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The free message board service I used for this alumni page is ending next month. I archived it and sooner or later will put up another board.
It not like anybody had any use for it anyway, huh?
The last post was December 11, 2003 (18:09).
I've got a bit of free webspace I use as a sandbox, and it has the capabilities for a board, or maybe I'll just hook-up another freeboard service.
Is anyone from the Class still visiting here?
you could let me know...
later ken_turner
Your Bright Baby Blues Jackson Browne I'm sitting down by the highway Down by that highway side Everybody's going somewhere Riding just as fast as they can ride I guess they've got a lot to do Before they can rest assured Their lives are justified Pray to God for me baby He can let me slide 'Cause I've been up and down this highway Far as my eyes can see No matter how fast I run I can never seem to get away from me No matter where I am I can't help feeling I'm just a day away From where I want to be Now I'm running home baby Like a river to the sea Baby if you can see me Out across this wilderness There's just one thing I was hoping you might guess Baby you can free me All in the power of your sweet tenderness
The NY Times recently did a week-long feature on Las Vegas.
It's an interesting read if you've got some time.
It Gave Las Vegas Politicians and Promoters Hissy Fits!
NY Times - American Dreamer
A vast migration of newcomers pursuing better jobs, bigger homes and easier lives has made Las Vegas and its suburbs a land of unmatched opportunity and extreme dysfunction.
(The NY Times requires a free subscription to view most of their content.
It's easy and you only need a valid email address.)
The much tauted LV Monorail (website) has now been slated for a summer '04 opening. It was originally scheduled for a Jaunuary, 2004 opening, but has become delayed by "glitches". The Associated Press ran a recent article regarding on their wire. Don't bother searching The Sun or RJ for them. You can read it on The Seattle Times' website (they are getting their own monorail soon).
The opening, originally scheduled for Jan. 20, was postponed to March — and then to this summer. The delays came after a drive shaft fell off a train during testing in January and technicians detected a glitch in a computer-control system in February.
"It's not going to open until it's reliable and able to provide an efficient and safe mode of transportation," said Cam Walker, president and chief executive of Transit Systems Management, the private company that will operate the monorail for the nonprofit Las Vegas Monorail Co.
The drive shaft was fixed. But Walker said the software problem has proved more daunting: The control system is designed to keep a safe distance between trains running at up to 50 mph on the 3.9-mile track.
Once the system can handle seven trains at a time, it must run for 30 days before passenger service can begin. Up to five trains at a time were being tested so far, Walker said.
It's a good thing it's privately funded huh?
Or do you remember how it was funded?
The Seattle Times story might jog you memory:
Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn approved funding for the rail system as a member of the state Board of Finance. A total of $644.3 million in tax-exempt bonds were sold — to be repaid over 40 years with money made on fares and advertising.
Is this what they call inbedded?
Why not InBredded? The whole thing is beginning to look more like the LVCC's cushy queasy/quasi-goverment agency set-up. A really nice place of employment for some juiced locals looking to pad out their retirement nest-eggs
On March 20, 2004, the RJ reported that:
The lack of a firm opening date doesn't concern the Regional Transportation Commission, which has been monitoring progress on the independently run monorail system.
"This is a first-of-its-kind project, We would certainly want to see it opened when the system is ready, rather than trying to push a deadline," said spokeswoman Ingrid Reisman.
Remember now, thanks to The Nevada State Board of Finance, the State's taxpayers are listed as collateral on the $650,000,000 note, eventhough it was never put to a vote. No reason for the RTC to be concerned. If it fails, the investors will still get their money and interest paid in full.
Wonderful business model...
The Las Vegas Monorail Company (board of directors) sits behind a non-profit 501(C)4 corporate shield.
Transit Systems Management (officers) were given the contract to run the day-to-day operations of the monorail.
Current Henderson mayor, James Gibson, is TSM's CEO. Recently the Mayor Showed his value as a public speaker of clarity stating,
"We'll open it when we're ready to open,
when it's right and when it's done."
The right of center transit Policy anaysis site, The Public Purpose,
thinks that the Las Vegas Monorail system will not be able to run in the red, abd will leave taxpayers holding the bag.
In their 6 June 2000 Analysis of the
Proposed Las Vegas LLC Monorails, they conclude, amongst other things that:
Administrative Costs:
The new higher level of administrative costs to be paid to the management company is substantially higher than that of the nation's rail transit operators. Administrative costs will be approximately 28 percent of total operating costs (excluding capital costs and taxes) from 2003 to 2035. On average, the nation's subway and light rail systems spend approximately 17 percent on administration.(71) It would be expected that the LLC Monorail administrative burden would be lower, because many a number of transit administrative functions will not be present because they are included in the operations contract or not required.
The LLC Monorail's 65 percent higher administrative load is at least partially due to what appear to be exorbitant management salaries. The Business Plan of the Las Vegas Monorail Management Company proposes a first year expenditure of $2,097,000 in salaries and benefits for a staff of four managers and four clerical employees. Assuming that the clerical employees are paid at the Clark County average salary and benefit level (approximately $40,000 annually), the four managers of the Las Vegas Monorail Management Company would be paid an average of $485,000 annually.
I haven't been up to Lake Powell in many years, and I didn't have a clue as to how far down that Lake's level is. It's down around 40% full, and if the drought keeps up for a few more years, the Glen Canyon Dam will not be able to produce electricity.
News about the Western Drought has been coming up in a lot of cities' papers. The Review Journal seems rather unconcerned though.
Here are a few of the current offerings.
PAGE, Ariz. - At five years and counting, the drought that has parched much of the West is getting much harder to shrug off as a blip.
Those who worry most about the future of the West - politicians, scientists, business leaders, city planners and environmentalists - are increasingly realizing that a world of eternally blue skies and meager mountain snowpacks may not be a passing phenomenon but rather the return of a harsh climatic norm.
Continuing research into drought cycles over the last 800 years bears this out, strongly suggesting that the relatively wet weather across much of the West during the 20th century was a fluke. In other words, scientists who study tree rings and ocean temperatures say, the development of the modern urbanized West - one of the biggest growth spurts in the nation's history - may have been based on a colossal miscalculation.
That shift is shaking many assumptions about how the West is run. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, the states that depend on the Colorado River, are preparing for the possibility of water shortages for the first time since the Hoover Dam was built in the 1930's to control the river's flow. The top water official of the Bush administration, Bennett W. Raley, said recently that the federal government might step in if the states could not decide among themselves how to cope with dwindling supplies, a threat that riled local officials but underscored the growing urgency.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - Just outside this mountain town, where the acres of ponderosa pine turn into a Christmas green blur, Tom Whitham eyes the weary, struggling forest.
Death is everywhere. Their limbs bare and bark brittle, the trees quickly turn this forest into an aching reminder of the devastation of drought and a massive bark beetle infestation.
Whitham pulls his pickup truck over and gestures to the dead trees - 75 percent in this area alone.
Forget talk of global warming and speculation of what it might do in 50 years, or 100. Here and across the West, climate change already is happening. Temperatures are warmer, ocean levels are rising, the snowpack is dwindling and melting earlier, flowers bloom earlier, mountain glaciers are disappearing and a six-year drought is killing trees by the millions.
Most scientists agree humans are to blame for at least part of that warming trend, but to what degree?
"That's the $64,000 question," said Whitham, a regents' professor of biology at Northern Arizona University. "If we aren't causing it, we're certainly contributing to it. Humans can take a drought and make it even worse."
Alarmed by disastrous drought conditions, the federal government is prepared to impose water restrictions along the Colorado River if Arizona and the other states that use it don't come up with a plan of their own.
Officials won't say what form those restrictions might take, but when California failed to settle a dispute at the end of 2002, the Interior Department slashed the water supply to millions of people in Los Angeles and San Diego and cut the allocation to farmers in the Imperial Valley.
Without an alternative plan, existing laws could trigger measures by 2007 that two or three years ago seemed unthinkable: Arizona could lose one-third or more of the water that supplies Phoenix and Tucson. Farmers could be forced to leave fallow thousands of acres of cropland. Upper-basin states could face the choice of releasing water to down-river states or flouting the law to keep their own taps flowing.
LAS VEGAS - Every night in this neon-lit town, the fountains gush, the gondolas float down Venetian canals and lava spews from a faux volcano on the strip.
Given this lavish display of liquid entertainment, it's hard to believe Las Vegas is gripped by drought. But after betting on the Colorado River for decades, the city is holding a losing hand.
East of Las Vegas, Lake Mead is nearly half-empty. The river that feeds it has shrunk to half its normal size. Drive around the suburbs and you will see lawns being ripped out and landscapers planting desert shrubs.
One thing you won't see is Vegas slowing down.
Since 1964, Las Vegas has grown faster than any U.S. metropolis, from 130,000 to 1.6 million people. It is an economy grounded in gaming and golf course retirement living, industries that now compete for a diminishing resource.
"Las Vegas is a city of illusions," said Jeff Van Ee, a Sierra Club activist who has led a quixotic battle for slower growth in his adopted town. "Ever since the days of Bugsy Siegel, people have come to Las Vegas to gamble and win. And now we are gambling again."
Vegas' current gamble focuses on the good will of neighboring states, which it will need if the Colorado River doesn't quickly turn around. Unlike Arizona and Southern California, southern Nevada doesn't have large amounts of water banked in underground reservoirs, or big farm districts that might be willing to sell some of their supplies.
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