LETTERS: Clean up and take back wetlands trail

Wetlands chaos

Over the past few years, the Sunrise Trailhead in Wetlands Park has been destroyed by youths who have chosen it as a place to drink and party without interference from any kind of authority. As a result, the trailhead has been closed off to the public, with cement barriers placed at the entrance to the parking area in an attempt to keep the parties in check.

Of course, this had no effect on keeping the young people out — they simply knocked down the cable encircling the lot and even used the support poles as fuel for their bonfires. Graffiti covers everything in sight, and gang logos cover the cement barrier.

Wetlands supervisors are well aware of the problem, and the Review-Journal did a cover story in the East Valley View on the subject (“Graffiti, vandalism tarnish tranquility of Sunrise Trailhead,” Aug. 25). Even County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who represents this district, has tried unsuccessfully to get the Metropolitan Police Department involved in policing the area.

Maybe the latest incident will get Metro’s attention. Early Saturday morning, as a large gathering dispersed, there was a brawl that broke out during which a 19-year-old lost his life and three others were injured (“Boy killed, three wounded in park shootout after brawl,” Sunday Review-Journal). This tragedy should never have happened, and Metro should make sure that it never happens again. It’s time to clean up this area and give it back to the public to enjoy.

Evelyn Veyette

Las Vegas

Sunshine tax

Many years ago, when the United States had the Skylab space station, I remember asking my dad why we couldn’t power our homes with solar panels, like Skylab used. My father told me the technology was not the problem. He said we do not have solar power because the government and power companies (one and the same) cannot figure out a way to put a meter on it and tax you for the sun.

Judging by the actions of NV Energy and the Public Utilities Commission, my father has once again been proved correct.

Kirk Vanek

Henderson

Race in Las Vegas

If one were to wonder why black and white relations across the country are deteriorating, look no further than Las Vegas. Each week, I read the revisionist historians — Confederate flag glorifiers (UNLV among them) — as they rationalize and make sophomoric excuses for black slavery, saying, “It was the times and a states’ rights issue.” Their myopic, skewed vision is an insult to intelligent people.

Some facts: Every Confederate soldier fighting against our the federal government was a traitor to America, guilty of treason. Read the U. S. Constitution, Article 3, Section 3. Further, only the most obfuscating, obtuse racists deny that the states’ rights and freedom the Confederacy was fighting for was about the right to own human beings, black people, as slaves.

To compound this evil, we aren’t talking about barbarians and pagans. We’re talking about white, Christian, God-loving churchgoers who preached, “We’re all God’s children,” while simultaneously owning some of God’s children as slaves. Therefore, the enormity of present-day letter writers’ ignorance and denial of facts is mind-boggling.

Have the slavery apologists forgotten that here in Las Vegas in the 1950s, blacks were barred from hotels and casinos, more than 80 years after being freed from slavery? Even famous blacks such as Sammy Davis Jr., Lena Horne and Nat King Cole, who all starred at casinos, couldn’t stay there or gamble on the casino floors. Further, the discrimination and segregation against blacks in Las Vegas was so atrocious that the city was nicknamed the “Mississippi of the West.”

That current UNLV professors and scholars haven’t weighed in on this issue has me wondering about their commitment to academic truth.

Clyde Dinkins

Las Vegas