LETTERS: Cemetery approved on legal merits

To the editor:

In response to the letter from Douglas Murphy (“Islamic cemetery,” Thursday Review-Journal), I felt it important to set the record straight and lay out the facts. Dr. Osama Haikal applied for a special-use permit to construct a cemetery on a parcel of land that he owned. The application was recommended for approval by Clark County staff. Subsequent to that, a meeting of the Town Board was held, and once again, it was recommended for approval.

It then went to the Clark County Planning Commission, which also recommended it for approval. After these three recommendations for approval, a neighbor appealed to the Board of Commissioners.

I met with a group of neighbors twice on the issue. My office received dozens of emails and phone calls regarding the cemetery. It is true that the vast majority of the residents did not want the cemetery to be constructed.

The approval or denial of a use permit is not a referendum. A use permit cannot be denied simply because a majority of the neighbors oppose the application. In order to deny a use permit, there must be specific and substantial evidence that will hold up in court. I was advised by our legal counsel that evidence sufficient to support a denial of the use permit did not exist. So the best alternative was to approve.

Also, the approval allowed us to put restrictions on the cemetery, which we could not have done had we denied the use permit and lost in court.

While I completely understand that the neighbors would have preferred the cemetery not be built, as the landowner, Dr. Haikal also has property rights to develop his land. Most of the neighbors understood the predicament that we were in. The decision was clear. The best alternative was to approve the cemetery and subject it to very strict standards, rather than to deny it and most certainly lose in court, costing the taxpayers more.

STEVE SISOLAK

LAS VEGAS

The writer is chairman of the Clark County Commission.

Voter ID unnecessary

To the editor:

I heard a story on Nevada Public Radio arguing that voter identification laws are an unnecessary solution in search of a problem. Barry Burden, political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, spoke on the program “Here and Now” during a larger story on Oregon’s new voting laws.

As the conversation turned to voter ID laws, Mr. Burden began by defining fraud as “a voter acting in a way that violates election law, such as impersonating another voter or voting twice.”

He said research proves voter fraud is extremely uncommon, not a coordinated activity and inconsequential. The important thing to note is his statement, “Voter ID laws only prevent impersonation at the polls, the least common kind of voter fraud.”

The independent research is clear: Voter ID in Nevada is unnecessary. A voter ID law carries unforeseen expenses that can run into the tens of millions of dollars, as states such as Indiana have proved. A “no” vote is the only appropriate vote on Assembly Bill 266.

PAUL SPEIRS-HERNANDEZ

LAS VEGAS

Medicaid fraud

To the editor:

As someone who worked as a pharmacist for more than 40 years in New York and is now retired, I believe the article on Medicaid fraud smells from a strong odor of negligence from the Medicaid, Medicare, state and local authorities (“Fraud case hits LV businessman hard,” March 22 Review-Journal). It is their job to inspect valid licenses from various agencies authorized to pay out monies to licensed suppliers.

No one is verifying if items billed were supplied, nor were signatures inspected. This is the “major fraud” that is widespread throughout our health care system. Billions of dollars are wasted through this lack of responsibility from government authorities. Unless we dramatically change the way we conduct business, it will get worse.

MYRON BERNSTEIN

LAS VEGAS