News

Travus T. Hipp 1937-2012

In 1978 after the People’s Temple mass suicide in Guyana, WFAT in Gilroy, Calif., purchased 300 record albums by the People’s Temple choir. When word of this action got out, a reporter asked one of the station’s personalities about the action.

“They’re an honest collector’s item,” said Travus T. Hipp. “Certainly, there won’t be any more albums by this group.”

The quote ended up in Loose Talk, a Rolling Stone book of quotations.

Last week, Hipp died in his sleep at age 75 at his Silver City home. Before he moved to Nevada he had already had a full California career, and he was far from forgotten in the Golden State, which was shown by the wide coverage when word spread of his death.

“Callers began flooding Freedom-based radio station KPIG-FM … after disk jockeys told listeners that controversial newsman Travis T. Hipp passed away in his sleep overnight,” reported the Gilroy Patch site. “He was the man who gave ‘All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know—Until Now.’ ” All Access, a California music and radio industry site, reported, “Part of the ’60s hippie scene, Hipp was a contemporary of Wavy Gravy ... KPIG deejays were playing songs in his memory Friday, including Country Joe’s1988:Hipp lectured in Gold Hill. ‘Fixin’ to Die Rag.’ ” He lived on a Sausalito houseboat, then in Silver City, both of those locations supposedly a reflection of his belief that California was going to sink.

Hipp, whose real name was Chandler Laughlin III, hosted shows on so many radio stations—“town to town, up and down the dial”— that it may take time to compile a full list. “I started doing radio at KMPX, the first of the underground rock ’n’ roll stations,” he said. The legendary KMPX was a San Francisco station that became KHIP in 1960. It no longer exists. Others included KSAN in San Francisco, KZAP in Sacramento, KFAT (now KPIG) in Gilroy, KVMR in Nevada City, KZFR in Chico, KKOH and KWNZ in Reno.

In Nevada, in addition to his on-air activities, he sometimes engaged with officialdom. He was a scofflaw of the state’s car insurance requirement and fought a court case over the issue to the Nevada Supreme Court and then tried to get the law changed in the Nevada Legislature.

On Oct 30, 2008, Hipp and three other people were arrested on marijuana charges at his home in Silver City. The youngest person in the group was 42. Hipp maintained his aplomb during the bust, phoning KPIG to give a running report of the event as it unfolded (“Pot bust scoops up Travus Hipp,” RN&R, Nov. 13, 2008).

Hipp often found ways like that of coming out OK when his outspokenness or other difficulties hurt his radio career. At one point, he said of one of his Nevada disputes, “They sold the radio station, and the guy that came up was ideologically opposed to anything to the left of Genghis Khan so I was dispensed with. Now I’m fortunate enough to be … syndicated at six stations.”

At the All Access site, Dave Shanks—who used Hipp on a show he did at Reno’s KWNZ in 1984-85—wrote that Hipp “vacillated between consternation and amusement that the closest affiliate to his hideout in Silver City was a flame-throwin’ Top 40 station, but he put up with me and my rookie bullshit, and I learned from his example. He served the public, and he was always one of the most compelling news writers and presenters in all of media.”

Another radio figure, RN&R columnist Bruce Van Dyke, also posted a comment: “TTH was Da Man! I had him on my show on the X in Reno in the late ’90s and early ’00s. And he was continually blowing my mind with observations and comments that were never cliche and showed the product of a hyper-intelligent mind. There was a lot of good thinkin’ goin’ on up there at the Travus stronghold in Silver City, right up until the very end! The man is simply irreplaceable.” —Dennis Myers

PHOTO/NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Yucca’s back?

Reid’s workload just got a little heavier

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who is already keeping a lot of balls in the air, has by just been handed another—confirmaDennis Myers tion of whoever President Obama appoints to replace the departing chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Gregory Jaczko. The nuclear power industry is rejoicing over the departure of Jaczko, a physicist who tried to build a “safety culture” in the agency and the industry. Reid, who handpicked Jaczko for the post, is currently handling or has in recent days dealt with legislation to extend the Export-Import Bank’s charter, fended off Republican demands that tax increases scheduled for next year be cancelled, tried to advance S. 3187—a measure dubbed “the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act”—and encountered Republican resistance when he tried to move sanctions against Iran through the Senate. In addition, he was getting a nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit approved and trying to prevent GOP tampering with Medicare. The Jaczko resignation thus came at a time when Reid already has plenty to do. But the chairmanship of the NRC is not a post Reid can afford to ignore because of efforts by the nuclear power industry to dump nuclear waste in his home state. Jaczko has been an important figure in the effort to end the Yucca Mountain project.

Jaczko, a former science advisor to the Nevada senator, was appointed to the NRC as a commissioner by George W. Bush and was sworn in on Jan. 21, 2005. President Obama, on Reid’s recommendation, appointed Jaczko to chair the commission on May 13, 2009. His term still has 13 months to run.

As NRC chair, Jaczko emphasized a safety agenda, which irritated the nuclear power industry but looked good after the accident at the Fukushima Da-ichi reactors in Japan on March 11, 2011. But it also made it more difficult to license power plants.

Jaczko announced his resignation two days after White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked, “Jay, is there any thought being given in the White House to asking Chairman Jaczko at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to step down?” Carney responded, “Not that I’m aware of, no.”

The reaction to Jaczko’s resignation was not surprising.

“The greenies have lost their guy at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” wrote Greg Pollowitz of National Review, a conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr.

Natural Resources Defense Council nuclear program director Christopher Paine said, “Greg Jaczko set a high standard as America’s chief nuclear power safety regulator. His departure—and President Obama’s selection of a successor—points to the continuing need to prevent the nuclear industry from exercising undue influence at the commission, a tough challenge indeed, given its recent history.”

Reid praised Jaczko and so did his Republican colleague, Sen. Dean Heller. “While we need to responsibly develop all of our nation’s energy resources, including nuclear energy, the irresponsible history of Yucca Mountain undermines the integrity of the project,” Heller said. “Chairman Jaczko played an important role in opposing Yucca Mountain, and I hope his successor will continue this fight.”

“His appointment as chairman was a bit of blackmail on the part of Senator Reid to force the death of the Yucca Mountain Project,” wrote Forbes magazine staffer James Conca. Blackmail is usually waged against an unwilling participant, but Obama was quite willing.

In an Oct. 13 letter last year, NRC commissioners George Apostolakis, William Magwood IV, William Ostendorff and Kristine Svinicki wrote, “In a long series of very troubling actions taken by Chairman Jaczko, he has undermined the ability of the commission to function.” They said Jaczko “intimidated and bullied” the NRC’s senior staff.

More recently, Jaczko was accused of verbally abusing some women at the agency, a charge he flatly denied. Republicans in the House called Jaczko and other figures in the dispute to testify at a hearing. They kept raising the issue after the hearing.

An inspector general’s report in 2011 was critical of Jaczko for holding back information from other commissioners on the NRC decision to halt a safety review of the proposed dump for high-level nuclear wastes at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain in Nye County. At one point, Jaczko apologized to his colleagues.

U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts issued a report that said Jaczko was the victim, not the perpetrator of infighting on the commission. Markey said the four “conspired, with each other and with

“Dr. Jaczko’s troubling behavior ... clearly resulted in a hostile work environment.”

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell Senate Republican floor leader

Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Gregory Jaczko’s safety fetish offended the nuclear power industry.

senior NRC staff, to delay the release of and alter [the content of] the NRC Near-Term Task Force report on Fukushima.” Further, email messages showed that the four commissioners “assumed ill intent on the part of the chairman” and tried to “undermine his efforts or refuse his requests.”

Reid must decide whether to try to push through another nominee for NRC chair at a time when Republicans would prefer to delay until a GOPpresident may be in the White House next January. But waiting has its drawbacks for them, too—Jaczko resigned effective when his successor is confirmed.

More on Reid’s load

Meanwhile, a new book argues that Reid proposed a solution to last year’s budget deadlock that he believed would fail.

Reid last year proposed to end the deadlock by creating a special committee to work out an agreement. The U.S. Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction—dubbed the Super Committee by the press—was set up and given a strict timetable to follow. Its first meeting was Sept. 16. By Oct. 19 the Washington Post was reporting that the committee had “yet to reach consensus on the most basic elements of a plan to restrain government borrowing.” On Nov. 21 the committee gave up.

As the end of the committee’s deliberations approached, Reid blamed the failure on lobbyist Grover Norquist. Reid read statements Norquist had made in which he bragged that he had elicited promises from Republican leaders not to support any deal that included tax increases and threatened the GOP cochair of the committee with political retribution if any hikes emerged.

“You’ll have to admit it is a little disheartening to read the stuff to you I read from Grover Norquist,” Reid told reporters.

He also said, “I have no regrets whatsoever about the suggestion that I made for a super committee. … I was hoping that there would be a lot of hand holding and hugs and pats on the back and we’d be headed off to Thanksgiving. But at this stage, we’ve seen a few arm locks and a few— what do you call it when you put someone’s, you lock somebody around the neck? ... Headlock, that’s what it is.”

But a new book reports that Reid never expected the committee to succeed.

In Do Not Ask What Good We Do, a book about the U.S. House, author Robert Draper wrote, “It was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s novel proposition that if 535 congressmen and senators couldn’t agree on how to solve America’s deficit problem over a period of seven months, perhaps a dozen of them could [do it] within 10 weeks. The wily majority leader knew better, of course. As Reid would later confide, he came up with the idea of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or Super Committee, fully expecting that it would fail.”

Arequest to Reid’s office for a response to the book’s claim went unanswered. Ω

“Jaczko often took a more cautious approach on plant safety and security than his colleagues.”

Edwin Lyman Union of Concerned Scientists

Preparations

In a robing room before the graduate student commencement at UNR, Nevada higher education chancellor Dan Klaich, left, watched while campus publicist Jane Tors (back to camera) fitted Dale Raggio with a mortarboard. At the commencement, Raggio accepted a Distinguished Nevadan award for her late husband, Sen. William Raggio. Historian Guy Louis Rocha, also a recipient of the Distinguished Nevadan award, chatted with UNR President Marc Johnson, right.

City business

Candidate wants to use investment experience on Reno City Council

At this point, most of us wouldn’t want to explain why the city of Reno should be doing more road repairs. Not so for Bernie Carter. He and other local business owners were happy to field questions from councilmembers on the cost and potential inconvenience of a meter-less parking proposal at City Hall earlier this month. As a first-time City Council candidate, Carter can expect to be directing the city’s questions, not fielding them, if he takes Ward 1’s seat this November. He is cofounder and president of Reno investment firm Dacole LLC, which has a substantial development stake in the “efficient monitoring” of parking spaces just south of downtown. The 61-year-old Nevada native owns or coowns several key properties in the “Midtown” area, including apartment buildings along Thoma Street and an Ace Hardware store managed by his brother, though he credits local start-ups like Junkee for the branding that has contributed to much of Midtown’s early success. “We’re attracting young professionals who want a vibrant downtown,” Carter said, “no national chains, not even a Starbucks. We’re going to have small entrepreneurs to try and establish that sense of community that we think is so critical for attracting young professionals to our area.” If building political caché comes as easy to Carter as developing Midtown real estate, Ward 1 can expect a conservative approach from its would-be councilman. Carter said the city’s numerous tax incentives speak for themselves, but only “to a certain extent.” He added that he would push for further cuts to business permit fees and work toward a “more conservative view” of structuring the city’s debt obligations. “The city of Reno will spend over $20 million this year in interest on their debt,” Carter said. “I don’t criticize the people who

made the decision at the time, but with the way these bonds were structured there was a time where we were in default and paying 18 percent interest on these bonds.” The city of Reno recently joined two other municipalities in suing Goldman Sachs for allegedly misleading city officials into buying auction-rate securities they didn’t understand. Reno is also far from the only city to restructure its long-term debt under the favorable short-term rates once offered by Goldman. “They went into it with their eyes open andby James DeHaven the market turned against them,” Carter said of Reno’s agreement with Goldman. “I would have, and I have, in other instances where that’s occurred, taken the more conservative route.” Carter wouldn’t speak to any specific examples, explaining only that experience in “similar situations” is “something he brings to the table.” Carter, who sits on the board at Renown and was founding chair of Artown, took issue with any proposed increases on nonprofit licensing fees. “The city could always use the money,” Carter said of revenue that might be raised. “Their budget’s been cut in half. But does that mean you’re going to fee the Boy Scouts? The Girl Scouts? The soccer club? Where do you draw the line? … Explain to me why it is more important to have dollars go to the city to use for whatever they choose as opposed to having those dollars go to the healthcare community, to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) at Renown?” Of course, if elected Carter might have to give variants of that explanation himself. Truckee Meadows Community College political scientist Fred Lokken thinks there’s a good chance that could happen. He said the obvious political advantage of Carter’s business acumen is his fundraising ability. “Given his connections and given his background, money will probably be much less of an issue for him,” Lokken said of Carter’s chances in Ward 1. He added that financing can become even more important in a race like Carter’s, one without an established name in which “there is a real connection, a real causeand-effect between those candidates who win and those candidates who can spend.” Carter ran unsuccessfully for the Legislature in 2010 and has served on the Nevada Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices. “I worked hard for what I’m able to provide to our community and I’ll continue to work hard for the City Council. That’s my objective,” Carter said. Ω

Reno City Council candidate Bernie Carter says he’s unaccustomed to the modeling part of campaigning, but he poses like an old pro.

PHOTO/D. BRIAN BURGHART

“They went into it with their eyes open.”

Bernie Carter City council candidate