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April 14, 2006
COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT A primer on how current, future elected officials can make the right decisionsBy VINCE BOGDAN
Instead of going to church, I religiously attended Pahrump Town Board and commissioners' meetings to "keep the fires burning at the feet of our elected 'leaders.''' At one meeting of our town board back in 1995, a pretty young lady approached the podium and demanded "$2,500 for little league uniforms!" Without batting an eye and not even a word of protest from any of the "mannequins" atop their perches, she walked out with her booty! Astounded, I protested, "let me get this straight - isn't it enough that us taxpayers paid for the world class ball fields and the $15,000 monthly light bill, not to mention that more often than not - the lights stay on until daylight, with nary a rabbit chomping on the grass?" Their silent response was deafening. As a result of this slavish disrespect for commonsense voters, a few of us, determined to right a wrongful waste of our money, started a petition gathering drive to recall two of the big spenders. A total of 1135 signatures of registered voters were required in order to let the voters decide at the subsequent election. What follows is a chronological explanation of the events that took place and as a clear exposure of Pahrump Democracy in action: a table was set up in front of the old post office, which produced a hundred signatures a day, but after the second, two burly "law enforcers" from Nye County confronted us with, "you guys gotta get out of here!" As admirers of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment, the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, we asked, "how come and by who's order?" Notwithstanding our attempt to engage these men in discussing the above frivolities, we were forced to abandon our effort on public property minus a commonsense answer. Not to be coerced into retreating by a couple of uneducated bureaucrats, onward we marched to the discount liquor store on Highway 372, where Don the owner gave us his blessing to seek voter's signatures on his parking lot. After another two days of success an anonymous telephone caller informed Don, "If you don't get rid of those guys, you'll lose your license!" We, the intrepid and righteous, lost the battle by default. Let us now fast-forward to Jan. 3, 2006, wherein I sent e-mails to all five town board members, in addition to the five Nye County Commissioners, requesting their response to my proposal to place a sign approximately 4'X4' on the wall of the community center, asking them to answer three simple questions before agreeing to spend the taxpayers' money: • Is it absolutely necessary? • Can we afford it? • Is it constitutional? I also offered to pay for any expense for this endeavor. I included my address and phone number. I received one telephone response from an elected official! On March 14, 2006 I asked the town board if they were familiar with my e-mail and why there was a lack of response to my serious proposal. Again, like their predecessor mannequins, these updated spendthrifts have no respect for us Tax Slaves. Bogdan writes from Pahrump. |
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