116_days_too_many wrote on May 14, 2009 06:46 PM: Legislators try to control as many aspects of the lives of 2.4M Nevadans as they can think. Most people don't like that kind of interference in their private affairs, so of course the crooked politicians are going to do it in secret. If we had small government in this state, sessions would only last 4 days. That would leave little time for busybodyism.

Free Nevada wrote on May 14, 2009 06:35 PM: @Transparency Issue??? I'll let you in on a secret...

If we book online, we can all get a 20% discount off a gigantic Penske Moving Truck. They drive just like RVs, are air conditioned and just paying day laborers to load/unload is so much less expensive than cross-country movers.

I don't know anyone who will stand for increased business taxes or more than 2-3% on sales taxes, do you? So let them knock 'em selves out up dere in good 'ole Carson City. Hope they don't go blind.

Transparency Issue??? wrote on May 14, 2009 06:28 PM: Things are VERY transparent up North. I will let you in on the `secret'.........Get ready for a-

MASSIVE
INCREASE IN
TAXES!!

INCLUDING

Higher Sales Taxes, New Service Tax, Huge Increase to Modified Business Tax


OUR LEADERS WILL BE `COURAGEOUS’, `BOLD, & `PROGRESSIVE’ AND NEVADA TAXPAYERS WELCOME THESE NECESSARY INCREASES WITH OPEN ARMS.

Publius wrote on May 14, 2009 05:58 PM: And how much transparancy was there when the Governor was putting together his secret budget? Nobody saw any of that until the state of the state.

Free Nevada wrote on May 14, 2009 05:57 PM: > “They’ve been meeting in secret for many years,” said Thomas Mitchell, coalition president and editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Yes they have, wise man.

There are really an unusual amount of people in Nevada with poor ethics who will violate such a pledge sometimes as mindlessly as actually accepting a paper bag full of hundred dollar bills for one of their relatives while sitting on the County Commission and not realizing they're committing a felony. Others in Nevada know they are without the ethics that come from a life of hard work and education but since they have been able to achieve success unimaginable in other areas of the country here, in the last town where a parking valet can honestly own a million dollar home (from tips), they somehow begin to envision we straight folks as fish and themselves in a shade of the mafia figures that once ran this town (witness Junior or any of the local HOA property managers using preferred vendors that blow back money into their general fund being spent out of HOA funds by manipulated senior citizen board members after winning an unfounded construction defect lawsuits)
Other areas, like OC, have dealt with such issues. It can be done. It will definitely take a lot more than a pledge, but it is most definitely a very good Start.

@Nevada Blue, don't you know Blue is the new Red? Aren't you the Kettle calling the Pot Black?

Nevada Blue wrote on May 14, 2009 05:40 PM: What a bunch of self-serving bunk.

Martin Dean Dupalo wrote on May 14, 2009 03:45 PM: Government entities and elected officials must be held accountable – regardless of their political affinity or political power in order to have a durable and effective constitutional democracy. As an elected official, it is imperative that they conduct the people's business openly. Insulated by space and time, literally hundreds of miles away in Carson City, many elected powerful party leaders do not abide by this mantra, only when it is convenient and the media is present. The legislature is the culprit here while numerous other elected officials and whole bodies evade open meeting requirements and abuse closed-hearings to bypass the public and media in numerous areas. Regardless of one's party affiliation and/or views, free speech, open speech, conducted in the public view is paramount.

Woodrow Wilson's '14 Points' address to Congress in January 1918 is apt here, in particularly the very first point " I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view."

While it may be true that there will always be backroom deals, power plays and self-gratuitous agreements, then let it also be true that the public and the media fight it at every turn.

jason wrote on May 14, 2009 01:37 PM: If someone from the RJ is is in charge of a "non-partisan" group, you can bet the group is partisan!!!

heckle jeckle wrote on May 14, 2009 01:22 PM: Good lucka.

dick burns wrote on May 14, 2009 12:30 PM: gee tom, are your taxes about to go up? where have you been all those years when the no tax no how people were meeting behind closed doors?
when you guys open up your editorial board meetings in advance of your kooky editorials, i might pay attention

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