LETTERS: Yucca a dangerous waste of money

To the editor:

Here we go again. We start thinking the Yucca Mountain Project is dead, and a band of congressmen led by Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois uses its Easter recess to try to resurrect it (“Yucca Mountain gets yet another look,” April 10 Review-Journal). These elected officials are just looking to dump their benefactor-driven toxic waste in our backyard while couching it as an “investment in Nevada.”

From Yucca Mountain’s inception, it was never an investment in Nevada. It was preying on the perceived politically weakest state, hoping to make it the landfill for all the other states’ inconvenient toxic material. I wish Rep. Cresent Hardy, R-Nev., would have looked up the history of the project before he let himself be a part of this charade. Despite the fact that this area is part of his district, he is just discovering that “there is a tunnel” at Yucca Mountain and “there’s science behind some of this stuff.” So much for a Nevadan’s education.

I am very sorry the U.S. government has wasted $15 billion on this project. It isn’t the first time taxpayer money was wasted, and it certainly won’t be the last. For starters, it will take another $30 billion to $50 billion to make Yucca Mountain viable. But to now couch it as a means to provide jobs, educate our children or trade for water rights is just cynical and disturbing.

I would wager that very little, if any, of that first $15 billion went to educate our children. We chose to spend it on mining and gaming subsidies, rather than creating an intellectual mecca. We chose to use it to attract tourists rather than building a community and helping families. Some would argue, however, that’s all in the past.

What I want now is for our Nevada politicians to answer this: Who will we be educating if just one of those trains derails on its way to Yucca? We will all be dead or gone, and no one will ever come here to gamble.

I am with Nevada Sen. Dean Heller on this one. Let’s stop these political sideshows and send Rep. John Shimkus on a tour of Illinois sites where he can dump his toxic waste.

BEVERLY K. LENNY

LAS VEGAS

Education reforms

To the editor:

This so-called year of the “Education Session” in the state Legislature is a complete disappointment. Whether legislators embrace Gov. Brian Sandoval’s plan to increase business license fees or the alternative of Assembly Bill 464, the approach is to throw more money at education without any meaningful reforms.

Education is no better than its teachers. The key to improving education is the ability to terminate ineffective teachers in a timely manner. Currently, terminating ineffective teachers is so arduous that administrators cannot spend the necessary hours to do so. Enter the 2015 legislative session, with Republicans controlling both houses. Democrats bow to the teachers’ unions; Republicans do not. Now is the time to pass meaningful legislation through which ineffective teachers could be fired and replaced.

I taught high school English for 23 years in Clark County and was department chair for three years. Teaching was an eye-opening education, as was chairing the department. While many teachers are competent and hard-working, others are not. Effective teaching is extremely time-consuming, so why spend the hours planning, grading, improving on past lessons and calling parents if no consequences await the uninspired? No one fears the current policy of three more evaluations.

My husband worked in the private sector for more than 40 years. He agreed to manage a problematic territory provided he could replace employees as he deemed necessary. He worked individually with troublesome employees, giving guidance and direction, and implementing corrective action. He was not capricious. Employees knew the expectations, which were achievable. Some employees responded positively, some did not. Some quit; some were fired. This should be the model for education.

JENNIFER ANDERSON

HENDERSON

Municipal election turnout

To the editor:

Speaking for the hundreds of political volunteers, Republican, Democrat and independent, who spend hours making phone calls, going door-to-door and doing anything else they can to publicize candidates, I was appalled to find that a pathetic 14 percent of registered voters in Clark County actually voted in the April 7 municipal primary. This is unfortunate on so many levels.

Clark County municipal elections are routinely held in odd-numbered years immediately after congressional and presidential elections. How dumb is that? There was a bill in the Assembly to change future municipal elections to November of even-numbered years. It was supposedly being mulled over but now is dead.

Speaking directly to those state legislators, some of whom I happen to know personally and who won their races last November, I humbly suggest that it’s time to stop mulling things over and fix the problem. Future candidates are depending on you.

NORMAN C. YEAGER

HENDERSON