To the Editor:
Mesquite, Nevada Mayor Al Litman in his Splash Pad article seems concerned about criticism he and the city council receive from citizens.
It is untrue that the “blog site” he refers to are a “few in the community that will never be happy.” Hundreds of people write and comment on that site every day. Articles range from veteran stories, legislative activities, water concerns, health and social issues, student loan issues, educational reform, etc. Stories and comments are local, statewide and national in scope.
Mayor Litman suggests that those writers and commentators are overly concerned with Mormons and Bundy. The Mayor is concerned since he and the City Council spent taxpayer dollars sending a lobbyist to the state legislature to testify in behalf of the Bundy land grab effort. Certainly, he is trying to defend the recent council decision to cut Gold Butte in half (privatize), end wilderness protection and allow unlimited motor vehicle traffic damaging sensitive land.
The blog site, a member of the Nevada Press Association, published The Book of Bundy, The chronicles of a Welfare Cowboy. That product represents a reasonable sample of references to the Mayor, council, Mormons and Bundy. Twelve authors wrote 59 stories over one year. They received 3,645 comments from 200 individuals totaling 236,861 words in the 487 pages book. The term “Mormon” was used 53 times (.02 %). Mayor Litman received five mentions (.002%). City Councilman Kraig Hafen received 18 mentions (.08%). Being mentioned less than 1 % of the time does not constitute an obsession to find fault with Mormons, the Mayor or members of the city council. Remember, Bundy is a statewide and national story as well as a local one.
The Mayor wants the public to believe that the 1931 Prevailing wage Davis-Bacon act contributed to the excessive splash pad price tag. Yet, his own survey of splash pad costs (also following Davis-Bacon) were considerably less than the Mesquite adventure.
The Mayor fails to mention that the Splash Pad project included a local taxpayer match, and future local operating expense from the local budget. Remember federal CDBG dollars are also taxpayer dollars.
Competent elected officials know that giving away taxpayer money and creating debt does not stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the local group keeps accelerating the debt, with the splash pad, and by gifting some $400,000 + to a start-up business to do “economic development.”
The whole point of this article is to bring to light the fact that no matter what the citizens are concerned about the Mayor gets offended.
Mike McGreer
Mesquite
YOU are offended Mayor Litman? How about the taxpayers of Mesquite being offended by your poor decision to hand over the contract to build the splash pad to a Mormon with no experience in building such a venture? The children of Mesquite deserve better! The splash pad is dangerous having been poorly designed and executed using cheap materials. Any splash pad at least has pool deck coating on the cement! You better hang up a, “use at your own risk” sign soon or Mesquite will be paying out big bucks in lawsuits.
The mayor is a thug- he tries to muscle and bully anyone with an opposing viewpoint .
And all the other players in the mayor’s posse- geno,rapson,hafen all operate the same.
Cannot wait till the next election,although we have to wait longer- they changed the next election to give themselfs a longer term.
The leagacy of the littman crew will be a taco bell and a few more dollar stores.
And oh yes- the new car wash.
I hope the next election clears out the littman crew and gets new,young blood in here instead of a mormon yes man and his mormon crew.
The only sanity we have is Green and Delany- and they are muscled and out voted .
What a leagacy- taco bell,a few dollar stores,a car wash and a make work mormon project- the splash pad.
And you thought MAYOR SUSAN WAS BAD- looks pretty good now-lol
I like to be well informed. I like to look at issues from all sides. I have heard of this “blog” before and inquired about it but, no one responded. I ask again if someone would enlighten me to the name of this blog so I can fully understand some of the issues discussed here.
SPLASH PAD CLOSED ! ( 8:30am 07-11-2015) now who pays to repair the free government money? or Mesquite tax payers? Not to mention park benches, tables and garbage cans removed from the park and put inside a lock Splash Pad that are not accessible to the people who use the park!