User profile: CynicalObserver

And I suppose our Federal, State, County and sales tax money will be spent to build this demonstration site.

What will I, as a taxpayer, receive out of that expenditure?

Nothing.

Frankly, I am sick of "economic stimulus projects" which are only boondoggles for the benefit of the well connected and subsidies for government agencies with unionized employees who want to "hog the jobs for themselves".

An example I've given before: Clark County has only 1 or 2 open full time positions available to "newcomers". However, if you are a member of one of the County Employees' unions, there are 14 pages of job openings for transfers and promotions available to existing union members. With this state's very high unemployment rate, that situation is sickening.

Has this jerk from Cincinnati ever heard of First Friday?
Has he ever been to the art fairs in Summerlin, Lake Las Vegas or Boulder City?

We have lots of artists and lots of art in Las Vegas, it's simply not parked in an edifice where a committee of snobby high brows decide what is "Museum Quality Art".

We had such a museum, but the rich of Las Vegas wouldn't fund its operations, and the museum closed.

Me? I grew up in a city with a "World Class" art museum, with Museum Quality post-WW II art. Every year our elementary school class would go to the museum, and the docents would give us the exact same speech, including 15 minutes on one stupid Picasso collage. The same tour, with the same narrative for 6 years was a bit much.

Would I contribute to a new formal art museum in Las Vegas? No, because chances are the quality of the art presented would not meet my aesthetic tastes. Give me a top of the line Jackson Pollock (which even the L.A. County Art Museum doesn't have) or don't waste my time.

Anyone who wants to read the actual court documents where Station Casinos' unsecured creditors try to prove they are entitled to the appointment of a Trustee can find them at:

http://www.kccllc.net/stationcasinos

Click on the Court Documents tab on the left and then click on Court Documents 0631 and 0632.

As far as I can tell, as of 3PM on December 4th, there still is no hearing date and time set for the court to hear the motion to appoint the Trustee.

The Attorney General's "reminder" to the bankruptcy judge, about the need for the Trustee to be issued a gaming license before taking control of the casinos, is Court Document 0652. Any lawyer looking at the document would say it was amazing that in only 2 to 3 days, the Attorney General's staff could research and write such a thorough and understandable essay. Either the Attorney General's staff are very, very good bankruptcy lawyers, or have been down this Trustee road before, or had some help from outside law firms who had done all the research before 12/1/09, the date the motion to appoint the Trustee was filed.

Part 3:

It may be that AG Masto intervened as a means of trying to help the Fertittas and Colony Capital, and scare off the unsecured creditors who want a trustee.

The Nevada Revised Statutes concerning gaming actually contain a provision requiring licensing of trustees and receivers, so AG Cortez Masto is not off the mark, and because of the U.S. Code Sections and Constitutional provisions, any trustee appointed over Stations Casinos must be licensed.

Logistically, obtaining a gaming licensed Chapter 11 Trustee is not as big a deal as it looks.

Bankruptcy trustees are typically lawyers or accountants on a list approved by the local bankruptcy court, called the "Trustee Panel".

The reality is that the party who would pick a particular person to be Trustee over Station Casinos is a Federal official called the U.S. Trustee for Nevada. The U.S. Trustee can go outside the Trustee Panel member list, if none of the Panel members hold or previously held a gaming license. The U.S. Trustee can find an experienced, previously licensed lawyer, accountant or business person to be the Trustee over Station Casinos. That person doesn't have to know much in terms of details about how bankruptcy court works, because Chapter 11 Trustees always hire experienced bankruptcy lawyers to advise them and represent them in court.

Personally, I don't see the appointment of a Trustee happening, because the Bankruptcy Code criteria for appointment of a Trustee hasn't been factually established. However, the appointment of a Chapter 11 Trustee over a company operating casinos can be done without much difficulty.

Part 2:

The reality is that AG Cortez Masto is absolutely correct.

For example:

In Oakland, California bankrupt Lehman Brothers and a Chapter 11 trustee over some of its real estate investments are in serious trouble for violating the City of Oakland's fire hazard abatement order relating to a roughly 200 acre, brush covered abandoned military base which Lehman bought as an investment. The Chapter 11 trustee's timesheets filed with the bankruptcy court showed a meeting with the Alameda County District attorney and discussion with Lehman and others about a Grand Jury investigation of their misconduct in willfully refusing to abate the fire hazard.

In another case, the California Attorney General had to intervene in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case of Lennar's subsidiary, LandSource, when lawyers for the partnership between Lennar, Barclays Bank and 5 hedge funds wanted the Delaware bankruptcy court to issue a completely obnoxious injunction against any public agency enforcing any state or local law, or Federal toxic clean up laws, against the debtors or any party who bought property from them. The New York Attorney General had to do the same thing in the GM bankruptcy, when GM's bankruptcy lawyers wanted a similarly illegal injunction. In both cases, the bankruptcy lawyers for the miscreants tried to hide the injunctions in Chapter 11 Plans of Reorganization.

When Pacific Gas & Electric was in bankruptcy in San Francisco, the State of California's Public Utilities Commission flipped the bankruptcy judge the bird, and told him he did not have the authority to approve a Chapter 11 Plan which included electricity rate hikes to consumers which were not approved by the PUC. PG&E and the judge bowed their heads, and PG&E conducted a full rate increase hearing before the bankruptcy judge dared to approve a Chapter 11 Plan.