Column 71 - For the Democrats 2008 Begins Here & Now

For the Democrats, 2008 Starts Here and Now

Last Saturday I attended the Washoe County Democratic Party’s Precinct Caucus. In his column last week, Jim Clark did a good job of explaining how the Caucus/Convention system works, so I won’t go over that again. As one who values grassroots participation in the political system, though, I have to say I was impressed at what I saw and participated in.

There were about 350 people there from all over the county. County Chair Chris Wicker told me that this was a surprising turnout – they expected around 200 people, maybe 250 at most. There are probably a lot of reasons for the turnout, but certainly the fact that this year, for the first time in Nevada’s history, every constitutional office in the State is, as former Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa put it, “up for grabs.” No office has an incumbent standing for it, and so the races are wide open.

Another factor clearly affecting people’s participation is a deep discontent with what the Republican Party has given us at the national level over the past five years. At a time when even rock-ribbed Republicans like former congressman Bob Barr (R-GA) are questioning the legality of the President’s actions, Democrats who had despaired for their party almost as much as for their country are starting to think it will be possible to break the GOP’s one-party government, and that the state races in 2006 are the place to start a movement toward 2008.

While I was gratified to see what I think are some outstanding candidates for offices such as Governor (Dina Titus and Jim Gibson), US Senate (Jill Derby) and others, I was dismayed to see that there are 8 county offices and 5 state offices with no Democrats declared (I’m not counting Washoe School District Board of Trustees, the State Board of Education, or the UNR Regents). I have to wonder why.

On local offices I believe that party politics don’t mean much. Alan Tiras is standing for Jim Mancuso’s judgeship, and while Alan and I mostly don’t agree on anything at the State and National level, I’m supporting him without reservation in his run. But when I look at Sharron Angle and the damage her Prop 13 mentality could do, I can only stand dumbfounded that no one from my party is challenging her, and the same goes for the Lt. Governor’s office and for the District 4 State Senate seat now held by Randolph Townsend.

So I’d like to say to my fellow progressives that 2008 starts now, and starts here. There is every indication that, at the national level, things are only going to get worse, and if we are going to avoid disaster, we need to start now, and at the State level. The Washoe County Democratic Convention will be held March 11th at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. Our precinct is entitled to 4 voting delegates and as of now has one – me. In addition, any Democrat can and should attend. Go to www.washoedems.org for information. Between now and then, Jim Gibson will be at the monthly meeting of the Incline Democratic Club on February 23 at the Library and I hope you’ll be there to meet and question this candidate for Governor.

On an entirely different and unrelated subject, if you missed Macavoy Layne’s (Joe Tahoe’s) column last Wednesday lamenting the departure of Mary Jurkonis from the Bonanza, you should look it up online at http://www.tahoebonanza.com/article/20060208/Opinion/102080001/-1/OPINION. Mac really said it all, and I won’t try to match his well-known eloquence. All I can say is that Mary did a really remarkable job and did it with ineffable style and grace. I know she still lives here, I know she’s not really gone, and I’m sure Lee Denmark will stand on her shoulders to take the Bonanza to the next level in its contribution to the community. And all that said, we’ll miss her. So long, Mary, and thanks for the cake.

Column 70 - "Pay to Play" or The Cost of Doing Business?

Pay to Play or The Cost of Doing Business?

There has been a good deal of discussion about a number of community issues lately – to wit, the Place Based Planning effort, and particularly the request from TRPA for IVGID’s financial participation, the acquisition by IVGID of land adjacent to the Incline Lake property, putatively to be acquired by the Forest Service under SNPLMA, and (though not as recently) the sale of the Denio property on Route 28 to the Forest Service, also under SNPLMA. We can expect more of the same when round seven of the SNPLMA money comes up.

Any public discourse of this type is, I think, healthy for the community Still there is one aspect of it I find troublesome, and that is the strain of argument that seems to suggest that Incline Village/Crystal Bay can and should act independent of TRPA, Washoe County, and everyone else. I would characterize this line of thinking as naïve, at best.

Since the 1950’s every field of science – physical science, biological science, and social science – has moved toward acceptance of Systems Theory as a unifying principle that extends across all the fields. Simply put, Systems Theory stresses the interdependence of life. Anything that occurs in one sphere can and probably will have wide-ranging effects, and to the extent that we ignore this fact we will be blind-sided by unexpected results of what we do, effects that are sometimes at a far remove from our actions. Conversely, when we take a systems view and look at the dependencies that are affected by our actions, we will be more likely to effect positive outcomes.

The system that is the Tahoe Basin is made up a variety of subsystems – for example we have the high-end residential community where we live, the honky-tonk tourist atmosphere of the South Shore, the wooded and relatively sparsely populated areas of the East and West Shore and the more reserved tourist communities of the North Shore, as well as reserved forest lands. What happens in any of these areas affects all of them, and if you don’t think so, plan to go to dinner at Squaw during the winter or on the West Shore in summer and see if the traffic in those areas doesn’t have an effect on your plans. The Martis fire did not come over the mountain largely due to coordinated efforts at fuels management, and if it had, no one fire district would have fought it alone.

This being the case, to look at the request from TRPA for financial participation in the Place-Based Planning effort or at IVGID’s participating in the Incline Lake development by buying a five-acre parcel adjacent to it as “pay to play” is, I think, short-sighted. We really have a very poor choice in this – the Pathways 2007 effort is needed and proceeding. It is an effort at integrated (system-wide) planning for the Basin, and its results will affect our lives very directly. The Forest Service is likely to purchase the Incline Lake property, and we will be affected by what they do.

Rather I suggest we look at it as an imperative for the future of Incline Village. We must have a voice in the process, and if what it takes to gain that voice is financial participation, well is that so different from anything else in life? I own stock in several companies – my purchase of that stock gives me a voice I would not otherwise have in those companies. I must pay taxes as a condition of my citizenship and residence in the US, in Nevada, in Washoe County, and I must pay fees as a condition of my living in Incline, and these payments give me a voice in how those entities are governed. If Incline is to have an effective voice at the table, it is unreasonable to think that that voice will not have a financial obligation attached.

The alternative is to let Washoe County, TRPA, the State, and the Federal Government impact the quality of our lives and not to have any direct say in what happens. I for one don’t care to risk that.

As for $27 million for the Denio property, well that’s just silly.

Column 69 - Place-Based Planning

With regard to the Place Based Planning effort by TRPA, in my view there are three critical issues.

First, should IVGID participate at all, and why. Along with this comes the issue that the Bonanza called “pay to play” – should IVGID contribute financially to the effort as TRPA has requested? IVGID’s participation really shouldn’t be at issue in my opinion. Incline Village/Crystal Bay does not exist in a vacuum – we live in the Basin and what happens anywhere around the lake affects us. At the same time, we are as different from the other communities around the lake as we are from Reno or Carson City. These two facts make it critical that we participate in TRPA’s efforts to plan a coherent future for the Basin – if we did not participate we will be no less affected by the decisions and regulations that come from the planning process and we will not have been heard in the formation of those decisions and regulations.

As for financial participation, that’s a tougher question. TRPA has budgeted about $650,000 for Pathways 2007, and the $25,000 they are requesting from IVGID is just 4% of the total budget – not an amount that will make or break the project. It’s about .093% of IVGID’s operating budget of about $27 million, so not an amount that will make or break IVGID, either. At the same time, the IVGID Board of Trustees takes very seriously their charge to hold in trust the Village’s assets, including our financial assets, and aren’t inclined to just hand over $25,000, especially when we can expect to be tapped for further funds in the next couple of years.

As a consultant myself, I understand why what could be considered a token amount is being asked for. It is axiomatic in my business that the success of an engagement depends on how much skin the client or clients have in the game. Personally, I don’t think this is an issue – IVGID has so much at stake in the planning process that this amount of money won’t add much to that, and if the Board decides to go with in-kind contribution or no contribution I don’t think it will matter. TRPA can no more afford to move forward without Incline than Incline can afford not to participate – either would cripple the process.

The second issue is leadership. Once again, at last week’s Board meeting, the point that IVGID is charged only with water, sewers, and recreation was brought up. It’s time we retired this canard, which is only trotted out when the Board considers doing something that someone doesn’t like. The fact is that the Board of Trustees has for years taken the lead on issue that affect the quality of life in the Village, both now and in the future – Incline Vision is a prime example – and should continue to do so. As Trustee Gene Brockman pointed out at last week’s meeting, IVGID is as close as we have to a local government, and I endorse their taking on that responsibility. Even if it is beyond the letter of NRS 318, it is certainly within its spirit.

The last issue is more complex. Incline Vision has done a great deal of work already, particularly since the Town Meeting in November, and one might reasonably ask what will happen to this community-based effort when “outsiders” become involved. The other day, while at lunch at a local eatery, I overheard a conversation that amounted to “we don’t need outsiders coming in here and telling us what to do.” I think both of these concerns are legitimate, and both reflect some degree of misunderstanding. In point of fact, the Incline Vision Organizing Committee intended the Town Meeting to provide the impetus that would set the process in motion, and that once the subcommittees were in place and operating, there would be a need to integrate their work into Pathways 2007. Secondly, a consultant who knows his or her business does not “tell people what to do.” Rather, they objectively gather relevant facts and issues and map these onto the commitments and concerns of the client(s) – from this base, they help the clients to determine possible courses of action and to analyze what the outcomes of these courses are likely to be and how well they fit the clients’ intentions. No consultant worth paying would ignore the work Incline Vision has done, but would build on it, and would ensure that Incline’s purposes and concerns were served. Finally, this is not about “winning” or getting our way – it’s about creating a truly collaborative community in the Basin.

The P2007 Place Based Planning initiative deserves our participation and support.

Column 68 - Media Bias

The debate over media bias probably began the day the first newspaper was published, and has escalated ever since. The modern version of this debate could be said to have begun just after Pearl Harbor when President Roosevelt declared that the press of that day was “200% Republican,” but I think it’s safe to say that the issue is more alive today than ever before. A Google search under “media bias” returned 1.9 million hits today, and I suspect that number will be greater tomorrow.

I think there are a couple of significant problems with the notion of media bias. The first is the idea of “the media,” as if there were some organized, more or less coherent body in the way we can talk about “the government” or “the Catholic Church.” In point of fact, there is no “media” in that sense. In using this term we take all the various forms of public discourse – newspapers, television, radio, movies, the Internet, and more, and lump them together. This forms what Kurt Vonnegut called a granfalloon – a group that is thrown together artificially but has no internal connection or cohesion. To lump together such diverse characters and expressions as The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, Fox News, and Slate.com makes as much sense as it does to talk about “Catholics,” or “Hispanics,” or “Republicans” as if all the members of that group thought alike.

The second problem is with the notion of bias. Bias, like beauty, is always in the view of the beholder. I once met David Duke, then Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and he assured me that he was not prejudiced against anyone – it was only those who misunderstood him who called him biased! In point of fact, each of us comprises intellectually and emotionally a point of view from which we see the world. This point of view is unique and not duplicable, and has us see the world in a certain way that, from another’s view will look biased to the extent that it differs from their view.

Finally, we have the notion that the media should be “objective.” No matter how much we may try to correct it, human communication always takes place in a context, and bias is a word that identifies the collective influences that comprise this context. Modern journalists, to the extent that they subscribe to the ethic of objectivity, attempt to correct for bias by (a) distinguishing facts from opinions and (b) attempting to present all points of view fairly. Journalists who fail to do this can be described as biased, and to the extent that they deny this bias or attempt to pass it off as objective reporting as untruthful. This applies, of course, to news reporting. Columnists, editorialists, and op-ed writers have no such obligation and publish their views as such.

So why the debate? Studies of “the media” have shown that, by and large, bias in news reporting, where it exists, is about equally divided between the left and the right, and that for the most part even the most editorially positional publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are pretty unbiased in their news pages. Yet both the Right and the Left continue to decry media prejudice against their side, and the Right in particular has done a good job of selling the idea that “the media” are controlled by the Left, despite the fact that the vast majority of talk shows, etc. are Rightist in their views.

I think that making an issue of media bias, no matter who is doing it, shows a nasty cynicism about the audience for the accusation. The communication is something like “I’m smart enough to see this bias and you’re not, so I’m going to point it out to you.” It is this disrespect for the voting public that has me not listen to talk shows on either side of the political spectrum. The media will report as they do, and the public is smart enough to sort out the nonsense from the gunsmoke. “Media bias” is a non-issue unless we assume that the voting public is too stupid to be able to tell, and we need the likes of O’Reilly and Franken to enlighten us. Those who decry media bias (conveniently ignoring the fact that they themselves are part of the media) are, in my view, arrogant elitists who deserve to be ignored.

Column 67 - Open Reviews

As Mark Twain famously said, when the Nevada Legislature sits, no one is safe.

In the last session, our legislators passed a new law stating that performance reviews conducted by public bodies must be done in open meetings. Locally this means that when the IVGID Board of Trustees conducts Executive Director Bill Horn’s performance reviews, they must do so in an open meeting before the public. At last week’s IVGID Board meeting they did this for Bill’s half-year interim review, and in June they will do it again for his annual review.

Now I’m all for open meetings, and overall I think the Open Meeting Law serves an important public function. There is some awkwardness to it, like when three or more Trustees happen to be in attendance at a function, they have to avoid talking about District matters, but that’s not too bad and the benefits of the law have, heretofore, outweighed such minor inconveniences.

But this new provision is just foolishness. The purpose of a review is to give candid feedback to an employee about their performance so that areas of strength can be built on and areas of weakness improved. Candor requires privacy so that both the reviewer and reviewee can be fully open and honest – a review is a dialogue, not a broadcast, and dialogue about sensitive matters is difficult if not impossible in front of an audience.

My regard for Bill Horn is well-known, and for the most part I think well of this Board. It was painful to sit in the meeting and watch them go through this process. Even though the review was very positive, it was clearly uncomfortable for both the Board and for Bill. And what if it had been less positive? The Board would have been faced with a choice between giving low scores without feedback or giving feedback that could easily be taken out of context and used by people who for whatever reason wanted to gain public leverage against the Executive Director.

In my work with businesses I design, administer, and debrief feedback systems such as 360 reviews, and I have had occasion to counsel both reviewers and reviewees at high organizational levels, particularly when the reviews were likely to be difficult or ill-received. One of the sacred tenets of good human resource policy is “praise in public, criticize in private” so that people have the room to learn, defensiveness is minimized, and people’s dignity is protected. Our legislators, and as far as I know there is not an HR professional among them, have decided that this long-established and important practice does not apply to public employees. And, by the way, not all public employees, just the top rank – those whose reviews are done by public bodies. You see, everyone else in IVGID gets their reviews from their supervisor or manager. Only the Executive Director is reviewed by the Board in front of the public and the people he manages. Insane.

We ask a lot of those who choose to dedicate their lives to public service. They make far less money than they would in the private sector, their work is by its nature much more in the public eye, and far too many people think the fact that these folks are paid with tax dollars means that anyone in the public is entitled to take a shot at them for any reason. But it is beyond the pale when we also require them to undergo what should be a private and personal dialogue about their performance in public.

Some public bodies in the state have decided to forego doing performance reviews rather than subjecting their key people to this indignity – the IVGID Board of Trustees should consider this as a possible course of action until this ill-advised legislation is reversed.

As a Human Resource professional I take it personally when a group of people who don’t, as far as I can tell, know the first thing about good HR practice decide for reasons at which I can only guess to make rules that insult the dignity and privacy of good people. I will be contacting the Nevada chapter of the Society for HR Management and the legislature to do all I can to get this legislation taken off the books. I invite you to contact our legislators if you feel the same..

Column 66 - Nature 10 Incline 0

Nature 10, Incline 0

The storms, floods, snows, and power outages since New Year’s Eve were a reminder, that for all our big houses, four-wheel drive vehicles, etc., nature still has the upper hand. On New Year’s Eve we drove to Squaw Valley, and driving in total, almost eerie, darkness from Tahoe Vista to Alpine Meadows was a sobering experience. As we passed Gar Woods, Wolfdale’s, and other restaurants that were dark and empty on what would normally be one of their biggest nights of the year I was reminded of an old Jewsh saying, “God laughs when people make plans.”

Later, when I heard that Diamond Peak was shut down it brought home how interdependent we are. Power lines come up the hill from Carson City and over from Truckee, and with many of those inoperative, it quickly became a no-brainer choice between running ski lifts or having lights and heat. I wonder if we’ll remember that choice when, at the end of IVGID’s fiscal year, we see the financial impact of having made it. Nature 10, Incline 0.

Almost no individual in Incline depends on nature for their livelihood – we have no farms, no fishing or hunting, and those who do depend on it – gardeners, snow removal folks, etc., are a minority. Yet as residents (and in a GID that means part-owners) of the Village, we all have an interest in the profitability of the golf courses, the ski areas and the beaches. Mostly we are content to leave this in others’ hands to manage for us, but we shouldn’t forget that the vagaries of nature have a big impact not only on the quality, but also on the economics of our lives.

Related to that, there’s been a surprising amount of controversy about the issue of golf course use during the winter. Again, let’s remember that we, the residents, own the courses and derive considerable benefit from them whether we golf or not. The golf courses are a profitable operation, and those profits go to support other aspects of village life. They also attract considerable tourism (and income) to the village in the summertime. The Trustees we elected, with substantial public support, have over the past years upgraded the golf program both in terms of facilities and service, and this means you and I have a large financial stake in their financial success.

Part of this upgrade was to hire people with very impressive professional credentials to manage on our behalf. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that there is an awful lot about managing golf courses that I don’t know, and just as in the businesses I’ve owned and managed I’ve hired people to cover those areas such as finance and IT where I an not an expert, and I’ve relied on their judgment. In the golf case, we have professionals who say that, in their best judgment, some wintertime uses of the courses will be, in the long term, damaging and will cost us enough that these uses would be a losing investment. People who, as far as I know, don’t know as much as these professionals seem to think the pros are wrong. I don’t’ understand that. You don’t have to like their decisions, but those hard choices are what we pay them for.

Just one other thing. One article in this paper , rather fatuously I think, made much of the idea that there was no “scientific evidence” behind these decisions. Right. That’s where we rely on professional judgment – where science doesn’t give us clear-cut answers. Nature does what it does, and in the end we make judgment calls like closing the ski area based on what is likely to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. The golf course decisions fall into that category. Get over it and drive ten minutes to the meadows, the snow is great there.

Column 65 - The Case for Optimism

The Case for Optimism

New Years is supposed to be a time of optimism – we look back over the past year’s successes and failures, and look forward to a better year to come based on what we learned from the year just ended. Some years optimism is more of a challenge than others, but we do our best.

One thing we can learn from 05, I think, is to appreciate the individuals who step up to make the community a better place. In 2005 we lost Jack Cooke and Harold Tiller, to name two without whom Incline would have been infinitely poorer. Hopefully 2006 will see others step up to the plate of the level of selfless community service that these two embodied, and our town will be the richer for it.

In 2005 we saw what I like to think was the end of the myth of apathy in Incline. At the Incline Vision Town Meeting in November 300 people from all sectors of the community turned out on a holiday weekend to create the future of Incline Village/Crystal Bay, and then followed through on that by participating in task forces to make that vision a reality. In 2006 we can look forward to that work moving forward and to all of us having the opportunity to shape the future of our community.

2005 saw what I think is a real turnaround in how TRPA relates to its constituents around the lake. The agency still has its problems and its glitches, but Executive Director John Singlaub has made an outstanding start toward changing the culture of TRPA – culture change is gradual and takes time, but as one who held no brief for TRPA over the years I am optimistic that we will see major fruits of John’s efforts in 2006, so I’m optimistic.

This past year saw the IVGID Board and staff take on some tough issues including bringing the golf course professional staff up to the level of our new golf course, dealing with use of the courses during the off-season, taking steps to create a new cross-country ski area, and an awful lot more that the community barely notices, but without which we would not have the smooth-running infrastructure that makes living here much so great. IVGID Board Chair Gene Brockman and Executive Director Bill Horn have shown that they are more committed to learning and progressing than they are to being right about their positions, a marked contrast to some of the Board Chairs and ED’s I’ve seen since I moved here, and that makes me more than optimistic about 2006.

I had the pleasure during 2005 of interacting with the We the People program at Incline High School and seeing first hand what Milt Hyams and his team have been doing that has had them in national competition year after year, and it gave me great hope and pride in our Incline schools. As long as we have teachers like Milt and programs like We the People, I’m optimistic about 2006 and beyond.

Also this year, though it’s not something I care to do a lot of, I got to experience at close range the services of our local hospital and its nurses and doctors, another cause to be optimistic about 2006.

Our local safety services – the Washoe County Sheriff’s substation and the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District were tested in 2005 as they are every year, and the NLTFPD came under yet another siege by those who can’t see beyond the dollar signs, but we would be a much poorer community without the work of Greg Lubbe, Jim Linardos and their teams. With safety and protection like this, how could we not be optimistic about 2006?

And finally, since I write these columns as a volunteer, I’m free to give Mary Jurkonis, Erin Roth, and the Bonanza a pat on the back for being one of the outstanding community newspapers. Mary won a Jefferson Award in 2005, and it was well-deserved. Adlai Stevenson said “The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty,” and with a paper like the Bonanza, we have reason to be both proud and optimistic.

Column 64 - Workforce Housing

Workforce Housing is a Good Deal for Incline

You run into some interesting attitudes around the North Shore. In last Wednesday’s paper there was a letter from a couple of Incline residents in response to a letter that had been published in the Tahoe World the week before. The letter in the Bonanza was outraged at the attitude expressed by the World writer toward locals – so outraged, in fact, that I had to look up the letter in the World, sure that the Bonanza writers were exaggerating. Well, they weren’t. The World writer, a second home owner, really did characterize locals as no-class low-lifes!

Then there is the Bonanza letter-writer who was outraged (again) at the idea that IVGID would discuss workforce housing. The Bonanza is running an online poll wherein something over 100 people have responded and that is running about 88% to 12% against the idea that employee housing is an employer’s responsibility, and this will undoubtedly be cited to support the view that workforce housing should not be being discussed.

I believe that the question in the Bonanza poll is badly worded. Without question, employee housing is not an employer’s responsibility, legally or morally, but that’s not the issue. At the same time, many employers have, when circumstances made it sensible to do so, provided housing. When I worked in the kitchen at a summer camp, we lived at the camp. When I worked at a hotel in the Catskills, we lived in employee housing and ate in an employees’ dining room. In the military, on-base housing is available, and other examples abound. Why do employers provide housing when they are not, technically required to? Because it is in their interest to do it, ensuring low absenteeism, high employee loyalty, and making it unlikely that weather or other factors will interfere with people being able to do their jobs.

I know from conversations I have had that there are more than a few people in Incline and other affluent areas of the North Shore who would prefer to keep this as the enclave for the privileged that much of the world believes it is. Everyone acknowledges that we need people to work here – to cook and serve and clean in the restaurants and in our homes, to stock the shelves at Raley’s, to fix our cars, tend our grounds and clear our driveways, but do they have to live here?

Yes, I think they do – for their sake and for ours. I am old enough to remember the lily-white suburbs and neighborhoods of the ‘50’s, with their genteel prejudice and their “gentlemen’s agreements,” and I would not return there, nor would I live in such a community in 2005, and it would be naïve to pretend that racism and economic elitism are not factors in the opposition to workforce housing. The editorial in last week’s Bonanza gave the statistics very well – Incline is in danger of becoming a retirement community for the rich and the very rich, and I for one will grieve and leave if this comes to pass.

The vitality and sustainability of our community require diversity – in our schools, in our social life, in our cultural base, and in our town. We need to have those who protect us – from fire and from crime, those who protect our health and safety, and those to whom we turn for services, to be living in the community and caring about the community as only one who lives here can.

Workforce housing is a good deal for the community, our businesses, and for those who will live there. It is short-sighted to oppose it, and those who do, if they are successful, will wind up living in an artificially structured environment with no one to talk to but themselves. More’s the pity.

Column 63 - Christmas

With the coinciding of Christmas, Chanuka, and a National Column day, Jim suggested we write parallel columns commenting on key issues of the day from a Christian and Jewish perspective. Because Jim was going to be out of town, he wrote his column early and sent me a copy. and I was inspired to at least try to match his effort, although if you read his column today you’ll see that that’s not going to be easy – it’s one of his best ever.

I would not expect to find too much difference between what I would call a mainstream Jewish perspective and Jim’s answers to the question “What would Jesus do?” After all, Jesus was Jewish, and at a time when much of what we now consider Judaism was formed, and when I read Jim’s analysis, I didn’t find much to differ with.

Capital punishment has never set well with Jews as a whole – we’ve been unjustly on the receiving end of it too many times, and our involvement in its administration where Jesus was concerned has been a source of unending grief for us. For me personally, I can’t make it make sense from any perspective that I consider civilized, and I can’t reconcile it with modern Judaism, so here Jim and I are of one mind.

Jim seems to think Jesus “would not have much use for unions.” Jews were instrumental in the creation of the trade union movement, and were disproportionately affected by some of the worst labor disasters. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, for example, 146 people died, leading to the formation of the ILGWU. But unions today are not what they were 100 or even 50 years ago, and if the Jewish value that led us to support them was protection of the under protected, I’m not sure they still deserve our support.

The big question, of course, is war. Here the modern Jewish perspective is colored by the case of Israel, which has fought both defensive and offensive wars in its short history. In Israel’s case, I don’t think many Jews would advocate turning the other cheek. The commitment to the destruction of Israel is absolute in much of the Arab world, and it is fundamental to Judaism that the land is ours, promised to us by God. On the one hand, I think most Israelis and most Jews worldwide would prefer to live in peace side by side with our Arab neighbors and with a Palestinian state. That said, if forced to fight to retain what we believe is ours, the past 57 years shows that we fight we will, so I guess I’m more definite here than Jim is.

On issues of hypocrisy, lying, power grabs, and corruption, I don’t think there is any difference at all between the Jewish and Christian perspectives. Similarly, Jim says Jesus was a true believer in universal access to medical care, and I think most Jews would agree. I can’t imagine that any of the prophets would hesitate to take a stick to today’s health care system and drive it out of the temple in favor of easy and universal access.

If you’ve read Jim’s column, you know that he ends it with a twist worthy of Hitchcock on the question of who Jesus would vote for for President. That’s an interesting one. I was brought up to support any Jewish candidate for office just because he was Jewish, and so Jim’s proposal has a certain appeal to me. At the same time, I don’t think that Joe Lieberman just being Jewish is sufficient for me or Jesus to support him. So from a Jewish perspective who should be President? The Prophet Micah said that all that is required of people is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. For me, that narrows the field down a lot, I just don’t know to whom.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Eid al-Fitr, and to all of us, a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful new year.

Column 62 - Gibbons 5

The Man Who Would Be Governor Strikes Again

It’s usually pretty easy to come up with topics for the monthly Sunday column on national issues, but about one week out of three I find myself stuck for anything local to write about that is not too repetitive. Fortunately I can always count on Nevada Republicans, particularly Jim Gibbons, the man who would be governor (TMWWBG), for material.

Mr. Gibbons inserted into a lengthy budget bill in Congress, a measure that would allow mining claim owners to buy land from the federal government for $1,000 an acre or fair market value after undergoing a patenting process. Mining claims exist on 5.5 million acres of public land nationwide, including in national parks and forests. The measure would lift a 1994 moratorium on mining claim patents;before the 1994 moratorium, mining companies could buy public land cheaply and reap huge profits off the minerals. Land speculators also tried to use the patent process to obtain land for other developments, such as ski resorts or condominiums.

Many in Congress and many environmental groups oppose Gibbons’ effort. A policy advisor for the Great Basin Mine Watch was quoted in the Reno Gazette-Journal as saying "We're talking about 58 million acres of public land in Nevada which could be up for sale to foreign corporations, oil and gas companies, real estate developers, anybody who was willing to pay as little as $1,000 an acre," Others have argued that there is nothing in Gibbons’ proposal to prevent the kind of exploitation that the 1994 moratorium was designed to present. I agree that there is real danger here. So do Senators Reid and Ensign, who oppose the effort, which has been characterized by one UNLV political analyst as “grandstanding” on Gibbons’ part in behalf of his gubernatorial ambitions.

TMWWBG has some arguments in favor of his proposal, and while I don’t agree with his conclusions, the arguments he advances are at least reasonable. Characteristically, though, Gibbons places these arguments second to ad hominem attacks on those who oppose him, characterizing them in an interview with the Reno paper as “hysterical.” "They fail to understand the process," Gibbons said. "It is simply hysteria to say all these lands are being opened up for purchase and development in pristine areas. We are working very hard to make sure that doesn't happen." (TMWWBG doesn’t specify what these efforts are – perhaps taking his lead from President Bush, who seems to think that “we’re working hard” is an explanation rather than an evasion.)

Once again, it seems that for a significant number of right-wingers from the national to the local level, disagreement with their views is tantamount to disloyalty, stupidity, ignorance, character flaws, and now hysteria.

I imagine someone could cleverly suggest that objecting to an ad hominem attack is also an ad hominem attack, but I don’t think so – if Gibbons had used this response once, OK, but this is at least the fourth time he has done so. First Gibbons said that anyone who opposed the lavish corporate funding of the Bush Inauguration parties is a Communist.  Next he said people who opposed his position on the Iraq War should be sent to Iraq to be used as human shields, and then he said we should “encourage” people who are on Medicaid to have healthier lives by assigning a watchdog to them to be sure that they have a healthy lifestyle.

It seems clear on the evidence that Congressman Gibbons thinks that he can run for Governor on a platform of attacking those who disagree with him and assuming that the actual arguments for and against his views don’t matter. I don’t know who else will be running for Governor in 2006, but it would have to be someone really awful to be someone I would not vote for in preference to a man who seems to so low a view of the electorate that he thinks vicious demagoguery will get him elected.

Column 60 - Theres an Empty Chair

There’s an Empty Chair

In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare writes “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” For some people that may be appropriate, but for others it would be tragic if that were the case.

I was a member of the Rotary Club of Incline Village for a few years until my work schedule made my participation impossible. During the time I was a member, I noticed that there were a few different kinds of people in Rotary, and I suspect this is true of any service club. There were some who were there for the fellowship, some there for business reasons, and some who seemed to thrive on the opportunities Rotary provided for them to participate in and serve the ideal of making our community a better place to live. Jack Cooke stood out as one of the most active of this last group.

I can’t say I knew Jack very well – we were casual acquaintances – when we ran into each other at parties or around town we’d chat, and Jack was invariably cheerful, ebullient, and positive about whatever his current project or enthusiasm was. In this he was just the opposite of so many people who seem to thrive on complaining and to pride themselves on their diagnosis of what is wrong. Not Jack – for Jack life was a series of opportunities to serve, to contribute, and to make something better.

In a time and place where so many people have to let you know how important or connected they are, Jack was a guy who would take on any job no matter how small, just because it needed to be done. In Rotary one year he encouraged me to be Membership Chair. Jack was a Past President of the club and a past chair of the Membership Committee. He was clearly an elder statesman of the club and if he had done nothing but attend meetings no one would have faulted him – he had done his service. Still, when I asked him to be on the committee and to do induction meetings with new members, he dove in as enthusiastically and energetically as if he was doing it for the first time. Jack was involved with the High School Boosters Club, the Hospital Foundation, the Tahoe Arts Foundation, the Parasol Community Collaboration's Arts and Culture Committee and was a perennial star in the Star Follies. He was a founder of the K-16 Council and was always there to help anyone in the Village who needed help.

When Jack was named the Club’s Rotarian of the Decade this year, a bench was dedicated at Burnt Cedar Beach in his honor. But the real memorial to Jack is all over the community in the people and organizations he touched and helped and in the spirit of community service he embodied. Perhaps the poet Stephen Spender said it best:

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky,
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun, they traveled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.
Stephen Spender, I Think Continually

There’s an empty chair in Incline today, Jack, and you are missed.

Column 59 (National) - Where Are the Progressive Leaders?

Where Are the Progressive Leaders?

For this month’s National column, Jim and I decided to each do a critique of our own parties. Although I take the Progressive Democratic position in this column, I am not what’s called a “Yellow Dog Democrat,” (one who would vote for a yellow dog before he would vote for a Republican). I was dismayed at how my Party and its candidate presented itself in the last couple of elections, and have continued to be very concerned about the future of the two-party system if those on my side of the aisle continue as they have been.

I would begin the critique at the core – for the past six years or so, the Democratic Party has been the Party of “no.” We have defined ourselves by what we are against, not by what we are for, and have ceded to the GOP the ground of being “for” rather than against. In my work with organizations, I teach that there are three positions you can take – for, against, and about (the last is critiquing from the sidelines), that “for” is by far the fastest, most efficient route to creating value, and that organizational leaders who define themselves and their organization by what they are for have more successful organizations than those who are defined by what they oppose. President Clinton, whatever his faults (someday will we be able to mention him without that caveat?), led the country from a positive stance; since the Clinton Administration, the Democrats have stood against Bush, against the deficit, against revoking Roe v. Wade, against ultra-conservative judicial appointments, and lately against the war in Iraq. The Republicans, and I don’t blame them, have seized on this to define us as against the President, against tax cuts, against the “right to life,” against the President’s right to appoint judges, and against the military. The facts, e.g., on judicial approvals don’t’ support these attributions, but they stick in the absence of a vigorous positive Democratic message.

A second, and related criticism is of the lack of real leadership in the party. After losing to Bush in 2000, Al Gore went into retreat. In 2004, John Kerry effectively did the same thing as far as party leadership is concerned – he may already be campaigning for the 2008 election, but he is not doing so by leading the party, certainly not the way I would expect a candidate who lost by the slimmest margin of any election  to lead. Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, Howard Dean? When was the last time you heard from them other than in terms of what they were against or in transparent attempts to position themselves for 2008? Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are as close to leaders as we have.

Finally, I have to fault the Democrats for allowing the national debate to be framed by the Republicans. Understand, I don’t fault the GOP – if I had a clear field to set the terms of the political arena, I’d take it also, but why give it to them? We have allowed the Republicans to stage the debate on the right to privacy with them as “pro-life” and us as “pro-choice,” a thinly disguised version of “anti-life,” in the same way that the NRA has hijacked the gun control issue and made it one of leaving people defenseless in their own homes. Similarly, beginning with the Swift-boating of John Kerry, we have allowed questioning the wisdom of a war we entered under questionable circumstances to be painted as anti-American, unsupportive of the troops, and duped by, if not downright in favor of terrorism. In my darkest hours I have had the thought that any party dumb enough to allow these McCarthyist tactics doesn’t deserve to be in power.

I see some hopeful signs lately – Harry Reid’s calling the Senate into closed session to deal with the leak investigation, John Murtha’s standing up against the war and for the troops, and John Kerry’s standing for Murtha all suggest that maybe we have some leadership emerging. I hope so – right now John McCain is looking pretty good to me.

Column 58 - Fire District

Probably you’ve received emails over the past couple of weeks “Citizens for Cost-Effective Fire and Medical Safety.” The last of these emails linked you to a website that is colorful and professional-looking, though still “under construction.” The emails and the website came from a nltfpd (as in North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District) dot org, and you might reasonably think they were somehow connected to the NLTFPD (nltfpd.net).

In my view, some clarification is in order. As far as I have been able to ascertain, CCEFMS consists of two individuals, probably students of Ovid, who said “we two form a multitude,” but in this context I think calling themselves a group is misleading, as is the appropriation of the NLTFPD domain name.

These two individuals, seem to think that the Fire District receives and spends too much of our tax money. One of them wrote a report to that effect two years ago – the problem is that the methodology he employed in his comparison of the District to other districts was arguable at best, and a number of the facts cited in the report were in error. I’m sure we will see a rehash of this and I will leave a point-by-point rebuttal to Chief Linardos and the Board.

The “group” posts some fourteen “solutions” on their site. These include such things as getting rid of the District’s ladder truck, reducing ambulance transport, and reducing the number of firefighters,. A recurrent theme in the solutions is “the average for a district of our size.” As in so many things, however, size is not the whole story. Many “districts of our size” are surrounded by other districts that can lend aid – we are not. Many “districts of our size” do not deal with houses that are at street level on one side and fifty feet off the ground on the other. Many “districts of our size” do not have houses surrounded by pine needles and highly flammable ground cover, and many “districts of our size” do not provide water rescue, ambulance service, fuels management, etc.

One of these individuals has said that the fact that we have not had a major fire in the Village is due to luck. I don’t think so. We are fortunate to have a Fire District that, from the Chief to the newest firefighter, is composed of top-notch personnel – most of them experienced and long-term servants of the community. We have four ambulances, and we have a ladder truck that allows firefighters to reach houses that would otherwise be unreachable. I guess if I was dumped in the lake or suffering chest pains I could wait for help to come from Reno, but frankly the idea doesn’t appeal to me.

Not long ago, a part-time resident lost her family’s condo to a fire. It took two years to rebuild. For her, those two years were two Christmases with her family that were irretrievably lost. The taxpayers of the District have spoken repeatedly – we want fire and safety service that will protect lives, protect the value of our property, and be quick and effective. NLTFPD is highly rated by the insurance industry – that means you and I pay lower fire insurance rates – reduce the services of the Fire District, and those rates will go up – do you think taxes will go down enough to make that worth it? I don’t.

CCEFMS says on their site that “The condition exists because the board has perceived – correctly so - that the public was unaware of and thus had no interest in their excessive spending.”  That sort of contempt for the public’s intelligence is typical of self-appointed crusaders who think they know better than everyone else what is good for the community. Well, CCEFMS, the public is neither as unaware nor uninterested as you think, and if you don’t believe that, wait and see the support that is rallied for the NLTFPD in the face of your manipulative and dishonest attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes.

Column 56 - Community

Signs of rationality and dialog found on the North Shore

In an unusual confluence of circumstances, Incline has almost simultaneously acquired three new clergy – at St. Patrick’s, St. Francis’ and the North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation. At a time in America and in the world where religion is more divisive than it has been in a long time, there is every indication that these new members of our community bring with them a spirit of fellowship and alignment that is refreshing – indeed, there are already plans under way for an ecumenical Thanksgiving service, something I remember fondly from my childhood, but that I have not seen in my 10 years here in Incline.

Similarly, a group of Incline residents has taken the initiative in creating a series of debates on national and state issues between representatives of the Democratic and Republican sides of the issues – they invited Milt Hyams’ students at IHS to be on the panel, and Milt and his students accepted enthusiastically. At least for the first debate Jim Clark and I will lead the two sides along with another adult and one of the students. The debate will take place on Monday, November 7th  at 7 pm at the High School Auditorium and will cover topics to include the war in Iraq, homeland security, immigration policy, Social Security, and State tax issues including TABOR and Proposition 13,

Finally, on November 12th the Incline Vision Committee of the IVGID Board of Trustees will hold a Town Meeting to set priorities for creating the Village’s future and to create community-based task forces to present plans to the Board for how to implement these priorities. Hopefully we will see a large number of residents from all sectors of the community (yes, we do have sectors, and not just, as the Wall Street Journal would have it, “the millionaires and the billionaires”) at this meeting. There is compelling evidence that diversity-based groups have the ability to come up with solutions to problems that are more creative and intelligent than any individual in the group or even a group of experts could come up with. I’ve been asked to use some of the techniques and models I use with corporations to set strategy to facilitate the process and hope that everyone will come. The meeting will be from 9am to 12 noon at the new Elementary School.

Actually, I hope all three of these events will be confronted with the problem of not having enough room for everyone who shows up. In my last Wednesday column I said that I do not subscribe to the conventional wisdom that Incline residents are apathetic. Rather, I said, I think the appearance of apathy is actually a result of people experienced being disenfranchised or having no meaningful access to affecting the future of their community. In the spiritual/religious arena our local institutions have, for the most part, operated in isolation from each other and while many have done a lot of good for the community, this separation has contributed to an erosion of community spirit. Now in the month of November we have three major opportunities to come together as a community as well as the annual drives by Project Mana, the Children’s Cabinet, and others to gather food, warm clothes, and holiday gifts for those who cannot afford them. This combination of efforts could, if we get behind them, create an inflection point in the history of Incline Village/Crystal Bay in the direction of becoming a true community.

I hope to see you at the debate, the Town Meeting, the Thanksgiving service, and to work with you to have us come together as a community of relationship.

Column 55 (National) - Supreme Court Criteria

Last month I wrote that, while I was not 100% happy with the nomination of John Roberts for Chief Justice, I trusted our system of checks and balances. Now we have the Harriet Miers nomination, and I’d like to address the criteria that I would like to see applied as the Senate exercises its accountability to “advise and consent” on the nomination.

The longevity of democracy in the US reflects the genius of the Framers of the Constitution. The height of this brilliance is the system of checks and balances - the Framers created a system to elect those who make and enforce the laws, and placed those who interpret the laws above the political fray. Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the Executive, vetted and approved by the Legislative, and if approved are appointed for life to insulate them from political pressure.

So I think the first key criterion for a Justice should be that they are not servants of any political agenda, but are committed to interpreting the law in the light of the Constitution, of precedent, and of the world as it has changed since 1789.

A second criterion is that a Justice should know the law, particularly the Constitution, and should be a student of what it is possible to know not only about the Founders’ thinking in framing the Constitution, but also of the philosophy that informed that framing. It is inevitable and desirable that the provisions of the Constitution will be changed to keep up with the times, but the integrity of the United States lies in the changes always reflecting the basic spirit on which it was founded.

A Justice should be mindful of and responsive to the responsibilities of the other branches – this criterion will be reflected more in how a nominee responds to the vetting process than in the content of his or her response. The current nominee’s acquiescence in what seems to be a White House policy of concealment with regard to the interview process raises questions for me about how seriously she and the Administration take the process – first with the Chief Justice and now with Ms Miers, the tactic seems to be to stonewall the Senate and assume that the Republican majority will line up behind the President’s wishes. This may get her approved, but it should be of grave concern to us as citizens.

A judge on the Supreme Court is called a Justice. The dictionary defines justice as the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments; the administration of law;  especially the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity; the quality of being just, impartial, or fair. (emphasis added). So my final criterion is that a Supreme Court nominee should be subjected to tests to determine if they can be impartial, just, fair, and equitable. One of the defining features of the United States from our founding is that we are a country ruled by laws, and not by people. There is a great deal of agitation today to change this, to have us be governed by the views of people – not even a majority of people, but a vociferous minority who would have us believe they represent the majority view. A recent Pew Foundation study indicated that while more than 30 percent of Americans answer to the appellation "conservative," and only 18 percent call themselves "liberal," more than 60 percent take positions that are liberal in everything but name. Indeed, on many if not most issues, Americans hold views well to the left of those espoused by almost any national Democratic politician. Yet a small number of far-right extremists would have us believe that the Conservative agenda is the voice of the people, and should take precedence over law, Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions. Harriet Miers or any nominee to the high court must be someone who places law above personal views and will live up to the oath to protect, preserve, and defend the document that makes the United States what it is.

Column 54 - Apathy

It is pretty much an article of faith among those who are active in Village affairs that (a) the vast majority of Incline residents are apathetic and (b) those who are not totally apathetic are roused only by issues that impact them directly, e.g. golf or dog parks. On the face of it, this position seems reasonable – of 9000 residents, some 20 or 30 show up with some regularity at the Tuesday morning Bonanza Community Forum, and unless there is a hot issue under debate an IVGID meeting or a CAB meeting rarely draws even that many.

But while apathy may be a reasonable explanation for these and other facts, it’s not the only one and it’s not one I am very drawn to. I get around the Village quite a lot and people often talk to me about things they agree or disagree with in my column, or that they just want to discuss. No one I talk to seems particularly apathetic to me, and many of them are people whom I don’t see at the Forum or at IVGID meetings.

I have a few ideas about where the appearance of apathy comes from. First of all, I think we live at a time of deep cynicism about the ability of an individual to make their voice heard in any way that really affects how things are going. We’ve been trained at the national and state level that any advocacy that is not accompanied by large sums of money or large numbers of very vocal people or (preferably) both has no chance, and for the length of the current administration it seems that even that does not help if the position you are advocating is not in accord with the President’s pre-determined agenda. In a state the size of Nevada it isn’t hard to get access to our elected officials, but even at the state level it has taken a massive effort by the Tax Revolt, for example, to get any action at all, and as for the County, we have a part-time representative who also represents other parts of the county, so it seems hard to get heard even at that local level.

Compounding that is the problem of bureaucracy. Government at almost all levels is in the hands of people who were never elected and who are, by and large, accountable only to other bureaucrats and only tangentially to our elected officials. Some people who work in government agencies are great and are really committed to service. Too many, however, fit the stereotype of the officious bureaucrat who cares only for his or her own importance and not for the people they are ostensibly there to serve. TRPA, for example, has had this rep for so long it’s hard to deal with them in any other way.

But here’s the rub. It’s not that way in Incline. Our five trustees are people you see and have access to every day – two of them are regulars at the Bonanza Community Forum because they are genuinely committed to dialogue with the community. IVGID’s Executive Director, who could live at the most remote remove of the bureaucracy, is also a regular at that meeting as is the Director of Public Works, the Fire Chief, the Police Chief, the heads of the hospital, the library, and the Presidential Appointee to the TRPA Board. Even when I lived in a smaller community in Vermont where Town Meeting is the system of government, we did not have this kind of access or public officials this committed to being in communication with the community.

So if you’re apathetic, cynical, or resigned, I invite you to give it up and to start to make your voice heard by IVGID, Incline Vision, the Fire Board, the CAB, and anywhere else where you have something to say. In a community this small, with so many people who are already involved, there is really no reason why you shouldn’t be involved also.

Column 53 - Ice Rink

As I’ve written before, one of the lowest forms of discourse is the ad hominem argument – this is an argument that, instead of attacking someone’s ideas or positions, attacks personally. A singularly scurrilous form of the ad hominem is the “those people” argument. Here, again instead of arguing against the idea, one attacks a real or imagined class of people, lumping those one wants to defeat with others who may not be involved, but who will incur disapproval, casting a negative light on the case being opposed.

Unfortunately, this form of attack is very enticing in a polarized political environment, and I’ve used it myself, to my regret. Not long ago I was having lunch with a close friend of the conservative persuasion and made the mistake of using the “right-wingers think…” form of argument  and that it did not cost me a friendship is a tribute to my friend’s generosity.

So I am saddened to see my colleague Jim Clark attack “how these people [liberals] think” in service of a cause that I support, namely the installation of a public ice rink at the Crystal Bay Club.

I began contributing to the Incline Ice Foundation in 1995 – I still own the car I bought at one of the IIF’s first fundraisers – and was on the Board for a couple of years. I have continued to be called for consultation by Board members, and have kept up on the Foundation’s progress. I think the Crystal Bay solution is an excellent one and have advocated this proposal to the TRPA and elsewhere.

So why turn this local, non-political issue into a partisan fight? The League to Save Lake Tahoe is an environmental organization. Various Republican politicians going back to President Reagan have tried to turn the environment into a partisan issue, but the fact is that environmental concerns cross party and ideological lines – I know Democrats who are rabid anti-environmentalists and Republicans who are “tree-huggers.” I am an environmentalist and have been a consultant to the Sierra Club for several years, but I believe, for example, that the jury is still out on global warming, a key concern of the Club.

And, by the way, in all my years in and around the environmental movement, I have not heard the California Attorney General’s Office referred to as either liberal or environmentalist before. Yet Jim would have us believe that “liberals” are out to stop the ice rink.

None of this makes any sense to me except in one context: Jim is a faithgu Republican, and his party is in deep trouble. The President’s approval ratings are underwater, support for the Iraq war is at late Vietnam levels, Bush’s nominee for Assistant Attorney General has withdrawn for lack of support, he has nominated an inexperienced nonentity to the Supreme Court, key Republicans are under indictment, Karl Rove is appearing before the Grand Jury, etc., etc.

In the face of such trouble both parties have sometimes resorted to the ad hominem attack, but it has been a favorite tactic of the Republicans since 1884 when they labeled the Democratic Party the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” (anti-prohibition, Catholic, and Southern). From Senator McCarthy’s “lists of known Communists” through Nixon’s going after Alger Hiss, to the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry, the use of labels – Communist, Liberal, Socialist, you name it -  has been a tactic of choice.

Well, if turnabout is fair play, I guess we could say that today’s Republican Party is the party of “Cronyism, Corruption, and Incompetence,” but it is also the party of John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and Abraham Lincoln, and I would not say that all Republicans are cronyists, corrupt, or incompetent.

“Liberals” do not oppose the ice rink any more than “Conservatives” oppose the separation of Church and State, and this sort of tactic will not serve the cause of the Ice Foundation.

Column 52 - Gibbons (4)

In the columns and letters I’ve written for the Bonanza over the past couple of years I think I’ve demonstrated that I’m willing to change my position when the evidence warrants – for example, I’ve gone from being rabidly anti-TRPA to a position that I would call cautiously optimistic, and in my work with Independent Incline I’ve gone from being against the city option to saying we should consider it seriously. These changes were occasioned by learning new facts, changing circumstances, persuasion by sincere advocates for the other position, or most often a combination of the three.

I’ve written several columns pointing out why, based on his stated positions and actions, I think Congressman Jim Gibbons is not fit or qualified to be Governor of Nevada. Interestingly, no one has attempted to dissuade me from my opposition to “the mouth that roared,” and yet the media continue to say that Gibbons is the front-runner not only for the Republican nomination, but to win the Governor’s race in 2006. Kinda makes one wonder…

In August, the Reno Gazette-Journal ran a profile of Gibbons as part of its series on the gubernatorial candidates. That article included a short interview with the Congressman in which he was asked “What specifically would you do about health care?” His answer follows:

There are a lot of things that take need to take place. One place where the state has some nexus to it is Medicaid. We need to encourage people to have healthier lives ... . We may have to do more to assign, for example, a nurse to an individual, which would be a homecare-type nurse or doctor that will encourage that person to have a healthier lifestyle instead of using the hospital or emergency room.

OK, so this leading apostle of the party that says the Government should stay out of our lives says that we should “encourage” people to have healthier lives by assigning a watchdog to them to be sure that they have a healthy lifestyle. And to whom should we assign these monitors – to those receiving Medicaid. Medicaid is a program managed by the states and funded jointly by the states and federal government to provide health insurance for individuals and families with low incomes and resources. Among the groups of people served by Medicaid are eligible low-income parents, children, seniors, and people with disabilities.

So, to recap, liberals and environmentalists are tree-hugging Birkenstock wearers who should be sent to Iraq, those who question donations of some $40 million to fund parties at the Bush inauguration are Communists, and we should assign nurses or doctors under Medicaid to monitor low-income individuals’ “lifestyle” choices to make sure they are healthy. And what lifestyle choices might they monitor? Diet, drinking, drug use, weight? And why stop there – after all, sexual choices have ramifications for health as does a woman’s right to choose with regard to abortion.

As is the case with the Administration in Washington’s corruption and incompetence, the Republican Party has a choice to make about Gibbons. GOP true believers may buy that it’s the media and the Left that are out to get Bush, De Lay, Frist, Libby, etc., but anyone with a brain can see that things are too far gone for this to be an unfounded conspiracy. Here in Nevada, the local true believers can continue to point to Gibbons’ military record and call him “a plain-spoken Nevadan,” but thinking Republicans should see that there is at least one other candidate who does not share Gibbons’ inanity and they should run, not walk, to distance themselves from a candidate who can’t control his mouth and whose ideas echo George Orwell’s worst nightmares.

Then again, speaking as a Democrat, maybe Gibbons is the best thing that could happen to us.

Column 50 - City

I’ve been a part of the Independent Incline movement from its inception. The tax impact of various options has been almost the singular focus of the group today. Because the group has focused primarily on Incline’s becoming a county through legislative action, our activity has waxed and waned with the legislative/election cycle.

For many of those on the IIC the issue is taxes, but that may be too narrow a view. To be sure, the disparity between what we pay and what we get back, which I have detailed in earlier columns, makes my blood boil, and nothing but becoming a county will cure that completely. The possibility of incorporating as a city as an interim step has never got very far, particularly since such analysis as was done indicated it would probably mean an increase in taxes for residents.

A number of recent developments and conversations have led me to reconsider my skepticism abou the city option and I have proposed the committee meet to re-look at our position. Right now we have a situation where not less than three groups are looking at plans that will materially affect Incline’s future. The County is encouraging Crystal Bay to go its own way in economic planning, and that is clearly of interest at least to the casino owners there, if not to the residents, to do so. Secondly, TRPA’s Pathway 2007 is in a planning process that has only just now, after almost a year, realized it might be a good idea to engage local input, and IVGID and the CAB began the Incline Vision process a few months ago

I see no reason to trust that the County, in conversation with the casino interests in Crystal Bay have IV/CB residents’ interests in mind. While TRPA’s effort has not realized my direst trepidations, and I am not sure where they are going, their area of interest is the lake as a whole, not just Incline Village. Finally, I have the highest regard for Bea Epstein and the Incline Vision group, but in the end, they will have only as much power as the government of Incline has to implement their plans. In addition, at least one candidate for Governor, Senator Beers, has propsed a 3% cap on budget increases, which would cut back on our public services such as roads, sheriff, etc.

In researching further the powers a city would have, I have learned that there is more to it than I thought and that we as a committee have discussed. Chief among these are land use powers. A city has powers over land use, land use planning, zoning, building codes, eminent domain, etc. that are close to absolute within its borders. For example, we are dependent now on help from TRPA and maybe the County if we don’t want a new Post Office built where the USPS plans to build it – as a city we would have the power to control our own destiny. Given the recent Supreme Court decision on eminent domain powers, this should be of great concern to us. In addition, as a city we would be included on public boards such as the RSCVA, the Airport Board, and others where we would have our own voice.

I am not prepared at this point to raise the “Incline City” banner – a lot more research needs to be done. My call to the committee to reconvene and reconsider the city alternative was made on this basis. I do think, though, that the issue needs to be considered from a broader perspective than taxation alone – from a business perspective any prospective expense should be reviewed against the potential benefit, and ways to offset those expenses should be considered. For example, as a city what would we be entitled to in terms of returns on our taxes from the County, what could we realize in city taxes on resort and transient accommodations, etc. Again, I’m not recommending we do any of this now, but rather that we study the matter fully and see whether the return on investment in terms of local control and protection might not be something that would make some small increase in taxes worthwhile to Incline residents. Make your voice heard.

Column 50 (National) - Katrina

Hurricane Katrina has ripped the façade off the Bush Administration as easily as it ripped the roof off the Superdome. There are a few true believers for whom their hero is right and who would not be shaken in the face of divine revelation. Aside from those however, it is hard to imagine how anyone who has been a Bush supporter can maintain their position in light of (a) the Federal Government’s unbelievably inept response to the cataclysm and (b) the President’s characteristic dissembling, spinning, and irresponsibly taking care of his friends.

Since the Nixon impeachment, the GOP, with the complicity of much of the media has done a masterful job of blaming the Left for everything from poverty to abortion to drugs. Indeed, in the wake of Katrina, according to the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, the Department of Justice sent an email to US Attorneys that can only have had the intent of gathering “evidence” to blame environmental groups for the hurricane damage. The difference this time is that, unlike the non-existent WMDs in Iraq, the biased recount in Florida, and other concealable lies, the Administration’s ineptitude in responding to Katrina was impossible to cover up. Notwithstanding that, the Right would have us believe that, somehow, the President’s “cutting his vacation short” by a couple of days after days of non-action, his rushing Condy Rice to the Gulf from her New York vacation, and his ringing endorsement of his pal “Brownie” for “doing a heck of a job” constitute a response. Never mind that Brown had no qualifications for the job, even after lying about his experience. Now, of course, the President would have us believe that he barely knew “Brownie,” just as he “barely knew” Kenny-Boy Lay after the Enron scandal broke.

Now the Administration is rushing to cover their tracks with money the government doesn’t have – the President says we will do whatever it takes, but he has said nothing about how we will pay for it. The plan they are designing turns the Gulf Coast into a field day for the usual Rightist agendas and cronies – Halliburton for rebuilding, private school vouchers to undermine public education, abandonment of environmental regulations, abolition of wage standards, and yet another tax cut for the wealthiest.

And most astonishingly all this will be overseen not by experienced planners or development, but by Karl Rove, the quintessential political operative whose involvement in the Valerie Plame affair has never been accounted for.

The most damning part of all this is what it exposes about how little this President and this Administration understands about how the vast majority of Americans live. The President’s mother goes to the Astrodome and sees it as fortunate for those forced to stay there in squalor, separated from their families. Tom DeLay goes there and asks a young African-American child if it’s not like camp. After 9/11, the wealthiest victims got more compensation than those who were less well off. Here those with means got out and are staying with family or in hotels while the poor get the scraps.

When money is on the line, cronies always come first for this President, who calls himself “the CEO President,” but who has a consistent track record of crashing and burning every time he had something to run. I doubt that anyone but the true believers takes seriously any more the President as a “uniter” or his “culture of life,” but if he has a shred of decency Mr. Bush will see that in a culture of life, all human life must be valued. This country, and the 90% of its people who earn less than six-figure incomes needs compassion, competence, integrity, and heart. What we have is cronyism, poverty, and a government that cares only for the 10% that fund it and its pet projects.

Column 49: Tax Caps

In his column last week, Jim Clark appeals to knee-jerk reactions and a surface analysis to get us to favor tax caps. On the face of it, tax caps sound like a good idea. After all, here in Incline our property taxes keep going up, don’t they? Well, not exactly. Actually, our assessments keep going up, and property taxes are based on assessed value. For this reason, the Tax Revolt has wisely gone after unfair, irrational assessments. With a tax cap, assessments will keep going up, and the disparity between the property tax we pay and the assessed valuation will get greater and greater.

But what will happen to people who pay taxes on properties with lower assessed valuation? Their valuations will also also go up, though not as quickly, and so will the taxes they pay. In other words the effect of a property tax cap, when taxes are based on assessed valuation, is a tax that disproportionately favors those who own more expensive properties while providing no relief to those whose properties are worth less.

Also, what services are the proponents of tax caps planning to cut? The net effect of tax caps is that revenues to the state will decrease – taxes on high-end, fast-appreciating properties will level off, and the increase in revenues from taxes on low-end, slowly-appreciating properties will not be sufficient to cover the loss. As a result, some tax-funded services must suffer. Property taxes go to fund education and other services. Clark says “prophets of doom…are already predicting that children will die of starvation and the elderly will be thrown out in the cold if these Scrooge laws are imposed.” In my research I have not found anyone saying anything even close to that.

Here is what I have found: while no states have been bankrupted by tax caps (another non-argument the Right likes to “rebut”), in every case there have been significant service cuts. Proposition 13 in California directly resulted in cuts in mental health care that closed a number of hospitals and released thousands of patients - these released patients form the core of the homeless in cities such as San Francisco. In the 1970’s, California’s education system was number one or two in the nation. Prop 13 was passed in 1978 and California’s primacy in quality education was lost.

If there is a lesson from Hurricane Katrina it is that we must be responsible as a society for the least fortunate among us. The Republican administration dragged its heels, content to see those with the means to get out of New Orleans save themselves before doing anything about those too poor or infirm to help themselves. The danger in tax caps is that we will once again “save” those with means while ignoring those with less.

Jim wants to make the issue here the supposed “absolute authority” of the legislature to raise taxes, but this again is Republican sophistry. The Nevada Constitution, like the US Constitution, includes a system of checks and balances. The Governor has the power to veto legislation, whether to check profligate government spending or to block inappropriate tax measures, and the courts can overrule both the government and the legislature. In addition, both the Governor and the legislators are elected and subject to voter pressure. Jim and his cohorts want us to believe that the power of the electorate to overrule tax caps affords better protection than that provided in the Constitution, but this is again a canard – Prop 13 in California, for example, cannot be overruled, and even if a tax cap bill includes this possibility, the system of voter initiatives is cumbersome and meant to be used in extreme cases, not as an ersatz substitute for checks and balances.

In considering the question of tax caps it is critical that we think about this and not buy into the Right’s assumption that we are too dumb or too shallow to think about the real issues.