Celebrating School Choice Week in Nevada
Governor, CCSD superintendent, parents point to the need for educational options
It’s School Choice Week, and across the country advocates of parental choice are shining the spotlight on options that yield effective and accountable education.
In Nevada, where school choice is often shackled by partisan politics, political jockeying and legislative kick-the-can, parents, leaders and school-choice advocates are celebrating the state’s recent strides toward more parental control over their children’s education.
Recently, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, and Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, a Democrat, appointed two staunch school-choice advocates to the Silver State’s newly established State Public Charter School Authority.
Transcending ideological and political differences, Nevada’s 2011 Legislature created the Charter School Authority to both authorize and oversee high-quality ...
CJCL to represent Amargosa Valley church camp after U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service negligently floods it
Camp pastor: “This is the exact same government I fled in Cuba.”
Victor Fuentes (above) stands on his Patch of Heaven property in Amargosa Valley, NV. (photo date unreliable).
LAS VEGAS — In 1991, Victor Fuentes swam seven miles from the Cuban coast to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, seeking political asylum in the United States and escape from Fidel Castro’s Communist regime.
Today, however, Fuentes is once again facing intrusive, abusive government power: An autocratic U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service illegally rerouted two streams that historically flowed through his Pahrump church camp. Less than three weeks after the rerouting, the stream overflowed the poorly engineered new banks during a rain storm, producing destructive flooding and severe property damage at the camp.
“In Cuba, I ...
Who are ‘John Does 1-10’ in monorail-bond lawsuit?
Mutual fund group looks to hold them financially responsible for securities fraud
LAS VEGAS — Just who are the Las Vegas Monorail’s “John Does 1-10”?
Currently unknown, they nevertheless are being sued — along with Citigroup — for alleged fraud in the monorail’s bond sales.
So says the September lawsuit filed by the Lord Abbett mutual fund group in New Jersey federal court.
According to the complaint, these “individuals and/or entities … are liable for damages suffered by” the fund group, but their “identities are presently unknown.”
What is the prospect that these “presently unknown” individuals or entities will ever be identified? Or — to ask the question a different way — what is this “John Doe” ploy, anyhow?
In securities litigation, naming of unknown “John Doe” defendants ...
Monorail bondholder sues for fraud
State of Nevada, monorail board members, casino execs could face liability lawsuits
LAS VEGAS — Critics of the selling of the Las Vegas Monorail project and the State of Nevada’s role in it have long predicted that someday the whole affair would end up in court, the subject of fraud litigation.
That day has come.
Citigroup — which the State of Nevada hired to be lead underwriter for the issuance of the monorail’s state-approved bonds — is being sued for fraud.
According to the complaint, Citigroup’s official prospectus for the $600 million-plus bond offering in 2000 failed to disclose a highly material report — one that “seriously undermined the reliability of” ridership projections that Citigroup and monorail backers were using to convince investors that the monorail ...
CCSD trustees show change of heart on Policy Governance
Long-time supporters increasingly sounding like critics
LAS VEGAS — For more than a decade the Clark County school board has governed under Policy Governance® — the trademarked governance paradigm that Drs. John and Miriam Carver promote and for which they sell training services.
However, for nearly just as long, CCSD trustees’ allegiance to the paradigm has drawn fire. Critics asserted that trustees too often have used it to evade their responsibilities, avoid accountability and disempower their constituents.
What allows such charges is the fact that the Carvers’ approach hinges upon separating “issues of organizational purpose (ENDS) from all other organizational issues (MEANS).”
This means, according to the Carvers’ website, that “Policy Governance boards demand accomplishment of purpose, and only limit the ...
Ratepayers tapped for a $4.4 million early Christmas gift to City of Las Vegas
Taxpayer money on green projects will return to government ‘in the long-run.’
KYLE GILLIS/NEVADA JOURNAL
NV Energy Senior VP Tony Sanchez (left) presents the $4.4 million check to City Councilman Bob Coffin (right) and Mayor Carolyn Goodman (center)
LAS VEGAS — NV Energy officials presented the City of Las Vegas with a $4.4 million rebate check Tuesday, but it was state ratepayers who were actually funding the check.
So far, $113 million has been paid out for more than 1,300 solar projects across the state under the electricity monopoly’s “SolarGenerations” program, according to spokesman Tony Sanchez.
The program was established under NRS 701B, a mandatory solar-energy incentives law passed by state legislators in 2007, and then amended in 2009. It ...
‘A total lack of common sense’ at health district?
Legal defense fund president weighs in on Quail Hollow Farm fiasco
OVERTON — It was a story that made headlines across Southern Nevada.
The Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) descended upon a banquetfor fresh-food enthusiasts in Overton, Nev., and forced the hosts to pour bleach on the meals, making them inedible.
The supposed problem at Quail Hollow Farm? The food — coming, as it did, right off the farm — bore no stickers saying it was “U.S.D.A. certified.”
When news reporters contacted the district and sought an explanation or justification, Supervisor Susan Labay claimed she and the inspector she’d been directing over the phone at the farm had had no choice.
“I don’t necessarily have the choices that everyone thinks we ...
Legislative ‘police powers’ said to trump U.S. Constitution
Attorney: ‘Justiciable controversy’ allows Supreme Court to run foreclosure mediation program
CARSON CITY — The attorney for homeowners in the Wells Fargo v. Renslow case defended the constitutionality of Nevada’s controversial Foreclosure Mediation Program on Friday, asserting that the Legislature’s “police powers” during an emergency trump the U.S Constitution’s contract clause.
“In response to the crisis created by the down-turn in the real estate market coupled with the vast number of questionable loans made by lenders, the Nevada legislature enacted legislation modifying the requirements for a lender to use [Nevada’s] non-judicial foreclosure process,” wrote attorney Carole Pope in her response.
“A clear emergency existed that required attention to protect and promote the welfare of Nevada’s citizens as well as ...
Despite repeated promises of backers, government takeover of monorail looms
Taxpayers will be on the hook for casino-bosses people mover
The Las Vegas Monorail — despite years of protestations to the contrary — is still seeking a shotgun marriage with Nevada taxpayers, hearings in U.S. bankruptcy court confirmed this week.
Moreover, the odds of monorail insiders accomplishing their long-held goal of making Clark County government take the system over appear to be growing ever stronger.
In that effort, the monorail appears to be succeeding — by failing.
In 2006, the casino-servicing “nonprofit” quit paying on its $660 million debt — while continuing to pay lavish salaries to insiders like CEO Curtis Myles III. His annual compensation over the five-year period, 2006 through 2010, averaged $350,631.
Now, the monorail’s remaining tier-one bondholders — desperate to minimize ...
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