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Letters to the editor: Thanks, public forum areas and more
May 7, 2008
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Thanks for ‘your weather’
I wish to thank you for a local weather map. It is long overdue. As a full-time summer boater, and a very part-time golfer, I am glad that I can look at the local forecast, and decide what my options are.
The knowledge of weather and wind conditions can make or break a safe day on the lake, or a pleasant one on the links. Please keep this as a regular feature.
Don Epstein
Incline Village
Many public forum areas
How many requests for open forum meetings, so folks could exercise their First Amendment free speech rights, were turned down because the beach parking lots were not open to the public?
Remember when The Chateau was opened to the public for dances and parties? Remember after the first riots our board had no problem closing it for those type of affairs?
Why wasn’t the Championship Golf Course included with those other “public forum” areas such as the Anne Vorderbruggen Building, the Tennis Complex, the Recreation Center, Diamond Peak Ski Resort, the Mountain Golf Course, Preston Field, Aspen Grove and Village Green?
Seems the Championship fairways would be safer for public forums than parking lots with cars driving in and out and the ski slopes with skiers speeding by.
Why must Incline Village (town?) have a community stadium? Do other high schools such as Reno High, McQueen, Hug, Spanish Springs, Carson City High, etc. have community stadiums or were their stadiums built by the school districts?
What was the big rush in turning Incline Village facilities into public forum areas? I must have missed that being on the board agenda. How come there were no public hearings to discuss the pros and cons?
Will the community stadium also become a public forum area at Incline Village residents repose?
How much of the $800,000 profit from Diamond Peak will be put into the Ski Lodge renovation? Will shuttle buses be used to haul people into the public forum areas? Will the beach and other facilities rest rooms be open to them public forum folks? Will permits be required for public forum area uses? Will there be a charge for public forum users?
Will the big new parking lot in Crystal Bay become a public forum area? Who will approve public forum user permits?
Why so many public forum areas? Has the demand been that great?
William H. Silcox
Incline Village
Misinformed
There have been letters to the editor, orators during public comment and rumblings from the grapevine regarding how golf passes will be curtailed. Those opinions expressed are incorrect and misleading.
I invite those who wish to drop by my office, and, over a cup of coffee at Starbucks, we can discuss what really went on at the Ordinance 7 public meetings.
Call me at (775) 833-4609 and let’s do coffee.
Tom Bruno
Incline Village
Tennis concerns
The price of tennis memberships has gone up this year. I understand that IVGID decided our fees were low compared to other clubs. The other clubs they compared to were in Los Altos, Los Angeles and San Francisco. These are all open 12 months of the year compared to our five months.
When will these people start thinking, and why doesn’t the IVGID board appoint someone who actually plays tennis to make decisions about the tennis center?
Carol Lefcourt
Incline Village
Let’s get a real energy plan
As one of those ancient ones who remembers the 1973 oil shock and the long gas lines, you would think that we would have learned something...
Like don’t be dependent on unreliable people like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Iraq, Iran and now Venezuela. I am as pro environment as the next person, but when food prices go up 25 percent to 30 percent in sync with gas, when is America going to wake up and smell the coffee? Will rice have to go to $9 per pound and the Dow to 5,000 for America to wake up?
Yes it is nice to be pro-environment — heck would any of us live here unless we were? But let’s see ... we have had 35 years of both parties on the issue of energy. The U.S. has the largest uranium reserves in the world. We have seas of oil off the California shelf and in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR). France gets 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power yet we have had the eco-wackos from the Sierra Club and their fellow travelers dictate energy policy to our politicians for the last 35 years.
Our energy policy, if you can call it that, has been governed by 60s-80s environmental experience which was framed by Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez and the Santa Barbara blowout. Meanwhile the paradigm has changed, and the politicians have not noticed.
Mr. Bush still kisses the Saudis on both cheeks when they come to visit him in Texas. Mr. Reid still opposes Yucca Mountain. Mr. Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi and McCain still oppose drilling off the California coast and in ANWAR. Furthermore, curse the evil utility representative who would propose a nuclear power plant.
Meanwhile we spend $120 for every barrel of oil that we buy from people who would rather see us dead or at least converted to Islam.
Solar power and windmills might be nice and might add 1 percent to 5 percent to our energy mix (as long as they are not in Ted Kennedy’s backyard), but nothing short of a total national commitment to energy freedom on the same scale as the WWII Manhattan project or the Apollo Moon Project will save our economy from ruin.
This includes “fast track” federal pre-emption of permit applications for energy supplied for interstate commerce. Tax incentives for nuclear power plant construction, oil shale extraction, electric delivery vehicles, electric cars, solar residential installations, oil drilling and any other activity which frees the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil and which uncouples the price of domestic oil from the spot price that the major oil companies use to stick it to the American public.
Write and call your representatives today and tell them that we do not need a 50-cent gas tax reduction this summer — we want a real energy policy that will deliver that reduction for the rest of our and our children’s lives.
Michael Abel
Incline Village
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