Letters to the editor

This past Sunday you had an article on the front page regarding some people seeking to challenge Nevada's term limits law. Although the term limits will impact a number of elected officials who have done a good job and who will be sorely missed, the limits were put in place as a way to encourage new candidates with fresh ideas.

Anyone who has worked on a campaign knows how hard it is to run against an incumbent candidate. It takes time for voters to get to know you and decide whether or not you are the one they want to represent them in the elected office. Many voters are willing to vote for the "status quo" instead of searching for a candidate who may have new ideas for improving the way we do government. This makes for a lazy and disinterested electorate who "tune out." Government in the United States was planned to be participatory. It is vital that the electorate be engaged in the process.

Having term limits should challenge elected officials to begin working immediately on the issues that got them elected in the first place because there is a deadline which must be met if they are to be successful. Working toward a deadline is what employees in the private sector must do all the time. There is no reason to expect anything less of our elected officials. Term limits also should challenge those elected officials to encourage, recruit and train their future replacements. Being elected to office should not provide a lifetime job. Many years in office makes it too easy to forget what life is like in the "real" world, putting that person "out of touch" with life's challenges and successes.

Leave term limits in place. Those candidates who will be affected need to begin the housecleaning of their offices and finishing up the projects they have been working on during their time in office. Then, they need to get busy looking for a qualified and hard working replacement. Time is almost up!

JOYCE PEIRCE

Carson City

Happy to see a new mayoral candidate

Dr. Sean Lehmann announced his candidacy for Mayor of Carson City in the April 10 Nevada Appeal. What a change. No ties to the local good old boys club. He raised concerns about problems in Carson City that I feel most of our citizens agree with.

This is the type of person we need to bring a fresh approach, new ideas and change to this city. Also, we need fresh blood on the Board of Supervisors. Carson City is at a turning point that will require a strong responsible city government to provide leadership for future development and growth.

CARL BOLTON

Carson City

If Obama wins, I can give up my gun

Do you believe in God?

Do you own a gun? Do you find yourself not fancying illegal immigration? Barack Obama will save you.

According to New York Times coverage of a recent San Francisco fundraiser, Mr. Obama said he believes your problem is you're just Ð well Ð you're just bitter.

"So it's not surprising then that they (the working class) get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Mr. Obama said.

As a local religion-clinger and gun owner, it is a relief to find out that, whatever it is I believe in, it's actually due to my bitterness at the former three presidential administrations. Mr. Obama is going to somehow remove the bitterness I feel, which will allow me, I suppose, to stop carrying this stupid gun around and get back to napping instead of going to church on Sunday mornings.

I don't know about you, but I feel as if a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders. No longer will I have to "explain my frustration" by having a relationship with God. I can throw my guns into the lake. I can encourage illegal immigrants to bring poorly-made foreign goods into the country. Truly, Mr. Obama is in touch with America.

ROBERT FRENCHU

Carson City

It's time for public transit in Lyon

With headlines of "Gas Prices Expected to Hit $4 a gallon," maybe it is time to pass the pump and ride a bus.

It seems Storey County is concerned about residents needing public transit, especially with gas prices going up and no alternate means of transportation. Perhaps many in Lyon County also are feeling the pinch at the gas pump. A Tri-County Public Transit System that would work together to share the cost of a public transit system, and work together for state funding (NDOT) that already exists for transit, could be a relief for those without cars. There are many who would like to ride the bus if they don't need to use a car for doctor appointments, jobs, shopping, maybe even those in need of a job and can't afford to buy and run a car, buy insurance, plus gas.

There are many of us in areas of Lyon County who are not ranchers or farmers. Perhaps we might want to look to the present and how we really live today in a semi-rural community, with large tract home communities in our midst.

Our teens would like to take classes at the community college, go to the pool in Carson during the summer. Teens and others may want to find part-time jobs in our community (a regular bus service would allow teens and others to take the bus to work and home) that could help teens for college or extended education plans and cost, and work experience for a future résumé.

In some communities public transit allows teens and schools to develop internship programs with local businesses knowing students will have reliable access to these programs.

What about many older members of our community who have raised a family and can no longer drive or believe owning a car is too expensive for their current lifestyle needs? Do we tell them they have to move out of their homes and find a community that has transportation: That they are no longer needed here.

If you use a cell phone, belong to a local name-brand gym, have a computer and Internet (none of which Lyon County had in the good old days) then maybe we are ready for public transit. At the very least maybe Lyon County may want to come to the table of discussion.

I am an advocate for public transit and a member of the Ironing Board Transit Brigade, a group of local volunteers, for public transit in Lyon County.

LINDA ADAMS

Dayton

Wilderness would exclude the old, disabled and ill

Mr. Taylor is technically correct in his assertion that when Congress designates public lands for "Wilderness Areas" it doesn't transfer legal title to the special interest groups.

It does worse than that because it blocks access to these areas to all but the young, healthy and fittest of us. Seems to me this means that roughly three-quarters of Americans will lose their access to these areas because they may be old, disabled or ill. My sister with congestive heart failure would never attempt to hike into a wilderness area that she can now reach via established roads or trails by motorized vehicles. Her doing so would be tantamount to a death wish.

The bottom line in the present battle against wilderness area designations for Lyon, Mineral, Esmeralda and Douglas counties is that the land being proposed to be designated does not meet the congressional definition and has been used by man for over 140 years. The majority of the roads traveled in these areas were made by the pioneer residents of this state as a convenience to get from one place to another and to help them settle land the way the government hoped they would.

You cannot turn back the hands of time. Filling in a hundred year old road does not turn the place into wilderness!

SUE SILVER

Hawthorne

Is there anything made in America?

Whatever happened to "Made in America"? Case in point, I recently bought a jar of Pond's moisturizing cream. Imagine my surprise to see the advertising on the jar in Spanish. Why? Because Pond's, an American company, manufactures their cream in Mexico. Unfortunately, this is not unique. I bought a sweater by Liz Claiborne, also an American company. Or so I thought. The tag showed that the sweater material was from Indonesia, and the sweater itself manufactured in China.

Will we ever again see "Made in America" on American products? Or are we doomed to outsource even the basics in order for big corporations to pad their "bottom line?"

I am a discouraged and disappointed American.

DEE RASMUSSEN

Gardnerville

Persecution of horses continues

It began with Mansfield, Victor and Fanning, all of Storey County (so-called Mustangers), who pulled hundreds and hundreds of wild horses off the Virginia Range during the '70s, '80s and '90s. Then Paul Iverson of the Ag. Dept. got in on the fray with massive legislation and vowed to eliminate the Virginia Range of so-called excess horses. These very wild horses were the descendants of the ones that Wild Horse Annie first saved.

The Virginia Range extends from I-80, to the south Hwy. 50, and from western most Storey County to Silver Springs, encompassing Washoe, Storey and Lyon counties. A very large area indeed, where they encountered Don Ault and friends who also wanted all the wild horses removed. Ault, a friend of cattle grazing (I like cows myself) was convicted of violating the Taylor Grazing Act.

In 1986, BLM zeroed out the wild horse areas in the Virginia Range thus relieving any protection for these horses and left them as targets. During all this time the eastern Nevada crew was trying to rid their area of wild horses. Mr. Lesperance was on the Commission for the Preservation of Wild Horses. Then Rep. Jim Gibbons on July 13, 1998, held a large wild horse meeting with various and sundry foes of the horses. Tony Lesperance says there are 1,200 estray horses on the Virginia Range now. Estray is a political term used derogatorily. It makes them vulnerable politically and legally. Has there been a count lately? A lot of horses have been gathered in these three counties in the past 10 years. They don't reproduce like rabbits or the 18-20 percent rate they would have you believe. And the Ag Dept. used birth control on these horses (not PZP as does the BLM) but an experimental drug.

These wild horses have been under siege for 35 years. Are we going to let this happen? Write a letter, make a phone call.

BOBBI ROYLE

Carson City

It's time to weed out Carson City's problems

Has anyone noticed that our local constabulary seems to do nothing but keep track of the local gang members in Carson City? To me, keeping track of them is akin to a gardener making a detailed map of the dandelions in his carefully-tended front lawn. Before long, he will know where each and every dandelion lives, who their brothers are, and how long it's been since they sprouted there. But no matter how thorough our gardener is at tracking these pesky dandelions, tracking them is not going to solve his problem, namely, unless eradicated, the pesky plants will eventually take over. Dandelions are never content with the status quo. Unchallenged, they simply spread their infection throughout the lawn. Naturally, I realize that someone out there may find value in dandelions. I agree that sometimes they can be assimilated into a nice salad, perhaps a fine wine. But the vast majority are just pests, worthless parasites who deserve nothing more than to be rooted out and escorted to the compost heap. Maybe Kenny just needs a good book on gardening.

TOM DAVIS

Carson City