13 minute read
News
from Feb. 9, 2012
Joni Wines 1926-2012
Four days before the 32nd anniversary of her recall from office, former Nye County sheriff Joni Wines died at Lake Tahoe.
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Wines became sheriff at a time when corruption and an old boy’s network reportedly ruled the county. Women seeking changes drew Wines, a grandmother, into the race for sheriff, and she was elected in an upset over incumbent Jay Howard in 1978. Though not the first woman sheriff in the state, she was the first electedwoman sheriff.
But as so frequently happens in small county corruption cases, the resulting turmoil alienated the public, and soon Wines was facing a recall petition. (Earlier, Lyon County District Attorney John Giomi, who reported a bribe attempt by Joe Conforte, had been defeated for reelection.)
Wines’ tenure became ensnarled with a rivalry between established brothel owner Bill Martin and a new and more successful brothel owned by Walter Plankinton. In June 1978, Martin paid arsonists to burn down Plankinton’s Chicken Ranch brothel and was later murdered himself.
The brothel battle proved irresistible to out-of-state reporters, resulting in wide publicity of the Nye County turbulence, which exacerbated the sheriff’s political problems.
After her recall by a 1,228 to 979 vote in February 1980, she and her husband left town in the dead of night. U.S. Justice Department investigators pursued the corruption investigation and achieved some convictions, but the biggest targets were never indicted.
Wines later ran unsuccessfully for governor and the U.S. House and was appointed to the Nevada Ethics Commission by Gov. Bob Miller.
The saga became the subject of Jeanie Kasindorf’s book The Nye County Brothel Wars/A Tale of the New West, described by a New York Times critic as “splendid … a taut account of a chain of vicious acts perpetrated by a group of toughs,” and of the fictionalized 1981 CBS movie Incident at Crestridge, which starred Eileen Brennan as Wines.
Wines was 85 when she died at Lake Tahoe.
Taking aim
At least one Nevada liberal group is assuming Mitt Romney is going to be the GOP presidential nominee. Either that, or they are trying to soften him up in the state to help Barack Obama get a weaker Republican opponent—the strategy Obama’s campaign keeps pushing.
Progress Now Nevada put up an anti-Romney website tailored to Nevada—specifically, to home foreclosures (Nevada has the highest rate) and Romney’s record on the issue, along with a few other economic matters. It can be found at http://forecloseromney.com.
Deja vu
State legislators and the governor are not the only officials that failed to finish their reapportionment work.
At the University of Nevada, Reno, the Sagebrush reports that the reapportionment of the student Senate has gone undone.
Reapportionment is easier at this level because, unlike the Legislature, no geographic districts are required. Senate seats are apportioned one to a college and then by number of students after that, so that the college of business administration, for example, has one automatic seat and two seats representing its “population.”
Like the state’s legislative and U.S. House seats, the UNR dispute involves friction between executive and legislative branches. According to former student Sen. Sean McDonald, the last couple of student body presidents have failed to submit reapportionment plans to the Senate.
And, as in the case of the state, judges—in this case, justices of the student judicial council—are considering stepping in and doing the job.
Trump trumps Romney
Billionaire Donald Trump has taken credit for Mitt Romney’s Nevada caucus victory, though he claim’s it’s unidentified others who credit him.
“And a lot of people are giving me credit for that and I will accept that credit,” Trump told Fox News.
It’s the second time Romney won the Nevada caucuses. Trump did not explain how Romney won without him in 2008.
Long lines
The West is heard from in the GOP
“You must have a government-issued photo I.D.,” Tom Dickman said at Sparks by Republican caucuses held at Dilworth Dennis Myers Middle School. “ACostco card will not work [laughter]. No one can vouch for anyone.” This is a relatively new ritual. For most of the past 150 years of statehood, no one needed identification to attend a Republican—or Democratic—caucus. No one, after all, would try to crash a precinct caucus. The real problem was getting people to attend at all.
Eric Redli Romney supporter
But that was before Republican leaders developed the technique of preventing low income people who don’t have identification and would probably vote Democratic from voting in real elections. And the GOPcaucuses must now set the example.
Most of the people attending the caucuses at Dilworth Middle School in Sparks never heard Dickman’s remarks. He was speaking in the front hallway, which held only a few dozen people. Most of the participants were outside standing in a long line.
This school has a footnote role in Republican history. In the early 1960s, GOPstrategist Karl Rove attended seventh, eighth and ninth grades at what was then Dilworth Junior High School. Rove might not have felt comfortable at these caucuses because so many of the participants wanted a candidate who could appeal to the moderates Rove did so much to drive out of the party. An ABC News survey of Nevada caucus-goers indicated that the quality they cited most in a candidate was an ability to defeat Barack Obama. Among the 44 percent of caucus participants who felt that way, 74 percent voted for Mitt Romney.
Eric Redli, who is retired from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department, attended the Dilworth caucus with his wife Midge. He went to his first caucus four years ago.
“The first time, I was curious to see what the process is,” he said.
This year, he and his wife attended to support Romney.
“Mitt Romney’s got the tools, the moral character, the core values to get us out of this mess, and being a CEO of companies and so on, he knows what to do,” Redli said.
Romney and Ron Paul had volunteers at the site from out of state to distribute literature and give sales pitches, which freed their in-state supporters to attend their caucuses.
“Well, you know, we got to get the constitutional message out for Ron Paul,” said Paul backer Scott Macintosh of Pacifica, Calif.
Helen Sealey, a local resident, was working for Gingrich, who was running on a shoestring in Nevada and had no money to bus volunteers in. She caucused after proselytizing for her candidate.
There was some sentiment for a presidential primary election at Dilworth. According to our interviews of participants, those who want a presidential primary are those who attend the caucuses only in presidential years, suggesting they are less interested in the Republican Party organization. (Caucuses are held for party business in every even-numbered year.) Those who attend caucuses in non-presidential years tended to be happy with the existing system.
The special election held in 2001 to fill a vacant U.S. House seat in the Northern Nevada district cost $536,000. The secretary of state’s office is trying to work up an estimate for a statewide presidential primary. Secretary of State Ross Miller said he expects it will come in somewhere around $1-2 million.
One man at Dilworth wore a white T-shirt that read in part, “We the people want a real American President…” Just italics were not enough—italics and underlining were combined.
What was most interesting about the Dilworth caucus-goers was that the participants had virtually no interest in the matters that so occupied journalists. They didn’t care whether Nevada made a splash nationally, whether advertising money helps the state economy, or even whether the candidates visited Nevada personally. They treated the caucuses as earnestly as an Election Day, as a step in choosing a president, and they took the role seriously. Each vote was cast as though it would determine the nomination.
Eric and Midge Redli, right, waited in line at Dilworth Middle School to be admitted to their Republican precinct meeting.
The long count
Romney finished slightly lower statewide than in 2008, 50.1 percent compared to his earlier 51.1 percent showing, though he had fewer opponents to split up the vote this time around. And he had essentially the same dynamic as in 2008—only one active opponent, Paul. Gingrich and Santorum tried to slap together late Nevada efforts, but Santorum spent only $12,000 on cable-only television advertising. Gingrich spent nothing. Romney spent $371,000. Personal appearances were the main sign of Gingrich and Santorum campaigns. (Among Mormon voters, who made up 26 percent of the GOPcaucusgoers, Romney received 91 percent compared to 95 percent in 2008.)
Paul, who matched Romney nearly dollar for dollar in TVads ($350,000) in Nevada and poured everything but the kitchen sink into the state, gained only 5 percentage points over his 2008 showing (18.7 to 13.7 percent)—and in the process lost the second place he won in ’08 to Gingrich. Romney’s opponents had begun verbally hedging their bets on Nevada before the caucuses began, but it was less than credible coming from Paul. He had thrown everything into winning what he considered the receptive territory of the Silver State, appearing personally time after time over the months. If he could not win Nevada among Republicans, it’s hard to imagine where he could win a primary or caucus, much less what state he could carry in a general election— and if Dilworth was an indication, winning against Obama is vital to Republicans in choosing a nominee.
Dickman declined to provide the Dilworth results, but individual caucus-goers interviewed indicated that Romney did well among the precincts represented at the site. “Ours went for Romney,” one said. Statewide, 32,864 people caucused.
If the Nevada Republican Party’s decision to report its vote count through Twitter and Google was designed to show how the private sector can count votes better than government election offices, it was a fiasco. The caucuses were held on Saturday. By Sunday morning at 9, only 70 percent of results had been released—and those were five hours old. Not until about 2:30 Monday morning was the count complete—and it reported Romney’s percentage incorrectly, depriving him of a tenth of a percentage point.
Thr delay led to some bad journalism as some writers extrapolated from misleading early returns. The first returns showed Paul in second place, leading to a Huffington Post article under the headline, “Ron Paul Poised To Finish Surprisingly Strong In 2012 Nevada Caucus.”
After Gingrich moved into second place, he held at 26 percent for a while, producing inflated coverage of his showing. He finally dropped to 21.2 percent.
The slow count allowed one fringe figure, South Dakota Constitution Party leader Lori Stacey, to post an article on the DC Examiner site accusing the Nevada Republican Party of a “corrupt system” without any substantiating evidence except the delay. At another Examiner site, a Mark Wachtler ran an article headlined “Paul camp cries fraud over Nevada Caucus results.” The article contained no information supporting the headline and no quotes from anyone representing candidate Paul.
The Nevada party’s decision to release its results on Twitter allowed people to post some acid comments alongside the partial returns. One read, “We’ve seen developing countries where folks lining up to vote with purple thumbs do better.” (The comments were later purged from the site. They were recovered and can be read on our Newsview blog.)
“I don’t know why they didn’t just post them on the state Republican website,” said one GOPstate legislator. In fact, the final results were posted on the state website, not Twitter or Google. But the state’s website has usually been fairly stale. It did not have caucus information until very late in the game and well after the Washoe County Republican site. Ω
FINAL NUMBERS 2012 NEVADA REPUBLICAN CAUCUSES
Romney 50.1 percent 16,486 votes
Gingrich 21.1 percent 6,956 votes
Paul 18.7 percent 6,175 votes
Santorum 9.9 percent 3,277 votes
Helen Sealey Gingrich supporter
Participants at Dilworth checked a diagram to find where their precincts were meeting in the school.
PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS
Community service
The city of Reno is offering the Reno Citizens Institute, which will allow residents to see how tax dollars are spent and how they can be more involved in the process of making decisions. Several classes pertaining to the local ecology are available, including Parks, Recreation and Community services on March 13, Reno Fire Department on March 20, and Public Works on March 27.
Apply for the program at www.renogov.com. Registration deadline is Feb. 22.
Take a hike
Instead of the ol’ dinner date, take your loved one for a Valentine’s Day hike instead. The Tahoe Rim Trail hosts the Sweetheart Sunset snowshoe hike on Feb. 14. Participants will meet at the Ophir Creek Trailhead and hike to the Tahoe Meadows Ridge Overlook to watch the sunset over Lake Tahoe. The three mile trek starts at 4 p.m. and is expected to last three to four hours. It’s also free, and wine, sparkling water, cheese and other goodies will be available. Sign up by emailing jaimes@tahoe rimtrail.org or call 298-0012.
Ent-approved
Alumna Keira Hambrick, from the University of Nevada, Reno’s literature and environment program, was recently published in the anthology Environmentalism in the Realm of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, edited by Chris Barrata.
According to the description of the book, “The essays analyze important literary works to yield an understanding of how they address the environmental issues we are facing today and the solutions that these works present to ensure the sustainability of our natural world and, in turn, the sustainability of humanity. With topics ranging from the dangers of industrial progress to the connection between environmental degradation and the destruction of the individual, and from the environmental dangers posed by capitalistic societies to ignored warnings of ecological crises, the essays tactfully analyze the relationship between the environmental themes in literature and how readers and scholars can learn from the irresponsible treatment of the environment.” Check out the book on Amazon.com.
For more information
1-800-QUIT-NOW
Supported by the Nevada State Health Division (NSHD) through grant numbers 3U58DP002003-01S2 and 5U58DP002003-03 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NSHD or the CDC.
—Ashley Hennefer
ashleyh@newsreview.com
ECO-EVENT
Sierra Nevada College and the Tahoe Environmental Research Center of UC Davis will host the lecture “Two Billion Cars: Driving Towards Sustainability.” Drs. Dan Sperling and Tom Turrentine from UC Davis will present their research and ideas for renewable energy projects. Feb. 23, 5:30-8 p.m. No-host bar opens at 5:30 p.m. and the program starts at 6 p.m. $10 donation requested. Sierra Nevada College, Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences room 139/141. For more information, call 775-881-7560 or visit www.sierranevada.edu/TERC.
Got an eco-event? Contact ashleyh@newsreview.com. Find more at the Green with NV blog, www.newsreview.com/greenwithnv, and on Facebook at facebook.com/rnrgreen.
