Friday, January 30, 2009
Letter To Editor About UNLV Student Protest That Las Vegas Review-Journal Did Not Print
By Robert L. Candiotti
As I mentioned in the previous (January 24, 2009) Ivanpah Airport News blog, I had composed and e-mailed
a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal regarding the UNLV student protest rally of January 22.
A week has gone by. The letter to the editor was never printed in the Review-Journal.
So, here
is the January 23 letter verbatim:
On encountering last night's protest at UNLV
Thursday night, I came to UNLV for The Barrick
Lecture Series presentation of "The First 100 Days" of the Obama presidency.
Crossing the campus
on foot to Ham Hall, I unexpectedly came across a stunning and impressive scene. An energetic tableaux involving thousands
of people. And I see this student protest rally is covered by Review-Journal writer Richard Lake in the Nevada
section of Friday's Review-Journal.
I would say there were at least 3,000 students - possibly
half with big, bright handmade signs - protesting Governor Gibbons' proposed dismantling of the structures of
higher education in Nevada. At first, it was like a dream. It truly was reminiscent of the 1960s (and I am definitely old
enough to remember). But this was not a protest about a 1960s attack on Cambodia. I realized right away it was about the students'
view that there is an attack right here on higher education.
They were peaceful, and bursting with youthful
exuberance. They also seemed to be increasingly aware that they were pulling off something rarer than last December's
snow storm in Las Vegas. In 2009, they had put together an actual, fairly huge student protest!
My surprise
rather quickly turned to respect - respect for these people who had planned, communicated and showed up to take a stand because
they are irate and insulted by Gibbons' proposed severe swipe at higher education in Nevada, and the spectre of wildly
increased tuition, as well.
If there had been - I think it was a missed opportunity - a photographer on
one of the taller buildings nearby on campus, to snap a shot of the full size of the crowd, and all the cardboard signs that
looked like flowers of protest rooted in a garden of spirit, people would get an idea of the breadth and power of Thursday
night's crowd.
I have lived in Las Vegas for 10 years. My belief has grown steadily that UNLV
is one of the essential aspects of the city. If The Strip is the yin, then UNLV is the yang. To me, UNLV, and its part of
town, provides education, sophistication, soul and inspiration to the complex combination of realities that make up this unique
city.
Many top local college and university administrators spoke at the rally, including David B. Ashley,
president of UNLV. They all expressed alignment with the students. I have a feeling they, too, were surprised by the vast
sea of protesters that spread out before them as they spoke from the stage.
One of the speakers, Robert
Boehm, UNLV Director, Energy Research Center, said something interesting. He made a simple statement. "We really need
to work for a diversified economy," he said to the crowd. I think he is right. Among other things, the job of higher
education in Nevada today is to assure a modern and diversified economy tomorrow. So I wonder, how can this happen if the
college budgets are cut to shreds, and many students will not be able to pay the higher price?
The theme
of the Barrick lecture that brought me to UNLV Thursday night was about the first 100 days of the Obama administration. As
I think about it, a more compelling gathering regarding the future was happening a few hundred yards away with thousands of
Las Vegas university and college students standing up with protest signs that showed they, too, have a stake in, and something
significant to say about, the future.
9:21 am pst
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Two Disparate Events Held At UNLV About The Future Indicate Future Is Not Clear
By Robert L. Candiotti
It is grey outside.
No wind, but it can start raining at any moment. I'm having coffee at Barnes &
Noble on Charleston Blvd. and Fort Apache in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is where I have lived for the past 10 years.
I don't want to give the wrong impression. I am not bragging about being at Barnes & Noble. I am not that much of
a bookworm, and probably wouldn't even be at Barnes and Noble except that I messed up an appointment to get my hair cut.
I had the time wrong. Too early. Now I have two hours to kill.
Actually, my first thought was to walk around
inside Pier 1 Imports, but there were signs on each of the glass entry doors saying: Sorry for the inconvenience.
We will not be open today due to a break-in.
So, I kept walking. Barnes and Noble is right next door.
I was drawn to the huge bookstore's coffee bar.
I slowly sip the coffee. It gets better as it gets cooler.
Coffee and I have that in common.
I'm reflecting on two events I saw Thursday night at Las Vegas' university,
UNLV. One I saw on purpose. The other by accident.
On purpose I heard "The First 100 Days: Predictions for
the Obama Administration" lecture put on by The Barrick Lecture Series.
E.J. Dionne, J.C. Watts and Gloria
Borger - with local journalist Jon Ralston as moderator - talked about Obama's next 100 days. They were heavy on oratorical
skills, but were light on convictions and without predictions that would actually put their prognosticative skills to a test.
Of the three speakers, statements by Gloria Borger made the most sense to me. She said, "The key to Obama is
you're not sure what to expect." She added, "Sometimes he will come from the right of you, and sometimes he
will come from the left of you."
That makes for an interesting president, presidency, and an interesting political
era, I think. However, let's face it, nobody really knows what is going to happen in Washington in the next 100 days. Anyhow,
it is probably too short of a time frame to get a sense of where things are going. A more reasonable and revealing passage
of time will be one full year. At the end of 2009, a verdict on Obama's achievement of successes, and an assessment of
the condition of the American peoples' patience, will be timely.
Dionne, Watts and Borger were all charming
at the lecture, but they exuded a lot of words to express little of consequence.
But more engaging than
the lecture was the event - as I walked to get to the lecture site - I accidentally came across outdoors on the
UNLV campus. This was an amazingly large (probably at least 3,000 protesters) student rally, well lit and well attended
by thousands of well behaved - yet clearly angry - Las Vegas college and university students rallying to speak out about the
proposed draconian cuts in Nevada's higher education budgets.
By today, Saturday, January 23, both the Las
Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun have printed articles about the protest rally. These are good
articles, I think, but neither publication had a crowd-encompassing photograph of the event that showed the extraordinary
vastness of the throng. 3,000 vocal Las Vegas students, with hundreds and hundreds of colorful protest signs rising above
their heads, make a formidable and fascinating scene. One doesn't expect such a thing in 2009.
The Review-Journal
was the first to run a story about the rally in its Friday paper. Seeing the article titled "Thousands
rally at UNLV to protest proposed cuts to education" by Richard Lake on the front page - above the fold - of
the "Nevada and the west" section inspired me to write a letter to the editor. I am waiting to see if it gets printed.
Maybe tomorrow (Sunday).
The Sun piece - "UNLV students protest governor's proposed massive
budgets cuts" by Charlotte Hsu - came out today.
What do the "First 100 Days" lecture and the
huge student protest rally have to do with the proposed Ivanpah Valley Airport? I am not exactly sure.
Ivanpah Valley
Airport is projected to open around 2018. By that time, President Obama - even if he is re-elected in 2012 - will no longer
be president. And UNLV will undoubtedly be different than it is today. Navigating to 2018 involves passing through uncharted
waters.
Will Obama successfully lead the way to a workable future with a sustainable and prosperous way of life?
And will UNLV in 2018 be a viable center of higher education that has kept pace with the demands and possibilities
of Nevada heading forward into the mid-part of the 21st Century?
The future is not clear.
These
are things I am thinking about today as I am finishing my cup of coffee at Barnes & Noble.
11:02 am pst
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Outlet Stores At Primm, Nevada - Past, Present And Potential Future
By Robert L. Candiotti
If the Environmental Impact Statement process concludes with a go-ahead in 2010 or 2011, the new Ivanpah Valley Airport
in Southern Nevada will undoubtedly transform the area for many miles in all directions.
Most things in the area
will change, but some things will understandably remain the same. One of these continuations should be the traditional outlet
shopping mall in Primm, Nevada.
For the past 10 years,. there has been an outlet shopping mall in Primm at the
Nevada-California border on I-15, one of the main vehicle arteries in the entire U.S.
Opened in 1998 as the Las
Vegas Outlet Mall, it is now called (though it is actually 40 miles south of Los Vegas) Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, and
is owned by Primadonna Resorts. Today the mall has 100 stores, many touting brands that are famous and fawned over. Some examples
are Coach, Tommy Bahama, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Burberry, Hollister, St. John, Hugo Boss, Kate Spade, Williams-Sonoma
and BCBG Max Azria.
The Fashion Outlets Mall is distinctive because it is literally attached to a casino.
This combination of shopping and gaming is a hot one. Thousands of motor vehicle travelers stop every single day.
Even 200 years ago, when the predecessor trail to I-15 was peopled with travelers on foot and with horses, where Primm is
today was a natural resting spot. Either early travelers were about to start up a steep and extensive upgrade, or they had
just reached the bottom of a long decline out of the mountains and into the flat desert.
With an outlet mall history
going back 10 years now, Fashion Outlets is an integrated part of Primm's image, definition and economy.
For
the reasonableness of the mall to still be there - though, of course, significantly redeveloped - in 2018 when Ivanpah Valley
Airport (which is projected to handle millions of air travelers annually) opens is a no brainer. The attractiveness of
outlet mall shopping to future passengers using an adjacent new international airport seems to require little imagination.
Primm outlet shopping should still be around in 2018. Of course, if Ivanpah Valley Airport is ultimately built, the
three Primm casinos and the mall will be completely redesigned and rebuilt to match the massive modernity, and 21st Century
potential, of America's newest international airport.
A version
of this piece is also found on the "Primm 2018" page of GreenAirport.net.
2:45 pm pst
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Nevada Displays Continuous Commitment To Traveling The Green Energy Road
By Robert L. Candiotti
Two recent articles that were in the Las Vegas Review-Journal make clear Nevada is more and more committed to traveling
the green energy road.
In a January 3, 2008, story by John G. Edwards, "Houston company pulls out of coal-powered
plant project," it is reported a partner company in developing a coal-fired plant in the state has backed away from the
project.
Though Dynegy Inc. points out financing is hard to come by these days, Bruce Niles, a spokesperson
for the Sierra Club, says about Dynegy that "it seems like the company has recognized our efforts to move to
a clean energy future."
On January 6, in a front page article by Steve Tetreault of Stephens Washington
Bureau, U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada is quoted as saying nuclear repository Yucca Mountain's budget will be
cut "significantly" for 2009, and its funding for 2010 will be "little or nothing at all."
This
reflects Reid's - as well as Nevada power company NV Energy's - view that a nuclear presence has no future in
Nevada. Not only the repository, but also the nuclear power industry, are most likely to become totally excluded from
the state's energy and environmental plans for the future.
So, it comes back - as it repeatedly does
- to the state's pioneering, pensive and proud attitude toward the developing of green energy. And clues continue that many
people in the state who have lots of clout are committed to traveling the green energy road.
2:04 pm pst
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Ivanpah Infrastructure Developments Will Be Influenced By Ray LaHood
By Robert L. Candiotti
As Barack Obama is about to be inaugurated as President of the United States, and as national awareness increases that the
country's transportation challenges are huge and multi-faceted, it is interesting that Obama has nominated Ray LaHood
as Transportation Secretary.
LaHood is a Republican who represented Illinois' 18th district in the U.S. House
of Representatives beginning in 1994. After graduating from college, he was a junior high school social studies teacher, and
then served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1982 to 1994.
At the Transportation Department, LaHood
will oversee the vast and history altering public works program Obama spoke about early last month.
In Brookings
Institution's 2008 publication titled "A Bridge to Somewhere: Rethinking American Transportation for the 21st Century,"
author Robert Puentes says the U.S. needs to modify its transportation policy to "move from the anachronistic structure
that exists today to something that actually works for the nation and metropolitan America."
He also states,
"The U.S. needs to define, design and embrace a new, unified, competitive vision for transportation policy." And
Puentes emphatically advises, "We must recognize that we are on the cusp of a new wave of transportation policy."
The coming years are shaping up to be a time of extraordinary challenges and opportunities with the various aspects
of transportation.
Ray LaHood will be dealing with both heavy responsibilities and intoxicating possibilities.
Ivanpah Valley Airport and associated infrastructure developments will certainly be transportation issues that
cross his desk.
4:23 am pst
