Careful about possible scam

In the event you get a letter, as I did, from "General Marketing & Logistics Management Inc.," with an enclosed check on the account of "Incytes Management Corporation" in the amount of approximately $2,760, asking you to go to a Money Gram outlet and send $2,000 to another person, and fill out a form rating the service you received -- the balance of the funds in the check to be yours to keep for your time and trouble, please remember that when something seems too good to be true it almost invariably is.

What if you send the $2,000, fill out the form and then are told by your bank that the check you deposited to your account is no good?

If you choose to go along with this scheme, please be cautioned that you should make very sure you get the funds cleared to your account before you send anything to anybody.

BARBARA BERNSTEIN

(As is often the case, Christmas time or not, scams via letter and email are an all-too-common problem. As Bernstein notes, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is and should be steered well away from.-Ed.)

We will address our problems

I am Peter Weinburgh, athletic director at Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas, and a story that ran in your paper concerning the post-game behavior of the Bishop Gorman Gaels basketball team drew my attention and a subsequent investigation.

The first portion of the sports article concerning our team indicated that the second-place trophy was found in the trash and retrieved by our JV coach. Our JV coach works off campus, and since I heard the story after one of our faculty brought it today for me to see, I have not talked yet with him and the final outcome is to be determined.

I assure you that one of the most challenging tasks in education is trying to take a teaching moment such as this incident, if true, and making it understood it is not acceptable behavior for our students. When our head coach for girls has the facts, she and I will deal with the consequences for their behavior.

The second mention of the Gaels concerned the abandonment of the MVP plaque for our boys' team. I was appalled when I heard this, but when our boys' head coach investigated, he found not only did the player have the plaque, he showed it to me tonight.

I am not sure, based on the evidence, what MVP was left, but you possibly vacated the wrong one. Our player has his plaque. Now my greater concern is that perhaps the impression your readers have of the student body at Bishop Gorman is not exactly as presented by your paper. We are embarking on welcoming you to our conference, and I would not wish for the impression of either community to not be biased incorrectly.

We have young people who will make mistakes, which we address and correct. I am only asking that clarification be made to the story if needed. We do not tolerate, support or condone members of our athletic teams or student body engaging in this type of reaction to an athletic outcome.

Thank you for your time in this matter. Call or write with any comments or concerns.

PETER WEINBURGH

Athletic Director

Bishop Gorman High School

Langford flaws were astronomical

My intention is not to be rude, in fact I am trying to be as tasteful as I can be with the situation at hand and the mindset this situation puts me in. My name is Chance Knight and I am a proud member of Church of the Coffin and a member of this community for going on 11 years now.

I am 17 years of age. I am not a reporter, nor am I trying to be. That would be your job, and in doing said job, I hope your article in the Dec. 12 issue of the Pahrump Valley Times, regarding the Christmas parade of lights, does not live up to your full potential as a journalist. That would be rather disappointing.

I have to bring myself to ask the following question: Were you watching the same parade I was?

The flaws in your article were astronomical. In my oppinion look bad upon not only you but the PV Times as a whole. The PV Times has been a professional and very respected newspaper in this town for years, and your article makes a mockery of that reputation.

You made the comment that there were "only 7-8 cars lit up." Our numbers were 12, 13, 14 and 15. That gives me the inclination that there were 11 cars before us, which include:

The truck and RV, representing Tropical RV's, the trolly car, the local television station, the Boy Scouts, the Chinese dragon, the Catholic Thrift Store, Santa and Ms. Clause [sic].

Now in my counting book, that's a total of eight, not including our four cars.

It also discruntles me that there was no mention of the indiviguals that received trophies at the awards ceremony held at Wulfy's. Tropical RV's recieved "most lights." Catholic Thrift Store recieved "judge's chioce." And we, Church of the Coffin, received "best theme."

I sincerely hope your article is not an example of the direction the PV Times is headed.

I doubt there is any way to fix this mistake. What's done is done. I just hope what I have to say will be a jump start to get the PV Times back in a place of respect and accuracy where it belongs.

CHANCE KNIGHT

(Horace Langford is not a reporter, he is the PVT's photographer.-Ed.)

Fire in the sky

While driving along Highway 160 coming from Las Vegas to the little town of Pahrump, it is like a desert picturesque scene until you leave Clark County and while crossing into Nye County you can start to see the burn fires that fill up the southern part of the Pahrump valley skies with smoke from the burning fires.

When the weather is clear and at its best, then the Pahrump Fire Department can issue burning fire permits to whoever wants one.

While living in the small town of Pahrump for the past three or four years now I finally figured out why in the southern end of the Pahrump valley that was always full of dirty, filthy, foul, nasty, smelly air that was very hard to breath.

In the southern areas of the Pahrump valley you could see the fires burning in all different areas of the southern valley causing the view of the southern mountain range to more or less disappear from viewing from high on the hill location of the Vineyard subdivision.

So today being Thursday, Dec. 11, I phoned the Pahrump Fire Department to find out why in the world was there all of these fires going on.

I didn't get to talk to a live person so I had to leave a phone message after pushing a lot of telephone buttons. This is when I had learned that these burn fires were legal by having a burning fire permit, and on nice days only.

To my surprise, I really couldn't realize how the Pahrump town fathers could sell out its Pahrump town citizens that put their breathing health in harms way for a few Pahrump fire burning permit dollars.

I know they say it's the law and the Pahrump town fathers are within the law, but in my opinion it's a very, very bad law, and so be it.

Oh, if maybe our Pahrump town fathers are saving up some extra coins so the Pahrump citizens could have a electric stop and go signal at the intersection of Winery Road and Highway 160 before any more people gets hurt at this unsafe intersection.

Mr. Editor, Merry Christmas to you and your fine staff.

ROBERT B. ADAMS

Commissioners have no regard

The Nye County commissioners continue to show a stunning disregard for the desires of the citizens of Amargosa Valley.

Recently the commissioners refused to approve the new Amargosa Valley Area Plan (AVAP), written over seven grueling months by the Amargosa Valley Area Planning Committee (AVAPC) with extensive input from other Amargosians.

Did the commissioners intentionally stall the plan's approval because they already intended to approve these parcel maps, ignoring the intent of the AVAP?

Most Amargosians want to protect their valley; it's a small rural community with its own desires to grow slowly, carefully and "appropriately" in order to retain its relatively pristine rural desert environment.

However, the commissioners continue approving developments woefully detrimental to that valley's own ideas and plans for its own future. Amargosa Valley appears to be viewed first as a money-maker for the county, only secondly as a rural community wishing to remain that way.

So my final question is, why do Nye County commissioners pretend to take the AVAPC (as well as town board) recommendations seriously? The commissioners have done little to maintain, no, to restore any faith in government many Amargosians have lost

JANE MATTHEWS