Letters to the Editor Sept. 3

Editor:

As a resident of Gardnerville and the executive director of Tahoe Youth & Family Services, I have been saddened by the many stories of young people being victimized by adults, runaways and drug-related deaths. Tahoe Youth & Family Services offers a 24-hour crisis line for youth and parents.

Call our trained professionals. Our expertise is in runaway behaviors, troubled teens, adolescent alcohol and drug prevention, intervention and treatment. I want the community to be aware of our low and no-cost services to families. We provide a sliding fee scale and serve families from all walks of life. We want to help. Sometimes life with a teen can get crazy.

Our staff can help you learn how to talk to your teen if you are worried that they are involved in drugs and alcohol, thinking of running away or making bad choices. We can provide support and help. We also offer a safe place for teens to hang out at our drop-in center in the Ranchos.

I am pleased that The Record-Courier chose to cover each story so closely and help to make parents aware of what the youth face each day. It's our community too, and my staff and I want to express our deepest sympathies to the families who have been in the headlines over the last week. Call 1-800-837-TYFS (8937) or 782-4202 for more information.

Alissa R. Nourse

Executive Director

Tahoe Youth & Family Services

Editor:

The Park Cattle proposal for 5,000 homes creates real dangers to Douglas County and its citizens.

The project is in the flight path of the Minden-Tahoe Airport. Fire fighting tankers full of fuel and fire retardant are about 150 feet above the project on take off. Should one crash the disaster would be major. Since Douglas County is aware of this fact it will be held liable for the substantial damages to people and property. Do the Douglas County taxpayers want to assume that liability?

Allowing residential development in the flight path will create calls for closing the airport - particularly with the increased air traffic as per the newly adopted airport master plan.

Even though Park Cattle proposes to donate sites for schools, public safety and park sites, we taxpayers will be asked to pass new bond issues to pay for the site's infrastructure and to build the facilities. Watch out for the tax increases!

The 5,000 roofs, driveways, patios and their streets will prevent water from being absorbed. Flood waters will be increased. Who will pay for the downstream damages? Law provides the taxpayers will be held liable.

The cost is the monthly payment. The purchase price may be affordable, but adding monthly assessments of a homeowners association, a master association, special assessment districts for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure, parks, flood control, open space, off-site highway improvements, etc. will add hundreds to the monthly payment making the "affordable" actually unaffordable in the real world. Don't be misled.

Douglas County already has over 4,000 approved dwelling units - we can't afford and don't need another 5,000.

Stuart Posselt

Johnson Lane

Editor:

Has anyone noticed the elephant in Congress? It has a trunk, a tail, floppy ears, two eyes, a head, four legs with each focusing on some serious issues: the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, bank and mortgage failures, immigration, health care, oil, gas prices, 3 million unemployed, education, environment, hurricanes, wildfires, floods and important resolutions about naming post offices. All are symptoms of poor government over a period of years.

Now the whole elephant struggles under a load of something like an estimated $9 trillion. We have lost the ability to live within our means. We can soon lose the American dream. So who is paying attention?

By nature, Americans believe and elect glib professional politicians who talk promises of fixing all those symptoms and ignore the elephant. Today's congress is the worst do-nothing congress.

How many days have the recent candidates spent on their "real job" compared to the number of days they fly hither and yon on the campaign trail? When I worked a 9 to 5 and pulled a no-show I didn't get paid. Do you?

Americans have been drawn into "buy now, pay later" with credit cards. When I got my first bank card, at the drive-by teller, I put my card in a slot, punch in my PIN and wow, out popped crisp twenties.

But soon I had seven different credit cards. It wasn't long before I realized how much interest I was paying unpaid balances. I cut up five of them.

The U.S. government owns and uses the greatest credit card of all. The federal printing press just prints more money. To date, this printing press has an endless supply of red ink.

Past Los Angeles Mayor Riordan held office and accepted a salary of $1 a year. Right now, Northern Nevada is getting "it" by cutting back funds for NSU, the library, the DART and senior programs, along with the eventual closing of the prison.

Yeah, cut backs are a drag. Australian newspapers write about families "doing it tough." So now Nevada is doing it tough. But tougher times are coming.

Here's an idea. How about taking it from the top? Voters should force congress members to show up for sessions. How about congress, including the president, cutting their pay one-third? Stop pension funds after retirement, make lobbying a felony, and put a cap on campaign finance? Wouldn't that take a chunk out of the red ink elephant? That's the devastating raw truth.

Voting for either presidential candidate won't change anything much. Neither is powerful enough to kick this red ink elephant in the shins. Probably the only change the "winner" will make will be moving into the oval office.

The candidates don't get it either. That's because it's not a "good sell." Each one wants power. "Let the American public eat cake." Yet this elephant is doomed to grow until America runs out of red ink. And really, there is no cake.

And that's all I have to say about this. For now.

Barbara Griffiths, Ph.D.

Gardnerville

Editor:

There is a scurrilous e-mail presently being circulated claiming that Obama removed the American flag from the tail of his campaign jet and replaced it with his own campaign logo ... a shameless and brazen attempt to cast doubts on his patriotism.

Fact: the two flags previously on the tail were the registered logo of North American Airlines and since the jet is no longer part of the North American Airlines fleet, the logo had to be removed. Wonder what's on the tail of McCain's jet ...?

Those of the "Swift-Boat" mentality are really scary ... they specialize in innuendoes, half-truths and downright lies ... to them, truth is whatever promotes their agenda at the moment ... these are the same "loonies" that put Bush and his cronies in charge eight years ago and now are slithering out of the wreckage of the worst administration in U.S. history to once again spread their venom among the politically naive.

They are truly dangerous people who, I believe, pose a far greater threat to our country than any foreign terrorists.

John O'Neill

Minden