Local pols must embrace smart growth
To the editor:
I was disappointed to read your article in Thursday’s Review-Journal detailing the cries for more land for development in the Las Vegas Valley. This area has experienced rapid, unsustainable growth for the past 20 years, and the effects are apparent on residents’ quality of life.
Traffic problems are at an all time high; we can’t build quality schools fast enough for our children; and our precious water supplies are dwindling with no sustainable solution in sight.
Clearly, there are sectors of the economy that depend on growth. But there is no reason why continued growth has to follow the same blueprint of sprawling further and further from the city core and chewing up our precious natural resources.
The solution is easy. Local elected officials and business leaders should embrace smart, sustainable growth as a policy to ensure our economic future and our quality of life.
Kyle Davis
LAS VEGAS
THE WRITER IS POLICY DIRECTOR FOR THE NEVADA CONSERVATION LEAGUE.
Common courtesy
To the editor:
I do understand how Rebecca Mughetti feels (“Common courtesy is the universal language of all human relations,” Oct. 4 Jane Ann Morrison column). Speaking languages other than English in a work area is rude, unprofessional and insensitive.
I don’t have anything against people speaking their own language — I do that myself. But please do it in private, not in a work area where there are people who don’t speak your language. And especially not when there are customers.
Eleu Tabares
LAS VEGAS
Worker safety
To the editor:
I can assure you that there is a special place in hell for those contractors, supervisors and employers who send their workmen into confined spaces where deadly, volatile, flammable and toxic elements are present without providing them with proper clothing, training, safety equipment, fire watch and emergency evacuation plans.
I refer you to the five Colorado painters killed this week while applying epoxy paint to pipes in a confined space and to remind you of the two recent fatalities at The Orleans here in Las Vegas. This type of death is so preventable.
Michael C. Maze
LAS VEGAS
On the links
To the editor:
Twenty-five years ago a number of community leaders established the Las Vegas Founders Club for the express purpose of bringing a professional golf event to our community. Their intentions and goals for this event were to promote golf in Las Vegas, to promote the city of Las Vegas as a recreational destination, and to raise significant funds for local charities.
Over the ensuing 25 years, the Las Vegas Founders Club has been highly successful in helping establish Las Vegas as a golf destination, in promoting our city on a nationwide level, and in raising more than $15 million for nearly 100 local charities benefiting those less fortunate in our community.
Earlier this year we were replaced by the PGA Tour as the host organization for professional golf in our community. The news of this replacement, and the manner in which it was delivered, was highly disappointing to our organization. Despite the change, the Founders Club remains committed to those goals established 25 years ago. We continue to believe professional golf is an integral part of the sports and entertainment fabric of our community, and we ask that all golf enthusiasts continue to support the 2007 Frys.com Open with the same fervor you have shown in the past.
The Founders Club remains committed to the promotion of golf in Las Vegas. We will continue our activities by pursuing even greater exposure for our UNLV men’s collegiate golf event, the No. 1 collegiate event in the nation the past two years, and through our support of the UNLV women’s golf program, and our highly rated American Junior Golf Association event.
We sincerely and humbly thank all of you who have helped us make such a significant impact in our community over these many years. Without your support of professional golf in Southern Nevada, none of this success would have been possible. We also wish the Shriner’s Club the very best of luck with their 2007 event and beyond, as the Founders look forward to continuing our presence in charitable and sporting endeavors in our community.
Tim Cashman
Kenneth Gardner
LAS VEGAS
MR. CASHMAN IS CHAIRMAN OF THE LAS VEGAS FOUNDERS GOLF FOUNDATION. MR. GARDNER IS PRESIDENT OF THE LAS VEGAS FOUNDERS CLUB.
Costly illegals
To the editor:
I lived in Las Vegas for 45 years and watched over the past 20 years how the gigantic appetite for cheap labor in Las Vegas has led to illegal aliens replacing working citizens in construction, landscaping and most all services.
As a construction contractor for 35 years, I know that illegal construction and landscape workers are mostly all paid cash and that illegals in general contribute little or nothing to help pay for the expenses of your community.
Providing schooling, health care and social services to illegals costs untold millions, local governments are afraid to let taxpayers citizen know the real cost.
Bruce addis
ST. GEORGE, UTAH
