Even if cooling tower looks like a fountain, it still might not waste water

The cooling tower at One Queensridge Place that looks remarkably like a copy of a fountain at Versailles is no mere fountain. So says the city of Las Vegas.

As I suspected, city officials agreed with the developers of the luxury twin towers with spectacular views that the "fountain" is part of the cooling tower augmentation unit.

After two $160 citations, one in October, the other in November, plus my column in December, the parties met and the city agreed with the developers that the fountain was part of the cooling system. Even an exemption permit was unnecessary. As a result, the Las Vegas Valley Water District decided not to fine the developers as water wasters.

When you drive by One Queensridge Place at the corner of Rampart Boulevard and Alta Drive, the fountain may look and sound like just another fountain, the kind that the water district sought to ban when it enacted water restrictions in 2003.

But it's not.

So the next time you drive by the "not just a fountain," don't believe your lying eyes.

SECURITY FREEZE: If you're like me, you meant to fill out those forms so that nobody could apply for a credit card in your name without your being notified. And then you didn't do it.

But if you're over 65, now it's FREE. Instead of costing $10 per person per agency to apply for a security freeze at each of the three credit bureaus, now it's the price of three stamps for seniors.

Claudia Collins, associate professor of aging issues at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, forwarded me the forms and will do the same for you. If you contact her at collinsc@unce.unr.edu, she can e-mail the documents back. Otherwise, you can call Heidi Petermeier at 257-5588, and she will mail you the documents.

As a bonus, Collins is throwing in a new form, one you can submit to the Direct Marketing Association to ask to be removed from their member mailing lists.

That will cost $1 (check only) for processing and Collins said it cuts down hugely on the number of unwanted catalogs. Of course, it also stops the catalogs you want, so you have to restart those.

This time I'm doing the security freeze, even though, since I'm not 65, I'll have to pay $30 to notify the three leading credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

The way it works, your credit is frozen. However, if you want to open a new credit account, you may have to go through some extra steps to unfreeze your credit. A security freeze isn't convenient for everyone, but if you have all the credit you want or need now, this is a decent way to protect yourself from identity theft.

I wrote about this consumer tip in August 2006. This time, I'm not procrastinating. I'm doing it. Really.

Tomorrow. Or the day after.

BLIND DISCRIMINATION: You may not remember Ronald "Butch" Bussen's name, but he is the man, blind since birth, who in November 2005 sued the state, the Bureau of Services to the Blind, and Howard Castle, then deputy chief of the bureau.

Bussen claimed the bureau discriminates against the blind. He was a Blind Services client in 2001, and a vocal critic of the bureau, yet at the end of 2002 was hired to work there. He worked at the bureau for not quite one year before he was fired while still on probation.

His attorney alleged Bussen was harassed and discriminated against because he was blind and openly protested the bureau's practices.

I wrote about his lawsuit in January 2006, along with another discrimination lawsuit against the state by Mae Courson-Long, a rehab counselor at the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, who also is blind. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had given both Bussen and Courson-Long right-to-sue letters.

Courson-Long's case was settled for an undisclosed amount.

Bussen settled for about $155,000, the amount equal to his back pay since he was fired, plus, the state paid $100,000 for his attorney fees.

Of course, there was no admission of wrongdoing by any state official. There never is in a settlement.

But if $255,000 in tax dollars exchanges hands, wouldn't it seem somebody did something wrong?

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.