MORE RENO CITY HALL FLAPDOODLE

Sam Dehne's responses to more of that city hall flapdoodle found (verbatim) on the internet. [And citizens continue to be shocked at Herndon's new-found grasp of the English language... lacking in factual data though it may be.]

Dear SMTP
Oct 12, 1997

Reno councilman Tom Herndon (depicted by *)

*Please do not take my issue with Sam as contempt. You rush to judgement too easily. You need to have some history with Sam. Try watching on SNCAT the City Council Meetings.

I assume that you are a thinking person...Watch and listen to Sam for a while. I have no problem with Sam disagreeing with me...I do have a problem when he tells half truths and uses innuendo to try to assasinate the character of myself and others.

Sam Dehné response:
As usual city hall has this flip-flopped. When Sam isn't bringing city hall problems to council's attention (such as the $3,000,000 Parking Meter scam), he is filling in the other "half of the truth" that council conveniently leaves out.

* Sam's presupposition is that virtually all members of the governing entities are crooked and are in cahoots against Sam and all ordinary citizens. This is a major irritant to those of us who put in long hours for low pay in order to serve the best interests of our community.

Sam Dehné:
Any council member who gets in bed with the mayor's kickback contracts between his own private company and his political subordinates at Reno's Un-american Airport (and at EDAWN) ARE crooked... and in cahoots. The mayor may put in long hours... but they are paying off handsomely as his personal nest gets "feathered...$$$". When will it be Tom's turn? These are just a few, albeit the most obvious, instances of "crookery" and "cahootery".
We think Tom meant to say city hall serves the best (SPECIAL) interest (GROUPS) of the community.

* Sam, for instance, feels that we should move the Air National Guard out of town. Perhaps we should, except that, they don't want to go and they have a long term lease on their present site. I wasn't around when that lease was negotiated. I merely have to honor it. If we want them to move we then have to entice them. The airport terminal need to be expanded...the guard needs to be moved in order to do that...the airport is using federal noise mitigation money to buy property around the airport deemed unsuitable for residneces under federal guidelines...the Guard is willing to move a short distance onto the newly acquired lands...it works.

Sam Dehné:
a. The sheer stupidity of wasting taxes building a huge military complex in the middle of the supposed "entertainment capital of the country" is so obvious that the council should be eternally embarrassed at their conspiracy of silence on this subject. They have appointed the controlling portion of amateur "trustees" who are running the airport, but they refuse to take the welfare of Reno citizens into account... period. This council and its appointed political subordinates are participating in an ill-contrived scheme to confiscate federal dollars via a "noise" scam and then literally stealing land away from innocent citizens... who do not want to move... and who are not complaining about noise.
b. We have to "entice" the Guard? Bull-Hockey! The Guard has been salivating at the prospect of a huge new complex for years. Of course they are "willing" to move. But what about the dozens of thousands of innocent Reno citizens who will be forever stuck with the noise, danger, and blight? For this council to sit idly by and totally ignore this dreadful blunder is offensive to all citizens.
c. The airport "needs" to grow? That is what the airport, special interest groups, and city hall brainwashers would have citizens believe... with their never-ending wasteful inculcation of the masses...

* Whether the airport itself should be in that location is a moot point..it is..and the cost to move it out into the desert where it arguably should be and provide the necessary rapid transit to serve it would run in excess of a Billion dollars and that is assumning that a suitable site could be found that would pass an environmental assessment.
Sam just wants to have it done and he wants us to dictate to the airport authority (A separate governmental body), to the Air Guard (a State/National military organization) and to the federal Government itself that they just do it. He is out of touch with reality. All of the above has been explained to him numerous times by numerous different people, including myself.

Sam Dehné:
We "want" council critters to accept their responsibility as elected officials of Reno, get their heads out of the sand, recognize stupidity when it socks them in the nose, and at least try to thwart incompetence and corruption... not support airport schemes and blunders.

* We continue to listen to Sam when he is rational because this is a democracy and he has a right to speak as does every citizen. There is a point, however, when that right conflicts with other rights of other citizens. Sam occasionally exceeds the bounds.

Sam Dehné:
Most of this council has never learned the concept of "rational". And that is why council rarely understands him. Council is too busy looking at the agenda and trying to figure out how to make sure each and every developer gets his way.

* Your reply was, I hope, hasty. I encourage you to do some more research before pronouncing judgement. I think you will be pleasantly surprized at how much this city council has worked to include citizen input in our deliberations.

Sam Dehné:
The only input that city hall listens to is that of the special interest groups to which it panders. Unless of course you include city hall, itself... feathering $$$nests and ignoring violations of both city and state laws. The more research that is done, the deeper citizens will get into the bottom part of the iceberg of corruption.

Tom Herndon