Letters to the editor for Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016

Was it love at first sight? Did he repeatedly ask you out? Share your stories of love and the Nevada Appeal will publish them on Valentine’s Day. Submissions, 250 words or less, can be emailed to editor@nevadaappeal.com with the subject line “Love Stories,” or faxed to 775-887-2420, or mailed to the Nevada Appeal, 580 Mallory Way, Carson City NV 89701. Include photos if you have them. Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10.

Wild horses should not be in area park

The people who are in charge of Washoe Lake State Park are allowing four wild stallions to remain in the main staging area for local horse people. These stallions wandered through an opening in the park fencing on East Lake Boulevard. The fencing was fixed before the stallions were pushed out of the park, so there they stay.

These wild stallions basically stay in the area where they entered. This area is near the horse riding trail, and they also wander through the horse parking lot. Stallions by nature are in search of mares and fight off other horses and do not belong where they can pose a danger to any riders. So far, besides myself, I have been told that two other horse people have been chased by these stallions. These horses need to be removed from this area before the riding season begins in full force. The park officials have been confronted as to this danger, and they refuse to remove the horses. Because of this attitude, a stallion from another band was killed when it jumped the fence to fight with these four horses. It was killed by a motorist when it was returning to its band on the other side of East Lake Boulevard.

How irresponsible does this have to get before the right action is taken? The big question is, are they running a wild horse sanctuary, or are they running a safe equestrian area? They need to get their act together before someone is killed. These horses have been there for more than three weeks. This fact says it all — perhaps all these people need to be fired and replaced with responsible officials.

Cassie White

Washoe Valley

Questions for Gov. Sandoval

The Jan. 9 Appeal highlights two out of three subjects Gov. Sandoval needs to answer questions about. Just how many jobs and how much revenue will be lost because our Republican controlled state made a backwards decision in regards to renewable energy?

Driving out an entire industry to reward the old guard is shameful. I know the PUC is appointed, but has anyone seen a Democratic governor around here? Not to mention the progressive citizens who bought into the clean energy idea and were left out in the sun.

Mr. Sandoval, how does it feel to be the governor of the most ignorant state in the Union? And you, running as an education candidate. How and why did you and your “team” of advisers and council decide to sign the school voucher bill that is unconstitutional? The line between church and state is crystal clear.

According to the actuaries (I’m sure you used them), how much taxpayer money, earmarked for public schools, was the state going to hand over to parents at 5K per student so he or she could attend a religious school that teaches bigotry and intolerance? We’re dead last in the nation, and you want to take more money out of the public system.

But the last question is, how much taxpayer money are you paying the high-priced hacks to try and win the lawsuit brought against our state because of more stupid Republican decisions? Valuable public taxpayer money completely wasted, all because of poor governing and fiscal management.

Your constituents would like some answers.

Rick Van Alfen

Carson City

Minden resident doesn’t want gas tax increase

In response to the front page article, Carson City streets need financing — so there’s not enough money to fix the streets and we need to pay more taxes to take care of the problem, yet we have a perfectly fine downtown Carson Street that we’re going to tear up and spend millions to rebuild? And, by the way, most of us don’t want to rebuild downtown because it seems like a waste of our money.

Isn’t it just like government to spend our money freely without a care in the world and always come crying for more? They don’t have to budget or save or worry because they’ll always have us, Uncle Sugar to come get more cash from. It’s like, ‘Gee, the engine needs fixing in my car, but I think I will just spend the money painting it red! It won’t run good, but it will sure look snazzy.’

A lot of us live week to week and we don’t have an Uncle Sugar, so why doesn’t Carson road maintenance just go take the money from the downtown rebuild and leave the gas taxes alone?

Wally Lasuer

Minden

Sen. Reid using political money for personal use

Harry Reid has $600,000 in campaign funds, and he is actively trying to use this cash for personal expenses in his retirement. He sought FEC approval for this action, but recently withdrew the request when two Democratic-leaning commissioners recused themselves due to conflict of interest. Now Mr. Reid’s counsel states no further opinion is necessary, and the use of these funds to cover the expenses of a personal assistant in his retirement is justified.

Mr. Reid has championed campaign finance regulations and has complained that the FEC does not do enough to purge money from politics. Now he wants to use political money for his personal use and is simply avoiding the FEC and proceeding with his plan to use the campaign money he has accumulated.

We do not have to look any further than this sad example of a long-term leader in our Senate to understand why the people in this state and country are fed up with politicians.

You can check out the facts of this letter in the Wall Street Journal for Jan. 20 in the editorial titled, “Harry Reid’s Campaign Gift to Himself.”

Barney Rabold

Carson City

SB 302 is unconstitutional

Judge James Wilson made the right decision on the Education Savings Accounts, SB 302 of the 2015 legislative session. The main problem with the law administered by State Treasurer Dan Schwartz is its unconstitutionality in providing state taxpayer funds to religious and other private schools.

Judge Wilson issued a preliminary injunction, which stops further implementation of ESAs. The haste with which the treasurer moved to implement this law is questionable. Why did he move so rapidly? Was it because he wanted to pass out the $5,000 subsidies to parents who wanted to place their children in religious and other private schools? Did he want to get ahead of the judge’s ruling and then claim later the funds could not be recalled?

In my opinion, his haste also places parents in a bind. Do parents take their children out of private schools and place them in public schools to satisfy the 100-day requirement to qualify for taxpayer subsidies? And how do schools deal with this seesaw effect?

This is not common sense education reform. This is pandering to upper middle class and well-heeled families who can afford the difference between the subsidies and the full cost of private school education while many low and middle income families cannot. Let’s hope the courts continue to see this legislation for what it is —­ an unconstitutional use of taxpayer funds to support religious and other private schools to the detriment of our Nevada public school system.

Wendell Newman

Carson City