NSC FOGHORN DECEMBER IS A GOOD TIME TO REFLECT EACH YEAR. The. A better quality of life for seniors, their children and grand children

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1 Nevada Coalition, Inc. Nevada Seniors Coalition, Inc. A better quality of life for seniors, their children and grand children The NSC FOGHORN TM Volume 1, Issue 11 Special points of interest: The Japanese fleet included six aircraft carriers with a total of 423 planes. The first wave consisted of 183 planes and the second wave had 167 planes. There were 50 dive bombers, 40 torpedo bombers, 50 high level bombers, and 43 Zero fighters in the first wave. Eight battleships were damaged, 5 being sunk. Three light cruisers, three destroyers and three smaller vessels were also sunk. 188 aircraft were lost. The Japanese lost 27 planes and five midget submarines service men and 68 civilians were killed. The wounded totaled 1,178. Inside this issue: Please Don t Quote Me 3 Water, Water, Know Where? 4 Our President and Others (Pictorial) Pearl Harbor Attacked 6 From the Editor 6 Next Meeting 6 Membership Application 7 About NSC 8 Today In History 8 5 DECEMBER IS A GOOD TIME TO REFLECT EACH YEAR By Ken Mahal, President NSC December 7, 2002 December 12, 2002 Once a year I take a bit of time and I hope you also do to think about the things that have been and are good in our life and make a wish and pray to the Almighty that he is listening and will help us in our quest to make a better life for ourselves and all mankind. Some reflections on what fate had in store for me after the attack at Pearl Harbor December 7 th And the 61 st anniversary of that most infamous act in our history is again that time of year when I recall how my entire life s future was determined by that event. As a young architect just out of school I had a job designing homes for doctors at the Mayo clinic in Rochester Minnesota as well as homes for the regular folks but at a much less cost. Anyway on Friday the 5 th I was about to leave to visit a good friend in Minneapolis but before leaving I went to say good-bye to Mr. Nixa the boss and in the process I said isn t it about time I get a raise Mr. Nixa? His reply was Ken business is a little slow and I have been thinking of laying you off so good by and have fun in Minneapolis. What a great way to head for Minneapolis. And of course we all know what happened on that most infamous Sunday. Well after my visit I headed back to my folks home in Sheldon Wisconsin with no job, a war and me the right age for it. At home in days I received a letter from the Department of Navy to report to Mare Island Navy Yard post haste for a job as an architect. I was stunned until I realized some months earlier in Rochester when picking up the company mail at the post office they had a job notice for architects for the federal government and I thought well that might be fun so I applied little knowing it would also be the factor of unforgettable opportunity in my life. At Mare Island Navy Yard we had to wake it up from a sleep dating back to World War I and do the modernization on a twenty-four hour basis. Our job was to build submarines, submarine tenders, destroyer escorts but first and foremost to repair destroyers and cruisers that survived the attack at Pearl Harbor as well as modernize others. Two destroyers were towed to Mare Island with the bow half of one salvaged and the stern of the other and our job was to put them back together as one ship. I recall the Shaw but not the other name. Anyway this was also the first trip by Bob Hope and his troupe for the dedication of this event and of course Hope and team became history after that. Also during this time I married a great gal Agnes, and we will celebrate our 60 th anniversary this December 26 th I had been given a ten-day time off after a year of around the clock at Mare Island. I sent a letter to Agnes and proposed we use the time to get married or if she didn t want to, I would go to Yellowstone Park. Well I still haven t made it to Yellowstone. Yes I would like to still do it some time. Oh yes I made it into the Navy and missed nothing while doing duty on the Aircraft Carrier (See December Page 2)

2 PAGE 2 NSC FOGHORN VOLUME 1, ISSUE 11 (December continued from Page 1) Ticonderoga and in the Third Fleet, the greatest in mans history. We arrived fifty miles off shore of Tokyo Bay in time to be on strike duty four hours on and four off for eleven months straight until President Harry Truman had the two A-bombs dropped ending the nastiest war ever known to man at that time. I made it to Yokohama before coming home. On returning home Agnes and I move to Minneapolis and got a job with the Veteran s Administration rehabbing all of the Vet s medical facilities from Florida to Minnesota with our offices at the old Fort Snelling Army base in St. Paul. One day as Agnes and I drove by what looked like a nice treed property a half mile off the highway I ask Agnes if she would like to live there? She said it looked nice. Well two days later I bought two acres on a hill with fifty oak trees with a few things missing like a road, and no utilities. I did manage to get a muddy road put in and with my folks help, built a 400 square foot little house (future garage) and moved in the middle of November With no electricity for several months, a gas lamp, a kerosene four burner stove, cans of water and a chemical toilet had to do. Yes Agnes had a special name for it the end of old hell Hole. Well some ten years later and with son Mark three years old we built the addition which to this day is an ageless design in it s stone exterior, sweeping overhangs and open interior plan that is as modern as today and I m very proud to have designed and built it with lots of help of course. Also during this time about forty of we young people got tired of the oppressive Bloomington township government which in their own way was as oppressive as our Clark County government so we revolted, got 700 people to a town hall meeting and that was the beginning of change in Bloomington Minnesota. We ultimately changed it to a city where I volunteered on the Charter Commission, was the Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission while having a full time job as an Architect. And as a result of that action Mall of America selected Bloomington because of its planning and key location. And what is interesting they have about six or eight million more visitors than all of Las Vegas and people leave there with packages for their money not empty pockets like when they visit Las Vegas. Also Bloomington was best Planned City two years in a row. Las Vegas would qualify as the pit in hell when it comes to planning so no award here. We did a great job for the Vet s hospitals but that went to heck in a hand basket when Washington began to look over our back on everything we did. So I moved on to Ellerbe Architects and Engineers where I had a great experience for twenty five years including CEO and President and building it to the eighth largest such firm in the nation. And great clients like Mayo Clinic, Notre Dame for 25 years, Hughes Aircraft, 3M, UMC Las Vegas and more. By the way I also did VA hospitals while at Ellerbe and after what I saw recommended that no more Vets hospitals should be built and that all Veterans should be issued Veteran Medical Care cards with no cost and get all their care in their own community. How much better we would be today if we had built no more Vet s facilities and got our care from experts in the private sector. Anyway with another son Kevin and 25 years at Ellerbe Architects and Engineers and my own consulting firm and then retiring and having four great grandchildren with their great mothers and fathers and moving to Las Vegas, that is another story in itself. Having been here since 1984 we wonder how such a beautiful town could be ruined in 15 short years and the reason is so shallow and corrupt. It simply has to do with greed and cheaply bought off politicians and career bureaucrats who use the Nevada legislature and their jobs as councilmen, commissioners etc. as their own purse of gold to do favors for themselves and buddies who get anything they want such as a 300 home development under the airport landing/take off pattern after spending millions to buyout and destroy hundreds of homes that were nice and affordable. What we see has nothing to do with affordable housing but bucks in their pockets at the taxpayer s expense. Also what can you say when a developer gets free land to develop for parks and golf courses and decides it would be much more profitable if it were turned into more strip commercial which we have to much of already. All about money isn t it? People deserve better. In the upcoming legislature the money leeches will be out in force and the teachers union will never be satisfied even though in Clark County they have a failing mark for quality of education. They bellyache about such poor pay and retirement. Well I bet there are thousands who would like to trade with them and their nine-month job and perks. If they just went to twelve-month schools and had twelve-month contracts what could they complain about then? And why don t we do it instead of being 100 years behind times? When you have a governor who brags about balancing the budget until elected and then tells us we need billions for government growth like a Henderson college we should shut down plus a Dental school, a School of Law and a teachers union who is never satisfied what can we expect? Isn t it time we JUST SAY NO to the $5 billion in taxes they want knowing full well we cannot afford it and again the big strip casinos get another free ride. As to our rotten air we had hoped that the 7 dwarfs of the Clark County Commission and the two Dingle Bells in charge of air quality were serious about our rotten air. They aren t. In fact it is worse. All one needs to do is look at the dirty track out at every ( See December Page 4)

3 VOLUME 1, ISSUE 11 NSC FOGHORN PAGE 3 Please Don t Quote Me The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn t for any religious reasons. They couldn t find three wise men and a virgin. Jay Leno What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus? Claustorphobic. Unknown Christmas is the time when everyone wants his past forgotten and his presents remembered. Phyllis Diller Roses are reddish. Violets are bluish. If it weren t for Christmas, we d all be Jewish. Benny Hill

4 PAGE 4 NSC FOGHORN VOLUME 1, ISSUE 11 (December Continued from page 2) construction site. They are so in denial that when they see the brown cloud of dirty desert talcum powder dust combined with the dirty diesels they deny it exists. And how can the mayor and the politicians in their high rise offices overlooking this dirty crap called air, look at it and do nothing about it? More importantly how can these fancy developers like Turnberry Place and the likes keep building multimillion-dollar high-rise condos and sit still for this people killing air? Same goes for the big home developers and strip casino executives and their fancy buildings, why do they put up with this swill called air that makes people ill, destroys most building surfaces inside and out in a matter of time? And where are these crybaby doctors who should be fighting mad over the health problems caused by this filthy air? They are nowhere around because they just don t give a damn. And as for our water quality it is getting worse by the day because of Lake Mead at its lowest point in a 150 plus years and we still flow 150,000,000+ gallons of treated sewage through our intake area and do nothing about it. Also what gives when they are well over their legal amount of Colorado River water now and they probably have development approved to take up enough water for another 200,000 homes and they have no water? When is honesty going to shut down growth because they have failed? As for traffic what can we say when the RTC, the people in charge admit they failed and want another $4 billion to correct what they screwed up. And then there is their killer beltway that they built to expedite growth and some 14 people have lost their lives over that stupid design but in the meant time we have thousand more homes going in the area. And where is the TV news media who spend ten or eleven minutes of so called news and all it will be is sensationalism about murders, DUI, car crashes, shoot outs and other no account information and nothing on the real people problems in this valley of the dying. And the newspapers aren t a great deal better particularly when one of their editors serves on the Governors Task Force to increase taxes by billion. How bizarre can you be? Wouldn t it be nice in 2003 if all news media worked on people issues, fight to shut down this grow and die mentality, take a breather for ten years, undo the mess and turn it back to the nice people fun kinky town we loved in the 80s even if it is much bigger? Finally from myself and the NSC board, here is wishing all of you, members and friends alike (and yes all you people we picked on) a very joyous holidays and trust you will have good memories, loved ones and friends to be thankful for as we do. We do look forward to seeing all of you each month and may God be with all of us. As for the Mahal ten we will be together again in the sun and ocean for a great reunion we look forward to each year. See you all in a new and better Hope springs eternal Ken Mahal A.I.A. President Nevada Seniors Coalition Water, Water, Know Where? No Where By Dr. Larry Paulson In today's (November 7,2002 Ed.), Las Vegas Review Journal, Southern Nevada water officials, citing Bureau of Reclamation projections, say that unless there's "unusually heavy snow pack" in the Colorado Rockies this winter, Lake Mead will drop another "9 feet by 2004." Please note, we need "unusually heavy" snow pack, not just a normal winter, to keep water levels from further dropping in Lake Mead. The Bureau of Reclamation's reservoir water level projections, of course, include snow pack forecasts for the Colorado River Basin. I checked the most recent projections this morning, and they clearly indicate Lake Mead will drop to elevation 1145 feet (a 9 foot decrease from the current level of 1154 feet) by April 2003, not If we can't depend on "unusually heavy" snow pack, then how will water officials supply enough water to support all the growth in the Las Vegas Valley? What a difference one year makes. Are the Bureau of Reclamation's projections inaccurate, or are Southern Nevada water officials misinterpreting that information and misleading the media and public again? The Bureau of Reclamation further projects Nevada will use 325,000 acre feet of water from Lake Mead this year. That's 25,000 acre feet over our 300,000 acre feet Colorado River entitlement. When Lake Mead drops to 1145 feet next spring, Nevada has to cut its use above our entitlement in half. In other words, we'll only be allowed to use 312,500 acre feet next year. If water levels drop to 1125 feet, likely to occur by 2004, Nevada must cut back to its 300,000 acre feet entitlement. The water authority could correct this problem in an instant by reducing permits for more development, but the board of directors refuses to enforce its "no serve" policy already in the county's code. I've repeatedly warned our elected officials, in earlier messages and my recent "Vegas Taboo" message, that we're over-using our Colorado River entitlement and headed for water rationing in the Las Vegas Valley. Whether it's 2003 or 2004, depends on who you believe... the Bureau of Reclamation or Southern Nevada water officials?

5 VOLUME 1, ISSUE 11 NSC FOGHORN PAGE 5 Our President and Others During 2002 Tim and Ken Ken and Keller Alan, Heidi, and Ken Darcy Spears Soderburg and Hay Ken at a PUC Meeting

6 PAGE 6 NSC FOGHORN VOLUME 1, ISSUE 11 Pearl Harbor Attacked Naval Dispatch from Commander in Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) simply says AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL. From the Editor The attack on Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941 resulted in 2,300 immediate dead. Of these 1,177 were on the USS Arizona. This is the largest number lost on any ship in U.S. Navy history. The USS Nevada (the oldest battleship at Pearl Harbor) although heavily damaged by aerial torpedoes attempted to leave the harbor, but it came under heavy attack by bombers and torpedo planes as it slowly moved toward the harbor entrance. The admiral aboard decided to ground it after it dawned on someone that the harbor would be blocked if it sank at the entrance. Fifty officers and men, of a crew of 1500, were killed as a result of the attacks. The ship was repaired and fought throughout the remainder of the war. At Bikini Atoll it was the target ship and sunk on 31 July USS ARIZONA December 7, 1941 Next Meeting Thursday January 9, :00 a.m. at the >>>>>>> USS NEVADA December 7, 1941 After the meeting why don t you eat and play, and stay all day. Featured Speaker: Thomas Mitchell, Editor of the Las Vegas Review Journal. NSC takes on the 2003 Nevada Legislature. Help us kill every new tax bill proposed for 2003.

7 VOLUME 1, ISSUE 11 NSC FOGHORN PAGE 7 Join the Nevada Seniors Coalition ( no age limit) and become active in your community. There is strength in numbers. Dues are $6.00 for each individual membership. Fill out this application and mail it with a check or money order for the proper amount to: Jeanie Tabeek 4125 East Yakima Avenue Las Vegas, NV Telephone: Name(s) Address: Street City Zip Phone: Fax: Bring your concerns to our attention and we will consider them for action by the Nevada Seniors Coalition. Talk to any director listed on the back page. Ours is an all-volunteer organization.. Your help is welcomed. Tell us something about yourself your background your expertise that can be used to introduce you at our next meeting. WE CAN ACCOMPLISH MORE IF YOU VOLUNTEER TELL US YOUR INTERESTS BELOW Thank you: Jeanie Tabeek, Membership Director

8 NEVADA SENIORS COALITION, INC E. Yakima Avenue Las Vegas, NV Ken Mahal President Phone: Vernon Perry Vice President Directors: Belle Chohanin Finance Florence Petris Records Jeanie Tabeek Communications June Wilson Legislation Richard Thomas Membership Vernon Perry Issues Ken Mahal Liaison Larry Paulson Scientific Consultant TODAY IN HISTORY On December Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message--simply the Morse-code signal for the letter "s"--traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada. In 1909, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics with the German radio innovator Ferdinand Braun. After successfully sending radio transmissions from points as far away as England and Australia, Marconi turned his energy to experimenting with shorter, more powerful radio waves. He died in 1937, and on the day of his funeral all British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stations were silent for two minutes in tribute to his contributions to the development of radio The Nevada Seniors Coalition, Inc (NSC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. No person is excluded on the basis of age, race, sex, religion or national origin. The organization s purpose is to promote the physical and social welfare of senior citizens, their children and grandchildren. The organizations goals and objectives are: Improvement of political and governmental institutions and processes on local, state and federal levels. Identify legislative trends at all levels and set NSC priorities. Support domestic policies responsive to the needs and will of the Nevada senior population. Work to involve more seniors in government. to assure government is open, responsive and accountable. Keep members and the general public informed on current issues affecting them. Encourage them to make their voices heard at all government levels. Work with other organizations in a common endeavor when their issues and programs coincide with those of NSC. Guglielmo Marconi We re on the WEB Let s Stick Together and Stick It To Them