News

New chance job fair

A job fair for former prison inmates will be held March 26 at Baldini’s Casino at Rock Boulevard and Glendale Avenue in Sparks.

Prison alums who want help in preparing for the job fair can attend a prep session at the Mount Community Center at the corner of Highland Avenue and Valley Road on March 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Matters that will be dealt with in the prep sessions include “application etiquette, dress[ing] for success, job readiness, financial education, creat[ing] a resume, and doing mock interviews.”

The events are sponsored by the Statewide Prisoner Reentry Coalition, composed of the Washoe Sheriff’s Office, Ridge House, the Nevada Department of Corrections, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and other intimidating agencies.

New angles

An initiative petition filed by former U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle seeks to shut down Nevada’s office that administers the federal health care program and turn Nevada enrollment over to the federal government. The petition has been filed with the secretary of state’s office in Carson City. It would amend the Nevada Constitution to accomplish the change.

The decision for Nevada to have a state-run office was made by the 2011 Nevada Legislature, and was supported by Gov. Brian Sandoval. Keeping some local control has been described as an advantage to the state. “I felt it was prudent and in Nevada’s best interest to have a state-run exchange,” said Sandoval in November.

Angle must gather 101,000 signatures by June 17 to qualify the measure for the ballot. It would face first round voting in 2014. If it passes, it would appear on the ballot again in 2016.

Angle is also circulating a second petition to impose identification requirements on Nevada voters. This petition, too, would amend the state constitution rather than writing a statute.

After Yucca

With the proposed Nevada dump for high level nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain defunct, federal planning attention is turning to other ways of storing power plant and nuclear bomb waste, with the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., becoming a principal candidate. Although it is a nuclear dump, storage of nuclear fuel has been prohibited at the site up to now. But wastes from Los Alamos National Laboratory—including plutonium—are being stored in salt beds there, and the site is now being scrutinized seriously to replace Yucca.

Built in the late 20th century, WIPP is one of three deep geological repositories in the world. It was constructed over the furious objections of New Mexicans, but now that it is in place residents are invested in the jobs it provides, and some local leaders there are backing an expansion plan.

The New York Times reported, “Some people despair of finding a place for what officials call a high-level nuclear ’repository’ (they shy away from “dump”) but Allison M. Macfarlane, a geologist who is chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and who served on a presidential study commission established after the Yucca plan was canceled, said WIPP proves it can be done.”

The Salado potassium salt formation at the site is about 2,400 feet thick. In 2011, Nuclear Engineering International magazine reported that the formation “is equally suited” with Yucca Mountain “in terms of geology, hydrogeology, and physical, chemical and radiological interactions” with commercial and military spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste from power plants. It also said, however, that a separate “disposal facility would be required to be constructed to accommodate the diversity” of waste forms.

—Dennis Myers

Shaking out

Grass roots Democrats maneuver between court ruling and filing period

This should be a time when Nevada Democrats are feeling upbeat. by The party controls four of the six Dennis Myers state offices elected statewide, majorities in both houses of the Nevada Legislature, two of the state’s U.S. House seats, and holds one of the two U.S. Senate seats—and that one is held by the Senate Democratic floor leader, Harry Reid.

“There are plenty of issues and candidates to pull Democrats.”

Richard “Skip” Daly state legislator

For a list of offices up for election in Washoe County this year, go to www.washoecounty.us/ voters/14officesup.html. the filing deadline is March 14.

Even more important, political analysts say the state’s demographics are moving the party’s way, as evidenced by state wins in the last two presidential elections.

But last weekend at Wooster High School, where the biennial Democratic precinct meetings were being held that start party organization activities in election years, the mood was not all that positive. Enthusiasm for the coming year was muted.

Particularly troubling is the party’s failure to put a well known name at the top of the ticket. Taking a pass on the governor’s race would be a significant admission of failure.

Top spot

At the entrance, participants registered their names and addresses to identify their precincts. At an adjoining table, several volunteer sign-up sheets were lined up for local campaigns. On a rack as participants entered, there were free spots bottles and signed editions of John Dean’s book Blind Ambition. (The Watergate conspirator spoke at a fund raising dinner for the Washoe Democrats in 2009 and signed a batch of books for them, most of which were later sold.) At a table for the Young Democrats at the University of Nevada, Reno, large piles of pastries were ready on this Saturday morning for those who had not yet had breakfast.

In presidential years, these meetings are called caucuses. That’s a generic term. The real name, specified by Nevada Revised Statute 293.135, is precinct meetings. They are held in every election year and are the way of starting a process rolling—the selection of delegates to political conventions. Both parties hold them—the Republicans met on Feb. 8. Most if not all of those who showed up at Wooster will be able to attend the Washoe County Democratic Convention, and the bulk of them will be able to go on to the Nevada Democratic Convention. (In presidential years, a select few attend the national nominating convention.)

The meetings also serve other purposes. Old allies reunite.

Local resident Ellen Pillard registered to attend  her precinct’s meeting at Wooster High.

Volunteers are recruited by candidates. Activists push issues for inclusion in the party platform. And people fret. This event was buzzing with reports of a comment in Carson City last week by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic floor leader. Its meaning depended on who did the telling, but generally it was taken to mean that Reid had a candidate for governor ready to run.

“I think it will be a respectable Democrat and someone that people know,” Reid said, adding that he was “still working on it.”

Reid, who has sometimes been a domineering presence in the party organization, may have put himself in a difficult position in guaranteeing such a candidate. Filing for office would open just nine days after these precinct meetings and will last only 10 days. A candidate for governor should already have a campaign assembled and in the field. Incumbent Republican candidate Brian Sandoval has spent much of his term of office raising money for this reelection campaign and had his campaign paid for a year ago.

There were those at this event who—anticipating that there will be no strong candidate for governor—minimized its importance.

“I think there are plenty of other issues and candidates to pull Democrats out to the polls,” said Assemblymember Richard Daly.

But former Sparks city councilmember Cecelia Colling, who was on the governor’s staff under Gov. Bob Miller, said not having a strong candidate at the top would hurt. “I think it’s very said because we don’t really have a choice at this point,” she said. “It’s being made by people who give the money.”

Sen. Debbie Smith was fatalistic. “I just think it is what it is,” she said. “You know, there are just some years when you don’t have people in the right place at the right time. … We’re going to focus on expanding our [legislative] majority and not worry about what we can’t control.”

There was one candidate for governor at the precinct meetings— casino worker Chris Hyepock. And a day earlier, physician Stephen Frye, who helped get medical marijuana through the legislature, jumped into the race because, he said, Sandoval has kept the state “last in just about everything.” But the Democrats said they need a major contender.

The Democrats at Wooster tried to parse Reid’s statement. What did it mean, exactly? Respectable and known don’t exactly say winner. Is he saying

County Commissioner Kitty Jung was surrounded by local supporters as she mulled pressure to run for mayor.

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Local issues

Then there’s the mayor’s race, which opened up suddenly when the Nevada Supreme Court ruled—two days before the precinct meetings—that mayor and city councilmember are effectively the same office, meaning term limits for one apply to both posts. The ruling ejected the leading candidates from the mayor’s race.

That race doesn’t have the same political import as the governor’s race to county Democrats, not least because it is technically a non-partisan race. But both county major parties take a strong interest in local issues, and precinct meetings are the grass roots level.

“I think we have a lot of work to do in taking care of downtown Reno and making sure it starts to thrive,” Colling said. “Start providing jobs for people in Reno and making sure that they’re in a safe environment.”

Chatter about who may now run was everywhere. City Councilmember Jenny Brekhus, a favorite with this crowd, had taken herself out of the

mayor’s race as soon as the court ruling came down. But County Commissioner Kitty Jung did not.

“I didn’t say no,” she said. “I’m getting a lot of pressure” to run.

Jung, appointed to fill a vacancy on the commission and then elected to a full term in her own right, would have to choose between running for reelection to the county commission

“Wedon’treallyhaveachoiceat thispoint.”

Cecelia Colling Democratic leader

On the job

City workers Fred Decker and John Baker tried last week to correct a Sierra Street digital speed limit reader that was telling passing drivers they were exceeding the speed limit when they were not. The reader was flashing a warning at any drivers exceeding 25 though, in fact, the speed limit along this stretch is 30.

For more info contact: SFC Johnny Oliveira Call or Text 775-560-0672