Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2013

Eagle Valley provides a good public service

John, since you brought this up again, I am responding to your “Man Bites Dog!” commentary. Apparently, hazards are not only on the golf course!

I am a taxpayer. Part of my taxes and fees pay for the free water going to our local golf courses. Silver Oak is private developer golf course. Why should I pay for his free water? Especially now, since our water fees are going up to pay for upgrades to the reclamation plant? I am not really complaining about the free water Garth Richards gets for his course. I have no problem with that. Reclaimed water has to go somewhere. But I am appalled that he (or you) continues to lament about Eagle Valley. Eagle Valley is a public course and has done much to service the community by providing good service to the public. They have upgraded and made many needed repairs to the course and club house and made it user-friendly.

What has Silver Oak done for the community? What incentives do they give to promote golfing at Silver Oak? What community events do they sponsor? Garth Richards needs to get over it! He created the golf course to increase the value of the homes he built around the course. Good for him. But he needs to make his course friendlier to the community. Maybe then he can have a successful golf course. I would golf there if he would offer some special deals.

Margaret Konieczny

Carson City

Safety a bad example of needless spending

A recent commentary in the Nevada Appeal by Ron Knecht attempted to validate his opinion that police and the rest of the public sector have increasingly decided that no cost to taxpayers is too great to mitigate any small risk or provide any minor benefit.

His first example was the use of a second police officer to cover the “motorcycle cop” delivering a ticket on a traffic stop. While he admits that there is always potential danger in police work, he claims that this is not a high-risk situation. Really? Even routine traffic stops can turn out to be anything but routine, and I believe having another unit at the scene of a vehicle stop is not an “unnecessary cost” but is a valid and appropriate use of resources.

I do agree with him that there is certainly a need to curb the rising cost of government services and regulations, and there is no free lunch, but his statement about police and the rest of the public sector is overreaching. There are many areas of over-regulation and waste in taxpayer-supported services that can be addressed, but using police, and all public service employees as his primary example is inappropriate.

Doug Campbell

Carson City

Obama’s policies have our nation in turmoil

The phrase “The solution to the problem is not with the government, the government is the problem” rings true today more than ever before. I feel we need a federal government but only for national defense, aid to the elderly and problems that arise that the individual state governments cannot solve themselves.

We should have term limits to allow younger people to get into politics. The Legislative branch should be required to be part of any system they devise. If this was so, Obamacare would never have been enacted. They should not be allowed to exempt organization like labor unions. They should not pass any laws that would cause any organization like churches to go against their beliefs like offering birth control devices or performing abortions.

If Obama had not been elected, we would not as a country be in the financial mess we are in. Instead of standing behind Israel and worrying about a nuclear attack from Iran, we concern ourselves with Syria which is engaged in its own civil war. We should not be sending foreign aid to Arab counties who hate and despise us.

I can understand that the abortion issue stands on the premise on when life actually begins, but late-term abortion should be a different issue. When a fetus is so well developed to be able to survive outside the womb without life support, it should be considered a person. It should still be allowed to live just because the mother does not want it. My main contention about the abortion issue is what right does anyone have to dictate whether a potential life or a fully-developed person has the right to life?

Neil Powers

Carson City