Letters to the editor for Sunday, July 19, 2015

Humane Society should be more clear

Recently, my family and I went to Carson City Animal Services, Nevada Humane Society, intending to adopt a kitten.

We were shown to the cat room and allowed to pick out a suitable pet, a young tiger kitten. During the initial process, my granddaughters were allowed to hold and begin bonding with the kitten. We agreed to adopt this kitten, and it was placed in our cat carrier. I completed the paperwork, which included a question about declawing. I stated that the kitten would be an indoor pet only and I intended to have it declawed to protect my home and person. I was informed that they did not approve of this procedure and I would not be allowed to adopt the kitten. The kitten was snatched from my granddaughter’s hands and we were invited to leave. Later I learned that I have been declared DNA — Do Not Adopt, by the society.

I am a retired veterinarian and have safely declawed thousands of cats. While the procedure is surely painful when done, it is no worse than a spay or castration. I have followed the lives of many of these cats and there has never been any post-surgical traumatic effect on the individual animal. They seem to lead perfectly normal lives.

In addition, there is no display at the shelter that this is a condition of their adoptions, not on the wall, in the paperwork, or anywhere that I could find.

They should at least make it public knowledge at the beginning of the process, not after making a sincere effort help develop a bond between the family and the animal.

David W. Strickler

Carson City

Stop spending money on lawsuit

So our fine Nevada officials and governor have authorized $200,000 more to fight a lawsuit brought against Nevada by San Francisco, Calif., for giving 29 psychiatric patients one-way tickets to California. The psychiatric hospital that did this in Las Vegas has lost its accreditation for doing this. Nevada has already given $2.1 million to a law firm to fight this lawsuit.

Here are the lessons I have learned from this — 1. Nevada is spending my tax dollars to the tune of $2.3 million to fight a $500,000 lawsuit. 2. Only people getting rich are the lawyers in the law firm. 3. It is OK to be wrong and not make amends — just throw more money at the problem and hope it will go away. 4. Do not take responsibility for your actions. These are all wonderful lessons ... not!

Why not just say we are sorry, pay the $500,000 and save us all a little money and show that we are the bigger state when it comes to making things right?

Christeen Hanson

Minden

Kieckhefer, O’Neill have no excuse

According to Appeal reporter John Barrette’s post-legislature report, it sounds as though Nevada Senator Ben Kieckhefer and Assemblyman P.K. O’Neill aren’t clear why grass roots Republicans are angry with them and plan to kill the tax hikes they voted for via a referendum of the people.

Let me explain. Kieckhefer and O’Neill misrepresented themselves to get elected. They campaigned as Republicans, but dishonored their party’s anti-tax, pro-gun rights platform, backstabbing those who worked to elect them.

Kieckhefer and O’Neill voted for monstrous tax hikes and made permanent “temporary” tax sunsets.

Throughout the legislative session their constituents filled their email, voice mail, and snail mail in-boxes every day demanding that they keep their campaign promises.

Yet they passed an almost exact version of the jobs and business-killing Margins Tax, which their voters defeated by 80 percent.

Kieckhefer and O’Neill knew full well that they were governing against the will of their constituents. They are without excuse.

Lynn Muzzy

Minden

Give away dirt being removed for I-580

There are thousands of cubic yards dirt that has to be removed to complete I-580.

If these dirt was given to away companies that supplies fill dirt the completion of I-580 would be expedited and the cost reduced.

Walt Ratchford

Carson City

Appoint the best citizens

As someone who is currently looking for a house in Carson City, I totally agree with the point made by Mr. Tim Hahn in his commentary on July 9. All government agencies must be careful to follow their legal rules when making appointments to boards. Special care should always be taken to avoid even the appearance of cronyism and citizens who are best qualified, based solely on merit, should be appointed.

Rather than fight over a small pie, I have always thought it was better to just make a bigger pie. Perhaps in the future, rather than have folks wrestling over only one or two available seats on various boards, our elected leaders could make the pool of available advisors just a bit larger.

For example, since some would like to see a citizen with deep roots in the city on boards; have one seat added for a long-term resident (perhaps 20 years or more) and since some also have suggested that getting new perspectives from outside is valuable, a seat could be designated for a recent citizen of Carson City; perhaps three years or less.

I would also encourage the liberal creation of ex-officio (non-voting) seats for every board. Specifically for the airport, an ex-officio seat should be created for every stake holder who has a facility at the airport. If all of the stakeholders sent a representative to serve in such ex-officio seats on the Airport Board, higher participation rates (and better quality inputs) would surely ensue.

J. Tyler Ballance

Reno