed to think of another UNLV professor who could get something published in Harper's.--GS

Medicaid fight not over

Nevada Medicaid has won the most recent battle in its ongoing war with disabled artist Karen Wheeler. Wheeler's been fighting the agency for months to have her full-time caregiver-slash-boyfriend reinstated. Officials fired the personal care aide, Darrel Carpenter, when they discovered he had a criminal record for domestic violence. A judge ruled last week that his firing was justified.

Wheeler, who has spinal muscular atrophy and uses a wheelchair, says Medicaid has been harassing her since she challenged a policy that cut the number of hours her caregivers could work. She took the agency to court in 2001 and won back most of the hours. Now she says Medicaid officials won't be happy until she's forced into a nursing home. Medicaid officials deny Wheeler's claims of harassment, and say they have a responsibility to take action if caregivers don't meet certain criteria. The agency may have won this battle, but Wheeler's not about to quit fighting. "They have pushed my last button this time," she says.--LC

More war excuses

In its latest war on the planet--in addition to the one in Iraq, that is--the Bush administration wants to let the Pentagon and other defense contractors skip away from a broad range of environmental laws. Apparently, those darned whales and their burst eardrums (from military sonar tests), and the pesky need to clean up pollution, interfere with military readiness.

The rollback of responsibility would include military exemption from cleaning up its perchlorate messes. Perchlorate, you might recall, is a component of rocket fuel. Perchlorate, you might recall, leaked for years into the Las Vegas Wash from two chemical plants in Henderson with ties to the military. Kerr-McGee's been cleaning it up, but the exemptions might preclude the state from getting the Department of Defense to help with the costs.

But this blanket acquittal from environmental responsibility has implications for the entire state, says Dan Geary with the National Environmental Trust. Think Nellis, Hawthorne, Fallon--wherever there are military activities and munitions stockpiles. The people living next to those bases, "especially the people in Fallon," might want to start worrying about all those forgotten messes, Geary says.

"Along with the mission of protecting the people of the United States, they also have the responsibility to adhere to requirements to protect the air, land and water of the United States," Geary says.--HW

Gov't

Highway hell

During a discussion at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board meeting last week, Councilman Michael McDonald asked the authority's transportation consultant about the possibility of creating toll roads, like they have in California, to help pay for construction and maintenance of Nevada's highways. "There'll be more toll roads over my dead body," consultant Tom Skancke responded, referring to California Gov. Gray Davis' comment uttered a while back. So it was somewhat of a shock that evoked a belly-full of guffaws when Jim Gibson, the usually serious and unflappable Henderson mayor, said, "We can arrange that." Equally amusing, but in a more portentous vein, was member Bob Forbuss' remark about heavy traffic on the ever-clogged I-15 en route to Las Vegas that's seemingly been under construction forever.

"If I was driving from Southern California and knew it was going to take me eight hours to get to Las Vegas, I'd rather go to some Indian reservation," the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce representative said.--FC

The mysteries of Red Rock

By now, you know the story: Big bad developers are scheming to sully Red Rock Canyon by putting in a mess of houses on Blue Diamond Hill, which guards the eastern flank of the national conservation area. But it's all still a bit hazy as to who's doing what. Maybe Mark James, Clark County commissioner, will shed some light on the issue on Thursday, March 27, at 6 p.m., when he speaks at a community forum in the Blue Diamond Recreation Hall (red building) in Blue Diamond Village on State Route 159. Or maybe state Sen. Dina Titus will clue us in when she speaks at a "Save Red Rock Canyon" rally on Saturday, March 29, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Red Rock Canyon overlook. By golly, someone please let us know what's going on.--HW

Book 'em, Vegas

Admit it, you don't pay close attention to when your library books are due. As a result, you're often paying fines for overdue materials. The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District feels your pain. During National Library Week, the district is holding an amnesty program. From April 6-12, if you bring in your overdue books, you won't be charged any fees up to $25. If you owe more than $25, you deserve a ride in the paddy wagon anyway. Lost cards also will be replaced free of charge.--GS