Letters to the Editor Feb. 4

Editor:

I protest the staff reduction at the community's beloved and vulnerable animal shelter in Douglas County " from originally five staff members to three.

That is a 40 percent cut in just two years. Beginning Feb. 7 they will have one kennel staff person to clean kennels and feed up to 26 dogs and puppies, plus several cats and kittens twice a day, provide ill animals with medications, handle gently the pregnant momma dogs and cats, and keep the kennels hygienic to prevent the spread of possible contagions.

I am sure that the county administrators think the loss of one kennel maintenance staff person is not crucial but because of previous retirements and unfilled positions, this is now 25 percent reduction of the current staff, leaving only three staff members.

There is now one caring, laudable animal services officer to regularly patrol the roads and streets for stray dogs so they don't get into trouble or hit by cars, traveling routes to TRE, to Stateline, throughout the Valley and to Indian Hills.

The supervisor/animal services officer has to deal with her constant supervising duties which includes watching the budget closely. She works with the volunteers, including DAWG members who take the animals to veterinarian appointments, groomers and adoption events.

The volunteers walk and play with the homeless pets 365 days a year.

The staff tries to answer your phone calls about your lost pet, barking complaints, taking a found pet report, renewing dog licenses, helping with reports of a dog running loose on the highways, and hopefully still do an adoption.

Our community expects the shelter to be open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. But no longer. Beginning Feb. 7, the shelter will be closed Sundays and Mondays, hurting families trying to reclaim their pets who got away from their homes. The shelter hours of service are cut on Tuesdays through Friday, closing at 5 p.m. so you no longer can pick up your recovered dog after work. Saturday hours will be changed to 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

How will you feel when your lost pet is found, safely brought to your animal shelter and you can't get it back because it's closed when it used to be open. It's sad and scary, but the opportunity to adopt and save the lives of homeless dogs and cats will be significantly reduced as well.

The Douglas County Animal Shelter which has not had to put down a single dog or cat in its care for lack of space in nine years, nearly unheard of among municipal shelters of any size.

Animal shelters care for living, dependent creatures, hoping to return to their homes or adopt into new homes. Please take the time to write your commissioners and county manager. Tell them what the animal shelter means to you, that you want them to rehire the employee, to not allow for a reduction in service days and hours and that the community cares about the homeless pets in its animal shelter.

Diana Furness

Minden

Editor:

If Douglas County is so financially strapped, we don't understand the following:

One week we read where Douglas County hired a new assistant county manager at a salary of $84,000 to $118,000 per year.

A short time later we read where Douglas County has laid off three employees and frozen many vacant positions.

Why would Douglas County hire another high paid assistant county manager when everyone knows how bad the economy is? Economic recovery is a long way off and it will take many years for the county revenues to return to where they were.

Why?

David and Jody Mallory

Gardnerville

EDITOR:

Many thanks to the entire staff of Evergreen Gardnerville Health and Rehabilitation Center for the excellent care I received as a patient.

All of the employees at this facility have the best interests of the patients at heart. There are many great adjectives that describe their thoughtful care, and everyone benefits in different ways. It seemed like I had a personal cheering squad working to get me home.

Perhaps the corporate staff office should contact state officials for a full explanation of this unfair rating. Fortunately, staff members continued their same level of caring support.

In my opinion, the one star is a "Gold" star.

Delores Nielsen

Minden

Editor:

Help me, I am still confused. Maybe I am not the only one. Since Obama won 52.9 percent of the vote, that means 47.1 percent voted against him. Adding to this all the people who did not bother to vote, doesn't give Mr. Obama any kind of a mandate. Looking back to last November, I can understand the people who didn't bother to vote and also the confused ones. The American voter did not have a clear choice. Mr. Obama's slogan during the campaign was: Change, change, change. Toward the end of the campaign, John McCain kept echoing that same slogan: Change, change. Just before the election, John McCain went to Washington, D.C. to rubberstamp the biggest bailout in American history. By doing so, he did not act like a conservative Republican; he acted like a liberal Democrat. Again, the American people did not have a choice.

How can we "change" that? We have a two-party system that has served us well for over 200 years. Somewhere along the way something went wrong. We now have a liberal Democratic Party with a conservative wing. We have a Republican Party that is becoming more liberal every year. Spending and taxing seems to be the order of the day in both parties. We don't have to look any further than to the state of California. There we have a Republican governor that has given California the biggest deficit the state has ever had. What a far cry from Ronald Reagan.

How can we solve it? I really don't know, but I do not believe that we can afford a Democratic Party that only knows how to spend and tax. We can not afford a Republican Party that is essentially a Democratic Party wrapped in a Republican cloak. We also do not need a bunch of other parties, Green Peace, Libertarians, etc. History has shown us what too many political parties can do to a country. Just look to Italy and France after WW II. Here is my suggestion: Let us re-name our two parties. We could have "The American Liberal Party" and "The American Conservative (or Constitutional) Party." By doing so, our two parties would be forced to live up to their name, and the American people would have a choice.

Dieter Hoffmann

Coleville

Editor:

In Lynn Muzzy's letter of Jan. 30, he states his payroll earnings should have a higher claim than coverage for Medicare and Social Security.

How would a senior face an expensive disease such as cancer or any long-term illness without Medicare? Would extra earnings instead of Medicare and Social Security coverage pay for a long hospital stay or several trips to a specialist? I wonder how many seniors would give up Medicare and Social Security coverage for the extra bucks.

It seems that good conservatives have also been fighting Social Security since the Roosevelt administration of the 1930s. Where would many of today's seniors be without this safety net? Probably deciding whether to eat, heat their home, or purchase medication.

Mr. Muzzy goes on to ask if wanting to pay lower taxes is a sin. His Gov. Gibbons is presently answering this question with all cuts and no new taxes, that will gut Nevada education to the bone. Since Nevada is the lowest, nationwide, in state funding for education, Gibbons proposes to cut deeper into many levels of our educational system. How low can you go? Can we get below $214 per child? Perhaps we can regress to the one room, red school house.

Lynn Muzzy compliments Assemblyman Settelmeyer's common-sense approach to our problems. Unfortunately, his approach is not beneficial to most of us. He is mainly concerned with lowering taxes. This is the conservative method to curing all our ills. The present day thinking of the Republican Party in Congress is to let the lowering of taxes (which will again, benefit mainly the rich) recreate the millions of lost jobs. Do you honestly think that a continuation of the Republican trickle down theory will pull us out of our present day debacle? If you believe this to be our main solution for economic stability, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you. It sounds more like a call for the beginning of a 1930s Hoover depression.

Harold Zaroff

Minden

Editor:

Politics has reached a new low in America. Who would have expected a tax evader to be appointed to oversee the IRS? And both of our Nevada senators voted to confirm Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury, a man who "forgot" to pay his taxes for four years. Shame on Harry Reid. Shame on John Ensign. One would expect U.S. senators from Nevada to hold to a higher standard of ethics, but apparently not. So now the precedent has been set: If you "forget" to pay your income tax, you won't suffer any penalties because it must be a "mistake." Don't take my word for it. I got that advice from the top.

David Thomas

Gardnerville Ranchos

Editor:

A huge heartfelt thank-you is going out to the Knights of Columbus Council No. 12845 of St. Gall Catholic Church in Gardnerville for their generous donation of $1,000 to the breast cancer resource center at Carson Valley Medical Center. This donation will help fund the wig services that the breast cancer resource center offers.

The Knights of Columbus Council has been organized in Gardnerville for eight years. In that time they have donated over $90,000 to the church and community. Some of the other charities the Knights have helped are City of Refuge, U.V. Signal for Skin Cancer Awareness Foundation, Kids and Horses, Boys & Girls Club, Carson Valley Community Food Closet, and Austin's House.

The Knights of Columbus host bingo nights at St. Gall Church Pastoral Center every second and fourth Friday of the month. Doors open at 6 p.m. and bingo starts at 7 p.m. Everyone is welcome. Please join them. For more information about the Knights of Columbus, e-mail John Solt, grand knight of Knights of Columbus Council No. 12845 at jlsoltnv@aol.com

The Breast Cancer Resource Center at Carson Valley Medical Center is a nonprofit organization that provides women and men who have been affected by breast cancer with education, information, resources, materials and most importantly, support. For more information contact Susan Sanford at 782-1656 or 267-4308.

Kim Lewis

Gardnerville

EDITOR:

I am very pleased with all the recent concerts the Carson Valley Arts Council has been bringing to Carson Valley.  With many of us staying home more often it is nice to have such good entertainment right here in town for a very reasonable price.

I was impressed with the Great Basin Brass group that performed at the CVIC Hall in January. I didn't know what to expect from an all brass music group. I pictured parades, football games and picnics. To my delight I was serenaded with romantic, energetic and humorous songs of all types.  It was amazing to see what four highly skilled artists can do with four brass instruments. I love music of all types so it was an evening of new and lovely melodies.

I can't wait to hear the sounds of Kaweh, (Feb. 6) a group exploring rich acoustic guitar and international music. Their Web site says we should hear influences of Latin Jazz, Rumba Flamenco, Brazilian, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern in their music. We are lucky to have such easy access to this explosion of sounds known as world music.

Thanks for all the work the volunteers at the Carson Valley Arts Council have done to bring us this fabulous array of entertainment. I look forward to this and many other concerts in the future.

Judy Larquier

Carson City