Letters to the editor for Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018

Patricia Ackerman for Assembly District 39

A big thank you to the Dayton Chamber of Commerce for hosting a candidate night. It was a very interesting evening listening to the candidates.

I was very surprised and shocked to hear how low our state ranking in education is from Ms. Ackerman, Assembly candidate for District 39. I did a little research and found this to be true. Ms. Ackerman is right; our district and state have been underserved. How is our state this low?

After Ms. Ackerman spoke, our current Assemblyman Wheeler stated, “In this district we have the No. 1 and No. 3 high schools in the state,” “in this county we have the No. 1 elementary school in the state.”

While doing my research, I found his statements about the No. 1 and No. 3 high schools and the No. 1 elementary school is in this county (Lyon), to be FALSE information. The highest-ranking high school in district 39 is Douglas High School. Depending on which ranking site one uses, Douglas High School is ranked No. 26-School Digger, No. 23-NICHE and at No. 11 at US News, they deal only with AP students and results.

The next highest-ranking high school is George Whittell, No. 36, or Virginia City, No. 33, depending on which ranking source you use. The highest-ranking school is East Valley Elementary in Fernley at No. 97, not even in District 39.

In Dayton, Riverview and Sutro elementary schools rank No. 136 and No. 173, not very close to being No. 1 in the state. What are this man’s criteria for his statements? I’d like to know because I cannot find it!

Ms. Ackerman understands what is going on and seems to be the one who wants to work on fixing this problem. Ms. Ackerman has my VOTE to be our next Assemblywoman for District 39. My vote is for the one who will give us the truth and not make up false information to make themselves (Jim Wheeler) look good.

Patricia Ackerman for Assembly District 39, the right person for us in the rural.

John Hartley

Dayton

Contrast on opinion page

What a comparison on the Appeal’s Saturday opinion page: There was Jim Hartman’s classy farewell editorial to the great war hero and Sen. John McCain. Candor, honor, and character in service to his country, indeed.

In the letters to the editor below was John O’Neill’s list of proverbs that he thought “might apply to the present political turmoil in Washington.”

On the record as a leftie Trump-hater, he didn’t mean the turmoil caused by the left’s harassment, stalking, and attempted intimidation of Trump’s cabinet members, nor did he mean the Democrat Party’s club-swinging brown shirts taking over Portland’s ICE offices, and — no — he didn’t mean the obstructionism of a phony investigation into non-existent Russian interference in the 2016 elections that even Obama admitted never happened.

And, nope, it wasn’t the calculated small-mindedness of Senate Democrats blocking Trump’s nominees for administrative and judicial openings.

No, O’Neill — proving yet again that Trump lives rent-free in his skull — meant Trump’s tweets.

Nice job, Mr. Editor, contrasting Hartman’s very thoughtful summation of a man in full with the petty hatred of a bitter loser. Thank you.

Lynn Muzzy

Minden

Editor’s note: Rick Riendeau sent the following letter to Nevada’s members of Congress and 20 other Washington, D.C., politicians:

Citizens United ruling hurts ‘we the people’

It seems the Supreme Court’s ruling, Citizens United, has provided the wealthiest 2 percent of our population, and major corporations, profound tax cuts — leading to cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, and other social programs that assist “we the people.”

Wasn’t at least a trillion dollars “borrowed” from Social Security so that we could invade Iraq? Now there’s talk of cutting Social Security benefits for the people — that money belongs to “we the people.”

Citizens United can also be blamed for the deregulation of our environmental protections and our efforts to slow climate change — which is already threatening the livability of planet Earth.

My correspondence to my senators and my lone representative is ignored by my Nevada politicians.

With Citizens United, how is this a government “of, for, and by the people?” Please, explain this to me.

Thank you. Respectfully,

Rick Riendeau

Carson City