School Board did what it was elected to do
To the editor:
Frankly, the only dog I have in the fight over naming a new Clark County School District superintendent is the fact that I’m a taxpayer. However, I disagree with the complaint that the Clark County School Board violated the open meeting law when Pat Skorkowsky was voted the new superintendent (“Selection of new superintendent comes under scrutiny,” May 23 Review-Journal).
The School Board did the job it was elected to do. Further, I’d like to point out that past searches didn’t yield the expected results. It’s my sincere hope that the superintendent rises above the fray and follows through with the agenda he outlined. I think we the public owe him a vote of confidence.
JOSE MADRID
HENDERSON
More money
To the editor:
Gov. Brian Sandoval wants to spend $25 million more on education than his earlier figure (“Making strides for students,” Sunday Viewpoints commentary by Gov. Sandoval). There’s no need to raise taxes. Let the kids who want to fail, fail. That’ll reduce class sizes and save precious tax dollars. It’s apparent to me that kids who don’t want to study or do homework want to fail. If you boot those who want to be failures from school, you’ll automatically increase the graduation rate. No longer will Nevada be a laughingstock of the nation, last in graduation rates.
Nevada needs strong leadership. We haven’t had anyone so far take on education — or any other bureaucrats — without political fear. Gov. Sandoval seems to be a nice enough person, but he hasn’t shown the leadership needed to get the desired results.
NORRIS INMAN
LAS VEGAS
Water waste
To the editor:
In his Saturday article, Review-Journal reporter Henry Brean exposed the California Imperial Valley Irrigation District’s wasteful pumping of Colorado River water into the desert (“As Lake Mead shrinks, California uses more than its share of water”). It appears that agricultural users aren’t paying enough for the water if they can justify throwing it away in times of drought. It begs the question: Wouldn’t cutting out waste and taking marginally viable crop land out of production eliminate the Colorado River’s supply/demand problem?
Much of the river’s water is used for crop irrigation, including marginally economic alfalfa and cotton in arid areas, where it takes up to five acre-feet of water for every acre. Based on what Los Angeles is already doing, paying growers $100 an acre-foot for their water (or charging them that amount for the water) would encourage growers to take marginal land out of production.
Our water managers should be able to figure out that this approach would be a whole lot cheaper than building multibillion-dollar projects to provide more water.
TOM KELLER
HENDERSON
ELL money
To the editor:
Barely a day goes by without another article in the newspaper about some person or do-gooder group demanding more money for the English Language Learner program (“Advocates seek more funds for Nevada’s English learner program,” Monday Review-Journal).
Am I the only person getting tired of these demands? It’s not like these urchins appearing on the school doorstep just came into our great country. Most of them are born right here, yet they don’t speak English. Who is responsible for this?
It’s the parents — the ones who came here for a better life or standard of living. Our teachers have these children for a few hours a day, and then they go right back to non-English in the home. I don’t know the cure for this dilemma, but it isn’t going to be resolved by throwing more money into an insatiable pit.
LLOYD SHEAFFER
LAS VEGAS
Grow your own
To the editor:
While I fully support legislation to better allow the sick to use marijuana for medical purposes, Senate Bill 374 has been amended to prohibit patients from growing their own medicine. This is a horrible idea.
One of the most important things for patients who have terrible, life-threatening diseases is to be able to grow their own medicine so they can control the use of pesticides and chemicals, as well as the quality of the medicine. These people must be allowed the ability to grow their own medicine or to have their caretakers do so. The medicine at dispensaries is often so loaded with cancer-causing toxins that a cancer patient does more harm than good in using it.
This aspect of the bill must be changed. People can buy a home brew kit to make beer. How is this any different?
Growing marijuana isn’t an easy task. The patients put so much work and money into growing it, and then they barely get enough to treat themselves. Existing law doesn’t allow patients who are aggressively treating a disease to own enough plants.
I hope lawmakers reconsider and remove the ban on home growing and also change the number of plants to a more realistic number, because the patient needs to have plants in different stages of development at all times. Let patients have a little extra finished medicine for other patients who can’t grow their own at all. The plant takes months to reach maturity, and once it’s harvested, it can no longer be used again, so a patient needs another set of plants right behind it to be ready for the next harvest.
GLEN GARCICA
LAS VEGAS
