It's not fair

I am very happy to see the lawsuit concerning Commissioner Gary Hollis and Nye County has been settled. Gary Hollis sued Nye County back in 2000 because he felt then Commissioner Dick Carver used his political influence to get the Tonopah Town Board to change their vote so Gary Hollis would not be appointed as Tonopah Town Manager.

I totally understand the frustration Mr. Hollis must have felt and I agree that legal action should have been taken. An ethics violation should have been brought against Dick Carver, and a message should have been sent to all Nye County officials that this type of behavior will not be tolerated, and if you can't make fair and unbiased decisions as an elected official, then someone with honesty, respect and dignity will have to take your place.

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed and Mr. Hollis paid his legal bills and Nye County paid $25,000 of taxpayers' money to cover Commissioner Dick Carver's legal bills. I wonder how many roads could be paved if the taxpayer didn't have to cover the legal expenses of county employees. When county employees can abuse their authority with no fear of job loss or legal expense, then nothing will ever change in Nye County, and the taxpayer will always be the one who gets screwed.

LOUIS J. DECANIO

PUC meet on the way

Now that the Utilities Inc. rate hike request of 78 and 80 percent was turned down here in Pahrump, it is now before the PUC in Las Vegas.

How convenient that a good many of the people affected by this rate hike won't be able to attend the hearing in Las Vegas. The rate hike request has now jumped to 101 and 102 percent.

That means that a single-family residence will increase from $23.60 to $47.65 for sewer and from $9.90 to $20.04 for water.

That will make the minimum Utilities Inc. bill jump from $33.50 to $67.69 per month.

We certainly are being given the shaft. Hopefully this hearing is being covered by the Pahrump Valley Times Friday, Nov. 16, at 10 a.m. at 101 Convention Center Drive, Suite 250, at the PUC facility in Las Vegas.

JUDITH HOWART

Water rates

Last week I got a revised water rate structure and I can not believe the that Utliities, Inc can justify the 101 percent increase in both water and sewer. How do they expect people to pay that kind of water bill and live on a fixed income?

In our case our water bill would be almost as much as our electric bill which is $150-200 per month.

Why in the world does the PUC have the hearing in Las Vegas and not in Pahrump?

Are they trying to minimize the feedback to the PUC from those who have to pay the bill?

Thanks,

GUY VAN BLOEM

Finish the job

I found the letter from Mr. Doyle printed in the last Wednesday's paper to be interesting and I am sure that he did his research in order to come up with the figures he presented, that being said I feel we need to clarify things we tend to forget over years.

Without discussing the war in length; when we were attacked and as in the past, when the U.S. is attacked, we respond, but we never finish the job. That's our history. Regardless of who is in the White House.

What Mr. Doyle failed to allude to is what our two great parties have always stood for since their founding. The platforms of the parties regardless of who is president, have not changed in decades.

The Democrats stand in support of the working man, they raise taxes, discourage investment by the so called upper class. They believe in big government, printing money and what ever can cause inflation.

The Republicans believe in investing in the country, reducing government and cutting taxes as to create an investment-conducive market in which people put their money into companies and create growth and jobs.

In our now "world economy" we are on the verge of becoming a third world country with double digit inflation around the corner and more jobs being shipped out of the U.S. This was caused by both parties doing and undoing what was best for the long term.

The Unions (Democrats) have over the last two decades sold out their members to the big companies in order to keep there union afloat. Allowing jobs to be cut in negotiations, that is not job protection, but it still secures union dues being paid while many retired union workers are finding their retirement checks being reduced. On the other side, reduced capital gains has produced huge investments in the U.S. companies, however, we shoot ourselves in the foot again because we can not compete with overseas manufacturing costs and our companies are forced to invest our/your money off shore in order the company survives.

How can we fix this trend toward depression? Time and economic laws will fix some of our problems, but in the short term the working man, especially the younger families starting out, are almost doomed to failure and even a college degree does not guarantee success. We are grossly under-educated compared to the rest of the world and we are definitely competing with the rest of the world for our pure survival. We are 350 million competing against four plus billion, those are even tough odds for Vegas.

A good start to a come back would be to make sure that whom ever you elect knows that it would be "economic suicide" to increase capital gains tax. (Eliminating capital gains tax would be a god send to our future) but that's asking too much. We need to make our country more investment attractive to the world. We need to compel our educators to produce a better product for our tax dollars.

Stop codling our children and let teachers be allowed to teach them to be productive tax paying adults, with self respect and the understanding of the need for discipline. We need to stop letting political differences divide us, and start putting the future of the whole country and our way of life at the top of our list of things to do.

We all hear the different candidates promising one thing or another to get your vote. But, there is no one issue that needs our attention more than the "survival of our way of life".

In closing we need to express strongly to our elected officials that we are "one country, one language under God".

So please vote your own will, but vote for the future overall.

MURRAY LOOMIS