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October 14, 2005
NEWS FROM AROUND NEVADA New political party formed in Silver StatePVT
The chairman is Mike Oliver, a 77-year-old with expertise in energy matters. Proposed parties must collect 7,914 signatures by Aug. 11, 2006, to qualify as a party with a slate of candidates for the Nevada ballot. "Either we're going to become energy independent or they (oil producing countries) are going to harass us to death," Oliver said. Collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot shouldn't be difficult, he said. "People are paying so much for gas, we should get a lot of signatures," Oliver said. Even if the party doesn't get enough signatures to qualify for the 2006 ballot, the party will serve as a source of information on how and why the country needs to end its dependence on foreign oil, he said. Oliver, who wrote an article called "Drill or Die," said the country needs 500 new nuclear power plants to win energy independence from foreign countries. Oil revenues generated in other countries in some cases are being used to fund terrorism, he said. U.S. National Park Service wins custody battle over long ago sunken bomber After two years of litigation, the National Park Service has officially won its custody fight for a B-29 bomber that crashed and sank to the bottom of Lake Mead's Overton Arm in 1948. Now the man who discovered the wreckage is calling on Park Service officials to do more to protect the aircraft before it is carted off or destroyed by unscrupulous divers. Already, parts have been plundered and damage done to the B-29, said Gregg Mikolasek, the one-time Henderson dive instructor who led the team that found the wreckage in 2001. "It's very discouraging," said Mikolasek, who returned to the aircraft during a dive permitted by the Park Service in May. "This wreck was pristine when we left it in 2002." The Park Service has launched an investigation into the damage and who might have caused it, said Roxanne Dey, spokeswoman for Lake Mead National Recreation Area. "We will aggressively prosecute the people are responsible. It's a priority for us," she said. ACLU files lawsuit in Taser death ACLU attorneys filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit Oct. 6 on behalf of a Las Vegas man whose son died last year after police used a stun gun to subdue him. The lawsuit was filed against the Metropolitan Police Department and TASER International, the Arizona company that manufactured the stun gun, on behalf of Sanford Tucker. The lawsuit claims police shot Tucker's son, Keith, four times with a stun gun after he "had been beaten into submission and then handcuffed." After a coroner's inquest into the death, six of seven jurors found the officers' actions "excusable." Keith Tucker's death is one of three related to the use of Tasers in Southern Nevada and the first to result in a lawsuit. According to a statement issued Oct. 6 by representatives of the police department, Tasers continue "to be a viable option when it comes to use of force issues that our officers face. Metro has, and will continue to evaluate our Use of Force Policy as it relates to the technology and utilization of TASER as a use of force option." Steve Tuttle, TASER communications vice president, issued a statement calling Tasers "a more humane and safer alternative" than firearms, batons or chemical sprays. He said it was up to individual police agencies to train officers to use the device properly. "Or do citizens want to go back to the caveman days of using batons as clubs?" Tuttle said in the statement. Few opponents show up for third Yucca Mountain hearing For the second time in three public hearings, the Environmental Protection Agency's staff of eight outnumbered the speakers on Oct. 5 who testified on the agency's proposed radiation protection standard for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Bill Vasconi, a longtime proponent of the project to dispose of 77,000 metric tons of spent fuel and highly radioactive waste in the mountain, 50 miles northwest of Las Vegas, capped off the seven who spoke before the EPA panel. He said a lot more people are killed in vehicle accidents and by lightning than will die from "those things nuclear," including radiation allowed under the EPA's suggested two-tiered standard. Vasconi said afterward, "We can live with those." His viewpoint was more in line with the two people who testified at the Oct. 3 hearing in Amargosa Valley than the contingent of 14 speakers mostly from the state, tribes and the environmental community who criticized the EPA's proposal Tuesday night at the Cashman Center. New petition would mandate physical education in schools A petition to amend the state constitution to mandate daily physical education in the public schools in grades kindergarten through 12 has been filed with the secretary of state's office. The petition was filed Sept. 29 by R.R. Apache, president of the Nevada Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. "The state of physical education in Nevada is poor," he said. "There is no state mandate except at the high school level. And everything under the umbrella can be substituted to get out of the requirement." Apache, who is also a professor at UNLV, said the main thrust of the proposal is to help fight childhood obesity. "But we also believe physical education enhances academic performance, which is supported by research," he said. The petition would require elementary students to spend 150 minutes a week in physical exercise while middle and high school students would be required to participate 250 minutes a week. To qualify for the 2006 ballot, supporters will have to gather 83,184 signatures of registered voters by June 20. The measure would have to be approved by voters twice, in 2006 and 2008, before it could take effect. Keith Rheault, state superintendent of public instruction, aid the state has physical education standards but no mandated minutes of instruction except at the high school level. There, two credits, or two full years of instruction, are required for graduation, he said. |
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