Advertisement

A strange letter

I received a strange letter in the mail yesterday:Garbage service rates have been reduced.

I am glad to see there are still "some" honest people like Pahrump Valley Disposal in this town helping when times are tough.

THOMAS GRAGO

DV could start right here

What an absolutely wonderful idea -- "Death Valley could start right here."

In the year and a half my wife and I have called Pahrump home, we have visited Death Valley several times and always have the most wonderful time. Sometimes we just go to Furnace Creek for the lovely drive and some lunch, and we have many more trips to this exotic locale planned. It is truly one of the most unique places on earth.

It only takes maybe an hour to get there and yet most of the long-time residents of Pahrump I have talked to have not been there in years. It is almost as if they have forgotten it even exists.

And perhaps our town politicos feel they are promoting California if they publicize Death Valley. I don't know.

But the tourists surely know where it is and how to get there. There are literally hundreds of them pouring out of buses every day at Smith's and Albertson's to purchase a snack and use the rest rooms.

There are countless others coming through in rental cars stopping at our gas stations and convenience stores mostly just to ask for directions.

Whatever they do spend here, I am sure it is just a pittance compared to what they spend in Furnace Creek gift shop.

Just a short time ago I had a Las Vegas tourist in a rental car on his way to Death Valley at the gas station on the corner of Bell Vista and Leslie ask me if there was some place he could get lunch. I told him he could go back track into Pahrump or continue on to Death Valley.

He chose to continue on. I thought that was very curious. Were we that unappealing?

Once our wonderful neighbors at Valley Electric completed the makeover of the fountain area on the corner of Calvada and Highway 160, I envisioned a wonderful little shopping village being erected there in an old West architecture. Perhaps a coffee shop, gift shops, an art gallery, cafes ... maybe even a wine bar.

Structures could face the road with parking in the rear so shoppers could stroll from shop to shop.

Perhaps we are just dreaming.

But promoting "Pahrump -- Gateway to Death Valley" would also be a wonderful opportunity to promote our own little oasis in the desert and provide some much needed jobs and tax revenue as well.

KEVIN T. SMITH

Deke Lowe story

Dear Bob McCracken:

I'm a little late with this but just recently saw your story about my father, Deke Lowe. You captured so much about him in such a small space.

Dad loved to prospect for minerals and possible new mines. He's buried at Silver Lake, one of the Tonopah and Tidewater RR stations where he served as station agent. He wanted to be buried there where he and Celesta lived when they were first married. From there he felt he could commune with "his mountains," the Avawatz.

It was my wish that his tombstone read "Out Prospecting in Heaven," but mother won out and there is a more conventional inscription.

Again, thanks for remembering Deke, who truly was one of a kind.

JANET LOWE

Best and worst of government

It constantly amazes me when people are able to look at something and then totally not know what it is they just saw. The letter last week on raising impact fees is a classic example.

Although the writer has some knowledge of why people moved here (quiet, low hassle, rural) they seem to ignore the fact that impact fees and government lust for power and money is why the rural lifestyle was overturned in favor of regulation, land use control and bigger bureacracy.

Development benefits local taxpayers by spreading out the cost of government to more payers. Growth doesn't increase our taxes, government does. Their cost of doing anything goes up every year whether there is growth or not. It's called COLA -- cost of living adjustment.

As for real estate being responsible for the current economy, the writer needs to look no further than government for the real cause. From congressional mandates to lend money to people who cannot pay it back, to a state government that increased spending 24 percent annually while growth increased by half that amount, to the county which is now having to pay for a planning department not generating enough to even pay their own salaries, government has taken our economy apart.

Raising the cost of living is what government does best.

Fixing problems is what they do worst.

Giving them more money to waste is foolish.

ROBERT LITTLE