Letters to the Editor for April 27

Teaching safety never goes out of style

In the Nevada Appeal edition of April 20, Teri Vance had a story about students at Bordewich-Bray Elementary School and their Green Team.

Included with that story was a photo with the following caption:

"Second-grade teacher Rachel Barilla and students from Bordewich-Bray Elementary School's Green Team paint the light switch covers green. The green switches will serve as a reminder to teachers and students to turn off the lights when they leave a room."

While going green may be an admirable mission, I noted that all three of the photo's subjects were wearing eye protection, yet not one of them was wearing any sort of breather mask.

It begs the question, was it planned for the three of them to go green inside their lungs as well? This is more critical considering the type of paint it appears to be.

Come on teacher, teach properly. Safety is never out of style.

Dennis Johnson

Carson City

Promote commerce, not taxes, to fuel the economy

Well, once again we've seen advocates for raising taxes come out of the woodwork. The lessons of the goose that laid the golden egg are apparently not so easily learned, and the work done so far on thoroughly choking the Nevada economy is not yet completed.

Let's keep this up until we are paying IOUs to government employees, like our wildly successful neighboring state. California used to have one of the world's more robust economies, but between regulation and tax policy, that is no longer the case. Sounds like there are many here who do care how they did things in California.

Of all things, we have a tax that charges businesses for each employee on their payroll. What a great incentive for hiring people. That has to be one of the better ways to keep companies from adding to their employee base and keep from reducing unemployment.

The focus needs to be setting policy that promotes commerce, not skimming away the fuel that feeds the economy. There are no money tree plantations, nor are there any unicorns that can be used to pack the money down from those trees.

Stop doing things that will no doubt delay our state and national recovery, and get this thing turned around before it's too late.

Randy Brown

Dayton

Crosswalk sting was a lucrative scam

This is in reference to the April 20 crosswalk sting in Dayton. This was not a sting, it was a scam. That's why it was so lucrative.

I drove by twice. The second time, the two so-called officers were approaching the sidewalk talking to each other. They stopped well short of the crosswalk and continued to talk to each other. At no time did they ever indicate they intended to cross. I slowed way down but did not stop since they gave absolutely no indication of crossing.

An officer pulled me over and gave me a ticket for failure to yield. His statement was that they were giving no warnings, just tickets. We just came back from a trip from Rome where we were ripped off twice. I knew there were thieves in Rome, but I didn't expect them in my own backyard.

This kind of sting just creates resentment toward officers and is entirely unnecessary.

Tom Scott

Dayton