Letters for April 12, 2001

Re “Bars and Clubs” (RN&R, March 15):

Thanks much for including us in your article. If I may, I would like to set the record straight regarding Q’s Billiard Club pool rates.

Our tables are rented for $8 per hour, except after 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, when we charge $10 per hour. Our competitors charge $3-$4 per player, per hour. The biggest reason that our rates are such a bargain compared to other pool rooms in the area is that we don’t charge by the player. We even offer a solo rate of $4 per hour when the tables aren’t packed.

I think that the only way that our rates could be construed as expensive would be in comparison to coin-operated tables. Obviously, though, it would not do justice to Q’s to compare our facility to “bar tables,” which are rarely level and which are usually equipped with a couple warped broom sticks in place of pool cues.

Again, thanks very much for mentioning us, and we look forward to seeing you at Q’s.

Tony Shulman
via e-mail

Put ‘Perforated Object’ elsewhere

Re “Perforated Object” (RN&R 15 Minutes, March 15):

I, for one, was glad to hear from the rusting, aerated, phallic-looking, perforated Swiss cheese/fish-like object that adorns the front lawn of the people’s federal court building. I never pass that corner when I don’t grit my teeth and ask: “Why?”

I think the public would have preferred something that at least doesn’t irritate them. If the selectors of this statue aren’t guilty of playing an exorbitantly expensive, huge joke upon the taxpayers, then I suspect they think that by forcing their taste upon us, “the less cultured,” that we would eventually grow to love it.

Let’s bite the bullet and have that moved. In its place, I’d like some nice trees. Maybe the next time our city needs a piece of art, we the people will have some choice in what we get for our money. Or maybe the government should just get out of the art business.

Mildred Holland
Reno

No wildlife studies!

Assembly Bill 291 begins by imposing another fee on our citizenry. Nevadans are continually assaulted with fees, permits, licenses, penalties and taxes.

The bill calls for more “research” and “studies.” Common sense of self-governing people is sufficient, backed by hundreds of years of predator control experience to provide for predator control.

The wording in this bill calls for “management” and “control” of predatory wildlife. That’s what they have in California, with the “management” (meaning protection) of mountain lions. The wording of this bill is ambiguous at best. One mountain lion can mangle and kill more than 50 deer in one year. In Elko County, when predators were killed annually in the 1940s and 1950s, deer herds and sage hen proliferated. No studies, no fees, no bureaucrats were necessary.

Legislators need to vote no on AB 291 and refocus energies and tax dollars to restoring local self-government according to the Nevada and U.S. Constitutions.

Kenneth L. Bauer
Reno

Beware of centralized planning

Re “Little City No More” (RN&R Editor’s Note, March 8):

There has been considerable talk of the Washoe County Regional Plan and the Regional Transportation 2030 Plan. When looking at the regional plan, I am concerned that there be as much local control and market choice as possible.

There is a good deal of talk about “regional government” these days, coinciding with discussion on the regional plan. But do we really want that kind of centralized decision-making? There is vague talk about allowing the Regional Planning Authority more power to enforce the plan. Please be careful—we should not be granting unelected officials more powers.

A plan projected over 30 years must be as flexible as possible. Do we want to pretend that we have a good idea of what the world will be like in 2030? Remember, the Internet barely existed in 1990.

Absent a material threat to other individuals or the community, people should be allowed to live and work where and how they like. If that means they choose to live in a dense, multi-functional community where they will bike to work, fine. But if they prefer to commute by automobile and live apart from where they work, that should be a market-driven option.

Brendan Trainor
Sparks Citizen
Advisory Board member