Letters to the editor for Feb. 8

Cutting tax rebate equals raising taxes

Gov. Sandoval recently announced that he wants to eliminate the property tax rebate for low-income seniors. Canceling this long-standing rebate is equivalent to raising taxes, which our governor promised that he would not do during his campaign.

Is this the first of his campaign promises he is going to break? Low-income seniors are financially dependent on this rebate. Gov. Sandoval would not be able to find a budget fix that would be more harmful to Nevada's economy. This program especially helps seniors on fixed incomes who are at risk of losing their homes.

In addition to harming the finances of our seniors, this tax increase, once again, sends a clear message to retirees and seniors that they are not welcome to live in Nevada unless they are extremely well-endowed financially. It seems that low-income seniors are especially subject to the wrath of our politicians since they rarely contribute monetarily to political campaigns. I implore our governor and Nevada's Legislature to shelve this tax increase as a bad idea.

Paul Lockwood

Minden

Folks at BRIC doing a great job

I was impressed with the first few months of operation of the BRIC, as outlined in the Nevada Appeal. Congratulations to Sara Jones and her staff and board for this success. Thanks for the hard work putting this together and the work you folks are doing for the businesses in this community.

I hope many of our citizens can take the opportunity to peek in the BRIC, since it's right across the street from City Hall and just a block and a half from the Carson Nugget.

Steve Reynolds

Carson City

Humane Society plan wrong for Nevada

In December of 2010, the city Board of Supervisors accepted a report about Carson City Animal Services from the Humane Society of the United States as an action plan for CCAS.

By my count, HSUS presented 678 actions they felt should be taken. These included entire programs, new documents, manuals, the formation of two committees, two new paid positions, and called for significant modification and additions to existing physical facilities. This is far beyond the capacity of a community the size of Carson City.

With 14 questions, the HSUS report couched suggestions that the cancellation of the foster and volunteer programs should be strongly considered. CCAS has subsequently suspended these programs. Without volunteers and foster care, space and resources become greatly reduced.

Throughout the report, HSUS incorrectly and euphemistically used euthanasia as destroying an animal when there is no space or resources to care for them. While it may be arguably necessary, such killing of an animal is not euthanasia. Euthanasia is ending the life of an animal who is suffering severely from an incurable illness or condition.

Attempted implementation of this plan may slightly improve the lot of a few animals, but will unnecessarily be a severe permanent detriment to many, many others.

I request and implore the Carson City Board of Supervisors and the director of Health and Human Services to extract Animal Services from the massive avalanche of the Humane Society's highhanded bureaucratic report.

Ben Justus

Gardnerville

Unfair budget burden on state workers

I am writing to protest the governor's proposal to continue to use state employees as scapegoats by imposing a 5 percent wage cut and eliminating furlough days.

It is important to note that state employees are already making significant sacrifices by absorbing the previously imposed financial blows of health insurance cost increases, loss of longevity pay, loss of merit pay raises, loss of overtime pay, loss of cost-of-living pay increases and a 4.6 percent pay decrease via furlough days. Our lives are hugely impacted by these measures to save money and, while we readily accept that some hardships are inevitable in this economic crisis, we feel justified in protesting proposals that call for even further erosion of all state employees' livelihoods.

Plans to reorganize certain departments may very well prove to be more cost-efficient. But to continue to target the livelihoods of state workers across the board is unconscionable. Although it may seem appealing as an easy fix to impose a 5 percent pay decrease, coupled with the elimination of furlough days, it would equate to imposing a 5 percent income tax on one segment of the population only, state employes, and that would be patently unfair.

Sacrificing state employees' livelihoods to the goal of a balanced budget does not denote progressive government. Instead, the Legislature should work to develop alternative remedies for repairing the state's floundering economy, even if those remedies are unpopular with the general public or special interest groups.

Jo Ewald

Carson City