June 29, 2022, R-C Letters to the Editor

Congratulations, Dave Price

Editor:

My most sincere congratulations to former R-C writer Dave Price on being inducted into the NIAA Hall of Fame.  Not only did Dave cover high school athletics but covered local youth sports and organizations with the same enthusiasm and dedication which he was known for.  Dave brought his immense knowledge of each sport he covered as well as his zeal for the heart of individuals, whether player, coach, official, or administrator.  I will always be blessed and honored that Dave wrote his last story before retiring on my wonderful and loving wife Debbie and the legacy she left with 

Carson Valley Little League. Congratulations my friend, it is an honor well deserved.

Bruce Jacobsen

Minden  

Engels defends his record

Editor:

I read that letter in The R-C by Markus Zinke.

I have no idea who he is. He claimed I have done nothing since being a county commissioner. Well, Zinke here are a few items I managed to pass while representing our county.

1. I fought against the Lake Event Center (along with Dave Nelson) to keep our county from paying for that Event Center. The county is now indebted $35 million to build that thing thanks to Penzel, Walsh and Rice.

2. We dissolved RDA2 that was property tax money being diverted to the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority to build the Event Center.

3. Discontinued commissioner meetings at the Lake saving $150,000 a year.

4. Brought forward and passed the Open Space /Golf Course closure ordinance. This took three years.

Got two additional deputies for our sheriff.

Brought forward the legislation to set a moratorium on Vacation Home Rentals at the Lake.

Brought forward the Airport Road and Parking lot fix that is under construction now. This took over two years.

When I became a commissioner the county accounting system was a disaster. Month end closing, bank reconciliations and subsidiary ledgers were not being reconciled. We hired a CFO and outside auditors and everything is now corrected.

I called for a Grand Jury to investigate Tiregate.

I voted no on every housing project...check the record.

Established County Code Enforcement Department -None existed prior to this.

Initiated a program with the Nevada Film Bureau and NNDA to bring movie production companies to our area. So far, the Hallmark Channel has been at the Lake and another production company has been in Minden.

My proudest achievement was naming a street Axelson Way in Genoa in honor and respect for Gold Star Family Donne and Corkey Axelson of Genoa and their Navy Seal son Mathew.

There are other items like water, sewage, traffic etc. but I don’t want to bore you.

So Zinke, why don’t you run for commissioner?

John Engels

Douglas County Commissioner

Pleasantview

Thanks for the support

Editor: 

I want to thank everyone who voted for me and supported my campaign. I had fun meeting new people in our great county. To those that voted for me, I will not tell you to vote for Roberta Butterfield or David Burns in the general election. I urge you to meet both candidates and hear what they have to say. Vote based on your own critical thinking and with your heart. I look forward to being a bigger part of this community and meeting even more people.

Nick Brashears

Gardnerville 

School Board race uncivil

Editor:

While attending Town Hall meetings regarding the Douglas County School Board members, it has become clear that some members of the Board have earned the reputation of being uncivil.  My experience at the June 14, School Board Meeting is evidence this reputation is well deserved.

During this meeting, the Board considered a motion regarding extending the Superintendent’s contract.  When the Board Chairman invited public comment, I made a statement in which I opposed extending the contract to 2025.  The motion was passed unanimously by the Board members in attendance.  The Board recessed, to reconvene at 5:30 p.m. for further “Public Comment.

When I began to depart the high school building, I was accosted by Board Member Robbe Lehmann.  He approached to within 2 feet of me, chewing food, and began speaking saying “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  I said “how dare you get in my face and begin talking with a mouth full of food.  You need to back off.”  His response was, “Back off, what do you mean back off?  You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  I asked, “Did you not just vote for a motion to extend the contract of the Superintendent to 2025?”  His response, again was “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  

He then changed the vector of his verbal assault: “You don’t have children or grandchildren in Douglas County Schools.”  Now, there is no way Lehmann could have known whether or not that is the case.  Moreover, it is irrelevant.  I, as a citizen and taxpayer in Douglas County, have an obligation to help maintain the sanctity of our education system. 

In the recent campaign for election, School Board Candidate David Burns’ campaign signs were repeatedly, illegally, defaced, apparently by supporters of Roberta Butterfield.  

Sadly, moving toward the General Election in November, we voters can expect to see the School Board proponents of Critical Race Theory, Social Emotional Learning, and Diversity-Equity-Inclusion, Robbe Lehmann, Heather Jackson, and Roberta Butterfield, conducting campaigns characterized by efforts to obfuscate the issues, present convoluted arguments intended to confuse us, and con us into supporting indoctrinating rather than educating our children.  Beware of bullying tactics.

DeVere Henderson

East Valley

Facts scarce in letter

Editor:

Facts were scarce in Lisa McGuffin’s R-C June 22 letter to the editor “analyzing” the upcoming Douglas County school board election. Buying in to opposition rhetoric doesn’t count as research.

She negligently imputes intentions to challenger candidates David Burns, Susan Jansen, and Katherine Dickerson that they never expressed: “to implement strict censorship that stifles debate and discussion in the classroom” and “to remove books from school libraries that don’t agree with their point of view.” For the record Burns, Jansen, and Dickerson have spent a great deal of time interviewing teachers and principals about their concerns and challenges. They have carefully reviewed teaching materials and have heard directly from parents.

No call for any “censorship” on the part of the three candidates named appears anywhere in their platforms.  What does come up is their objection to the availability of material of a sexual nature that is inappropriate for the age group for which it is being designated, or the promotion and availability of material that presents far left political ideology as unquestionable, rather than as ideas up for discussion.  Children shouldn’t be sexualized or indoctrinated in our schools

McGuffin says that the Butterfield-Lehmann-Jackson slate “recognizes the need for social and emotional learning to provide all students with the tools and resources they need to handle today’s challenges,” claiming that “student mental health problems are at historically high rates.” Those high rates may be true, but social and emotional learning has been weaponized in the educational world to weaken the importance of the nuclear family.  SEL substitutes its own far left “values” for those the student is taught at home. Traditional values and religious beliefs are viewed as bigoted or immoral ways of thinking.

Burns-Jansen-Dickerson are for making sure parents are kept in the loop and that the school isn’t undermining the family dynamic. Schools may need more staff councilors to address disturbed students’ needs, but it’s only common sense that school staff should involve the parents as quickly as possible, not rely on group therapy of a sort (SEL) for solutions. 

You may have seen the picture of the vandalized large David Burns campaign sign we ran in the R-C a few weeks ago. The vandal stupidly tagged the bottom of the sign “pro school,” a line associated with the BLJ slate. Taking them at their word, it should be noted that the BJD slate is “pro student,” “pro-parent,” and “pro-teacher.”  In the BJD group there is a total of more than 75 years of teaching experience.  In BLJ there is zero.

Let’s hope that Douglas County voters see through the “we see nothing amiss” mantra of Butterfield, Lehmann, and Jackson.  Schools everywhere are under attack by leftist activists. Think twice before you put the BLJ “do nothing” slate in charge of the Douglas County school board.  

Lynn Muzzy

Minden  

Young women should wake up

Editor:

To all you younger females of America in particular: You can thank God America had the forward-looking, humanitarian, and equality-oriented federal legislators for Title IX of 1972. If such a bill was to come before the present national congress it would more than likely not get a single Republican vote. And don’t bet your present Title IX rights on it either, because you would probably lose them.

Most Republicans want to send you back to the kitchen and producing little babies, particularly if you are of the white race. If you think I am exaggerating, then you are not watching what happened on 1/6/2021. The Republican-led juggernaut of 1/6/2021 was not intended just to destroy America by overthrowing this modern democratic governmental jewel and sacred constitution. That was the first of many steps that would (and very possibly will) follow. Among these would be the destruction not only of democracy but all the humanitarian accouterments of true democracy such as Title IX. Let’s Destroy Title IX and any and all rights women have gained in American society for equality since 1776. If you think I am joking or exaggerating, you are asleep at the wheel of life. Wakeup.

If you think that the anti-abortion movement, which was inaugurated over the years by the Republicans in and out of congress, is just about abortion, you better think again. SCOUTUS is now being led by five of the six Republican appointed Catholics who have their sights set on stripping American women of every human right they can conceive. Fortunately, I am not a woman and do not have to directly suffer this back-pedaling of human rights and human progress. But, all of us are going to be paying. I do feel for you. Do you feel for yourselves and for all women who are going to be losing their hard-fought rights? I will admit that your loss is everyone’s loss.

The Republicans in all state and federal legislatures are out to strip women of every right they have achieved in American history. It doesn’t take a genius to see and figure this out. There are present Republican politicians who make this proclamation totally and unabashedly. Beware all you girls and young ladies, the old school Republicans, male and female, are coming after you. You are to satisfy men and have babies. This is your primary purpose in life. Do it and shut up about it!

Bottom line: every Republican who stands for Trumpism stands for various degrees of and outright unreserved sexism, racism, antisemitism, neonazism, fascism, totalitarianism, and yes even man’s inhumanity to man in its many crude variations. 

As many progressive and former Republicans are now proclaiming, the Republican party as it now exists must be totally dismantled and rebuilt. Sorry to say, I was one of them until Trump came along. I bailed immediately, and proudly, and have never looked back. I will never come back to the Republican party regardless of what it does. It is a party of destruction.

Gary Barr

Gardnerville Ranchos

Disagreeing with Hartman

Editor:

Reported faults and shortcomings of someone really should be balanced with valid attributes and achievements. Life happens to be that two-way street. 

Jim Hartman’s 6/25 Appeal commentary however, quoting “Bolton, Barr, Esper etc.“ and their negative aspersions on President Trump in their “books,” made himself one of those very “bricks“ in a “wall” serving only to further divide. (Numbering the books’ pages even?!)

The amazing accomplishments of a remarkable and unique U.S. President deserves an equal heap of gratitude at most.  The comment that Barr at least “appreciated Trump’s tenacious battling” was a minimal acknowledgment. 

Our most honorable “Republican” legislators are indeed always striving to “look forward - not back” in ongoing efforts to secure future elections and expose very legitimate - not “illegitimate election fraud claims.”  Mr. Hartman’s comments after viewing the video “2000 Mules” would be most welcome. 

Maybe it is time to “turn attention to younger presidential prospects who will fight for conservative principles.”  Maybe President Trump is just a little tired of it all and has earned a well-deserved rest. 

But not as a result of “books used as bricks” to shatter what was more good than bad in an unprecedented four short years. Books which will sell to line pockets — at the expense of invalidating what once really did make America great again.

Joy Uhart

Minden

What’s next from the Supreme Court?

Editor:

With the stroke of a pen, the conservative fear of a massive expansion of government overreach was realized when the Supreme Court ruled that government could control the bodies of menstruating women. The first step into enslavement is control over one’s body.   With the stroke of a pen, the Supreme Court took that first step...  devaluing the mental and physical health of women, valuing only her womb.

With the stroke of a pen, we became the Divided States of America. In some states women continue to be free to live their spiritual beliefs.  In other states women must now live by the religious beliefs of others.  In some states people are still considered innocent until proven guilty. In other states women may now have to prove their innocence if they experience a spontaneous abortion/ miscarriage or if there is fetal death. At the discretion of government officials, these naturally occurring events, could now be considered criminal child endangerment. 

Clarence Thomas has issued a call for increased government control to expand this overreach to all states. He wants to eliminate your right to privacy and your right to engage in whatever you choose to do between consenting adults.  He’s targeting the LGTBQ community, he’s targeting birth control. He’s targeting you. What next of freewill will be subverted in the name of pro birth?  Will you still be able to buy condoms or be free to choose to have a vasectomy? Will spousal rape be sanctioned because women are subject to their spouse, another religious belief?

The means used to achieve your goal matters.  More than one Supreme Court justice lied to Congress in order to be voted to the Supreme Court.  Maybe it’s time to hold them accountable for lying their way into a position of power. Pro birth is not pro life. It can be but too often pro birth is just pro control of women.

If you’re celebrating this decision, the foundation of your happiness is built on intimidation, violence, and murder. It’s built on devaluing and dis-empowering women; on dominating and controlling another person’s free will and subverting it to your choice; on ignoring their mental health and physical risks (USA has the highest rate of maternal mortality than any other developed country).  Claiming freedoms for yourself and denying those freedoms to another is wrong. These should not be the means of your happiness or the means by which we cherish the miracle of life. The means by which a goal is achieved matters.

This decision is not supported by almost two-thirds of our country. When victims decide to stop being victims, bullies have nowhere to play.  Step up. Vote. With the stroke of a pen we can reject these means and find other means to uphold the sanctity of life. 

Joan Costa 

Gardnerville