Friday, April 13, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.
Some end-of-the-week musings on leadership and cowardice in government across the state on several critical topics:
Whoever asked poor Kathy Silver, University Medical Center's interim director, to walk the plank at that budget hearing this week is simply sadistic. Or Silver simply agreed to be the human shield for the County Commission.
As Silver ticked off all the cuts that could obviate the need for a huge county bailout, including superb services for children and burn victims, it was obvious what was happening. Instead of ending a cycle of feigned shock and mindless finger-pointing by meeting to say that these services and others provided by the public facility are worth preserving and that some permanent county subsidy level needs to be found, this scripted slash and burn (bad pun intended) was simply pathetic.
Yes, the commission's voice of reason, aka Bruce Woodbury, spoke up and said he would not support eliminating the burn unit. And rookie Commissioner Lawrence Weekly raised concerns about erasing other key services.
Wonderful. But why the choreography to make Silver look like the villain, so the commissioners could be heroes? And do the county higher-ups really believe the public is so ignorant that it will not see through this? Maybe most people won't realize the county is shouting at them : "Hey, stupid. This stuff is expensive. And if you don't watch out, we will cut it. Are you scared yet?"
It's so much easier to patronize than to lead. Even though state lawmakers have managed to come up with oversight ideas that are illogical and labyrinthine, this kind of local behavior makes their motivation to intercede that much more understandable.
Yes, these mostly Democratic lawmakers shelved any consideration of a gas tax increase for purely political, not policy, reasons. But they put on the table a raft of proposals, including taxing truckers, a diversion of car rental taxes and a local government funding component.
There are other modest proposals in the process already, some from that task force the governor ignored - increasing car registration fees and driver's license costs and reallocating sales taxes to help pay for highways. But what the Assembly leaders realize - and this includes Republican Minority Leader Garn Mabey, destined to face the wrath of the right - is that doing nothing could be worse politically and substantively than doing something.
The governor doesn't seem to care. He insists he will veto any tax increase, even for this pressing need, even one reached by a consensus of lawmakers. I relish the chance to see whether the Assembly can cobble together a two-thirds majority in the Senate, thus making a veto a mere political statement (Gibbons would be overridden) and one the northern governor may live to regret in the South (if he cares about Clark County).
Keep an eye on those southern lawmakers - if they stick together on a funding package, everyone else in the capital is irrelevant.
But this week that timorous position evaporated much more quickly than the polar ice caps are melting as Gibbons suddenly announced a Nevada Climate Change Advisory Committee. Yes, it was still one of those buffers from decision-making this governor craves, but his statement announcing the panel declared, "With this announcement I am looking forward to Nevada joining the world in its quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
If only the governor could keep all his positions straight, except for the one on taxes that he can't forget, showing leadership - or at least consistency - would be so much easier.
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