Letters to the editor March 4

Lawbreakers should not receive state benefits

I am a state employee. I am taking my monthly unpaid furlough days to help my state navigate this financial crisis. My supervision pay has been taken. My longevity pay was removed and there have been no salary increases for several years. In short, I am on a fixed income.

Like many other Nevada citizens, I have adjusted my spending down to absorb this loss of income. I have also reduced my living expenses down to what I spent in the 1980s.

I hope that this is the end of the cuts for state employees. If not, I hope that the Legislature will look first to end the funding for illegal aliens and those Nevada citizens who have become professional welfare recipients. Once this drain on the economy is stopped, then look to me for another cut.

It is no secret that many illegal aliens qualify for Section 8 housing or subsidized rent, food stamps and health care. Many of their children require bilingual teachers and books and receive free or low-cost lunches in schools. They also qualify for relief from high energy bills. Nevada taxpayers pay for Spanish language signs on state buildings and offices and provide printed materials in other than the English language.

Regardless of their home country, lawbreakers who invade this country and our state should not receive the same benefits as American citizens.

Michael Mangiaracina

Carson City

Center Project needs to go to voters

The Nevada Appeal states that the company that is being used to evaluate the Nugget project is also planning to develop it. What do you think their findings will reflect?

Was anyone from Nevada, especially Carson City, asked to do this first?

Is this project and its pending sales tax going to wind up on a ballot anytime soon? Car dealers and coat factories didn't either.

How is this justified along with layoffs? Carson City obviously has more money than it needs, deserves or should have already.

I don't blame the supervisors et al; I blame their mommas for not teaching them that taking something without asking first is stealing.

Pete Bachstadt

Carson City

Fallouts abound if imaging services is eliminated

This is an open letter to Gov. Brian Sandoval, our legislators, senators, and the state's department heads.

I work for the Nevada State Library & Archives in the Imaging & Preservation Services program. Given the new budget cuts that Gov. Sandoval had proposed for our state, our administrator, Daphne DeLeon, decided that our program should be eliminated. If this happens, several major fallouts will result, including the following:

First, all of our state agencies would be forced to rely on other private companies to microfilm or scan their work, whether in or out of state. The overall competition will become monopolized, and such companies will have free reign to raise their prices to whatever they want.

Second, there will be a grave compromise of security if confidential documents are stored in a private company. Identity theft will occur.

Third, many agencies will not have someone to process their microfilm.

Finally, and most importantly, no one will be able to process Payroll CDs for the Department of Personnel.

As you can see, our state and local agencies severely depend on our services. We have an excellent reputation of providing a considerably cheaper cost than other companies, resulting in saving the state money years from now.

So, I implore all of you to come and visit us to see what we do, and why our program clearly deserves to stay.

Joshua Dealy

Carson City

Meth problem hasn't gone away

The meth problem is still here and still big. It extends from the smallest of people racked by meth - babies born to mothers who are using - to the bloody war between drug cartels and between the cartels and the Mexican government. The babies may cry all night or suffer birth defects. In the bloody war, tens of thousands have died in the past couple years - heads roll, bodies burn and, sometimes, families are assassinated.

In Mexico, the government had greatly reduced drug cartel access to the precursor pseudoephedrine. In response, the drug cartels have diversified into marijuana and heroin. High potency D meth in Carson City now often comes from labs in central California.

The needed pseudoephedrine ingredient comes to these labs through smurfing - purchasing of pseudoephedrine-based cold medication in California, Nevada and Arizona. Smurfing is a problem.

Last October, CVS pharmacies was fined $75 million for allowing a system of cold medication sales that did not prevent multiple purchases by an individual customer on the same day. These illegal sales led directly to an increase in methamphetamine production in California, according to a federal press release.

We need to get it. We need to think better about the consequence of our actions. The social and economic cost of meth and of substance abuse in general is beyond counting.

Chris Bayer

Carson City