CITIZEN

GADFLY ASKS: As often as possible...
(Gadfly: A Citizen who reports on things for other citizens in order to arouse them from complacency.) By Sam Dehné, Flapdoodle Evaluator (Note: It is all-right to be redundant... about important things. And if you are confused by the numbering system, so are we.)

13. Right after you finish reading your monthly Reno Citizen (if you are not already reading it daily on the internet), we highly recommend that you find a copy of Reno's new monthly exposé magazine, "The NightHawk"... featuring dynamic talk-show host J.R. Reynolds. Thomas Jefferson would have contributed to its contents. The stories are informative, thought-provoking, and timeless. Reynolds can be heard nightly on 92.1 FM, KSRN.

12. The specter of cronyism, nepotism, and just plain good 'ol boyism at the mayoral level of Reno's city council is sinking ignorance of the Reno City Charter to new depths. To describe the mess as "flapdoodle" is far too kind. Potentially scandalous reports have the mayor at the government trough receiving huge contracts... contracts being paid for with public funds - citizens' taxes. "Click" here to read more.

12a. The mayor was caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Shouldn't he immediately resign in shame... before he has to be impeached?

11. The leader of the Air Guard Huff & Fluff Relocation study company, Chris Basham, told the Reno-Casino Airport Authority that the "citizens of Reno Are irrelevant"... relative to their poignant concerns as to whether they wanted a huge military base built on their confiscated land. He repeated this several times at the meeting on 12 August, 1997.

11a. Don't forget this is the same "team" that carried, as one of its members, a high ranking NAG officer who OWNS LAND IN THE AREA THAT HAS BEEN RECOMMENDED FOR THE NAG MOVE. No conflict of interest there. "Click" to read Huff. Then "Click" to read Fluff.

10. Why do local news media give credit to local government critters... when it is almost always the Citizens who expose incompetence and corruption? Example: The Sparks Tribune, that is usually "on the mark", recently gave Reno-Casino trustee Larry Martin credit for asking hard question about the director and his part in the cover-up of the attack at the airport. The trustees bury their heads on these matters... It was really the Citizens (in this case Flapdoodle Evaluator Sam Dehne) who asked the ONLY hard questions and who have been trying to expose airport incompetence, fraud, waste, and abuse.

10a. It is nasty for government to try to usurp credit for Citizens' efforts... but for the media to violate what they know is the truth, is tragic.

10b. Eureka! I asked the RSCVA (who by the way, finally paid its bonds) to: a. post understandable agenda items, and b. create a citizen-friendly format for people to be able to get on the agenda to speak. Lo and behold - before I even sat down, chairman Breslow had done it. City council would have sent it to staff, who would form a committee and 3 special hearings later they would probably still be back at square one. Thank you for your intelligent listening.

9. On 5 August, 1997 the Reno-Casino city council outdid... even themselves.

Knowing full well, that Sam Dehne and his 780+ Citizens' Petitions were the "Driving Force" behind the exposé of this city's huge Parking Meter Fee Increase scheme, this council broke as many rules of honorable government as they could find... in a curious attempt to take credit for "undoing" their very own blundering fiasco. Anybody watching the brouhaha on SNCAT chan 13 TV, could see through them like a cheap piece of fishing net. What an embarrassment to the governmental process. Here are the numbers, simplified so that even this city council should be able to understand them... maybe: "Click' to read the plot.

9e. Folks, Sam Dehne, just an ordinary, average, every-day citizen, (with tremendous support from dozens of irate citizens) uncovered and exposed this potential rotten $3,000,000 "tax-gougement" scheme... a scheme that citizens can only assume is the Tip of the Iceburg. Isn't it way past time for a Coalition of Citizens FOR Citizens to rise and unseat this (Special-Interest-Oriented) city council? A city council whose number one Special Interest has become... itself?

9f. Lop the heads off ALL those parking meters... save the citizens $$$millions...

9g. One of the councilpeople says that Sam Dehne thinks he invented electricity whenever he turns a light on. Not quite. On the other hand, he has been trying to turn some lights on down at city hall... hopefully the lights between the councilmembers' ears... if there are any.

9e. Reno-Casino city council asked their staff on 5 August why they had DOUBLED the tax on the Parking Meters. Staff didn't know. Staff did not know why they had raised the citizens' Parking Meter tax liablity from $600,000 to potentially $1,200,000! What was this council's reaction? Were they irate? Did they criticize staff for incompetence. No. Instead, they apologized and said they hoped they hadn't embarrassed staff with such a question...

9f. Maybe it is time to take a look at the good old Bill of Rights... upon which this good old US of A is founded. "Click" here to read this little piece of Heaven.

8. That Government Finance Officers Association, that gave the notorious RSCVA some sort of "good accounting" award, must have been hard pressed to find somebody to dump its kudos on. Do they know that the RSCVA defaulted on its bonds for months and months... a huge violation of Nevada law? That's good accounting? Ask the bondholders... Creative Accounting? Maybe. Good Accounting? NO!

7. It has been a long wait, but a year and a half ago, The Reno Citizen predicted Reno Air pilots (and the Flight Attendants... who already have) would unionize. Now, it looks like the pilots are about to fall in step.

7a. How does Robert Mitchum know that Oppenheimer Mutual fund is the right place to put your money? He's dead. They should dump TV commercials that make no sense...

7b.When is the NTSafety Board going to render a finding on the terrible crash that happened the month before Valujet? You know... the one where 50% MORE PEOPLE DIED. the one where American Air pilot flew a B-757 into a mountain. NEVER A WORD ON THAT FIASCO...More people died, more preventable, more specific as to cause... BUT the American Air has a much larger advertisement budget for the media than little Valujet. Folks, this wreaks of rotten fish.

6. You've heard of GIG-a bytes. How long will it be until you hear of GIG-a-HERTZ? Not very... at the rate things are moving along. They are are up to 350 MEG-a-HERTZ already.

6a. The internet has put a whole new definition on loneliness... like the guy who writes email to himself... nothing though, compared to the guy who strikes up conversations with wrong numbers...

5. The plot gets thicker and thicker... in a further bizarre twist of already fascinating events, Michael Lee Smith [the amateur(?) race-driver/terrorist who crashed onto the Nevada Air Guard base and Reno-Casino Airport last May; causing havoc and severe damage and danger to property and lives], busted bail and was a "no-show" for his July 31 trial. The authorities claim to not know his whereabouts. Are those rumors that the airport giving him a one-way ticket to Brazil (or the Middle East?) and some cash true? What don't they want him to reveal? [Read more about it by "clicking" here.]

4. What's the big deal? Reno AND Sparks get a measly $2 million flood relief money. The Reno-Casino Airport, whose concrete jungle was a major cause of the flooding, gets $$6 million... and that is only "starters" toward an eventual $$$30,000,000.

4a. The real name for those USA tax-handouts (especially when involving the airport) is Corporate Welfare. How about some handouts for Hidden Valley citizens... the REAL flood victims... or for the homeless...

3. Same old story. A big airline has a terrible crash, and the story is passed over. Did you know that the huge Fed Express jet that crashed and burned in Newark came very close to plummeting into the passenger terminal? Must be a story there somewhere. Poor little Valujet... the media still haven't stopped slamming them. They had to change therir name to escape the diabolical news media...

3a. Who pays the bills for the big news media? You guessed it... the BIG airlines. Remember that American Air crash that killed 160 last year? Probably not. It was also barely reported.

2. That recent Reno Gazette editorial, that oozed up to the casinos and big business, left out something. The blight and sprawl that have infected once lovely Reno (that the editorial suggests regular citizens should pay for with their taxes) owe their existence to the uncontrolled increase in these businesses. Huge developments that rarely pay their share of the negative impacts they cause... lousy roads, gangs, homelessness, poverty, short-handed police, noise, pollution, crime...

2a. Casinos: How can that editor admire, and promote, business that thrives off the misery of others... enticing people to lose their lives savings?

1. The President intervened in the American Air strike. Why not the UPS strike? UPS's role has become much more vital to the US ecomony!