Commissioners learn lessons

Leonardo da Vinci was a child of the Italian Renaissance. That was the age of the Medici family, the Borgias and Niccolo Machiavelli. It was an age when everything was done by bribery and trickery. It was an age when both church and civic offices were frankly bought and sold by the powerful and influential.

It will be recalled that, during January of this year, our county commissioners spent $40,000 of our money and four days of their time being instructed to think like Leonardo da Vinci. With their approval of the hasty, fog-bound real estate development agreement with The Focus Group, it looks like Commissioners Hollis, Eastley and Jordan learned their lessons well.

Sincerely,

John T. McDonald

The sheriff of Nye County

Thirteen million dollars and we're getting sued.

Here is a man with a 13- million dollar budget and now he and the county are being sued.

William d. Tomany

Reread your Constitution

While I agree that immigrants should learn to speak English, enacting Pahrump Town Ordinance No. 54, an unenforceable, unconstitutional, litigiously indefensible and overtly racist ordinance, is not in the best interest of the town of Pahrump.

For those of you who disagree with me, I suggest you reread the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech means the freedom to speak in any language. Freedom of expression means anyone can fly any flag on their own property at any time in any manner they chose.

It also means that any businesses can close as a protest at any time they opt.

And the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits discrimination, protects the right of anyone to conduct lawful commerce with any ethnic group.

Your ordinance, Mr. Miraglia, tramples on these basic rights guaranteed to us all by the Constitution of the United States of America. Therefore, I ask you to immediately and permanently table your English Language and Patriot Reaffirmation Ordinance before you further damage the efforts of so many Pahrumpians over so many years to promote Pahrump as a nice place for everyone to live.

And before the town of Pahrump is forced to spend mucho moola defending an ordinance that will inevitably be thrown out in court.

Vicky Parker

Exotic animals

Re: Big cat owner says proposal overdone, Friday 29 September 2006.

I'd like to thank reporter Mark Waite for doing a fair and thorough article on exotic animal owners and the proposed wild/exotic animal ordinance. It is not often that you see reporting that covers the facts and isn't full hype and sensationalism.

I would also like to add some additional information concerning Mr. Hedengran. Since his incident with the escaped tiger in California, a condition of his pre-trial release is that he is not to possess any animals. He was initially allowed to visit them and help care for them.

When he moved to Pahrump, he re-acquired his animals. The federal authorities became aware of this and the judge ordered him to get rid of them and he was to have no contact with them. He has still hasn't complied, but his next appearance in court is Oct. 10.

This illustrates the fact that severely costly and time consuming ordinance requirements are being placed on owners that have been good citizens in Nye County for many years, because of one individual that was never supposed to have any animals.

Additionally Debbie Pemberton's remarks about nobody registering their exotic animals in accordance with the current ordinance requirements are only half truths. People have tried, including Ms. Kukol, but it seems that the required form for accomplishing this doesn't exist. Maybe Ms. Pemberton shouldn't accuse people of not registering, when she won't provide a form for them to register with.

Scott Shoemaker

Results with no excuses

I have lived in Pahrump for going on 12 years. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have not had a lot of dealings with the Nye County Sheriff's Office until a recent incident that happened.

My wife works for a loan center here as an assistant manager. Sept. 1, at about 8:30 p.m., she received a call from her office that there had been a robbery.

We immediately went to the loan center, and upon arrival, were met by the Nye County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Tony DeMeo was on site with two other officers; my wife identified herself and was escorted in to coordinate the locating of the manager.

Once this had been done, the officer indicated that it would be better for us to wait outside of the crime scene until the manager arrived. We spent about an hour there, and as we left, the shock of this set in.

You always read about robberies and such, but to be when it happens to you, that's another story.

The following morning, my wife called the manager on the plan of action for that day. She had another shock. The manager informed her that at about 2 a.m., he received a call from the sheriff's office. There were two people arrested and the money was recovered.

Four and a half hours from the time we left to the time it took to make an arrest and recover the money of this robbery. I didn't hear one excuse during the whole ordeal.

I would like to thank the Nye County Sheriff's Office, under the leadership of Sheriff Tony DeMeo, for their dedication, professionalism and diligence. The knowledge I received from this experience lets me know that we have the best of the best protecting us.

I hope anyone thinking of committing a crime also knows that they'll have our Nye County Sheriff's Office after them.

Michael S. Beecher

Vile and disgusting

This morning I was reading the paper, in particular the article about the kidnap and rape of the 36-year-old woman. When I got to page A11 and read the following paragraph, I was appalled and mortified for the woman and hope to God no one else will have to meet with the sheriff's deputies to tell them they were raped or battered:

"After the assault Yowell left her there with her car. The victim found her cell phone, called 911 and was directed to meet Nye County sheriff's deputies at the Rebel convenience store on Basin Road and Highway 160."

For shame, if this is the kind of treatment for someone who has been raped and left, what can we expect for robbery or domestic battery?

Do we have to run somewhere to meet the sheriff's deputies or do we just file a report online for them? What a vile and disgusting way to be treated when something so awful happens to someone.

Ann Killion