Are Pahrump Town Employees And Services On The Chopping Block? In a mere 72 hours we will find ourselves at the end of the road...the saga of the elected town board and a merging together of county and town management. If I think back to that fateful day when the town board chairman, Harley World Kulkins publicly derided and made fun of town residents in front of residents and commissioners, and said the white trash needed thrown out with the garbage, I doubt a single soul listening to his hateful-arrogant spiel realized the serendipity of the moment. The definition of serendipity can be traced back several centuries, Serendipity means a fortunate happenstance or pleasant surprise. It was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. In a letter he wrote to a friend Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made by reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, he told his correspondent, were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. And yes, we had made a earth shattering discovery, one that some of us thought was possible a decade or more ago, but which revealed itself since King Harley pronounced us all white trash. And it will bear fruit hopefully... over the course of the next few days and weeks. The shrinking of government and the savings associated with cutting services not required, nor reasonable by government. As the town and county merge together, the jockeying for maintaining a toe hold on lucrative government jobs began months and months ago. We have government employees in the county making more than many corporate presidents. You might recall the figure I posted for the ill conceived proposal for a county sheriff under-sheriff. $160,000 in wages and benefits as starting pay! But even the lower hanging fruit earn much more than their private sector brethren. So naturally this all falls under the serendipity I referred to. None of us in our anger over the insult that led to the eventual dissolving of an elected board, took the moment to be the beginning of a massive shrinking of overall government in Nye county. Anybody that studies politics and government are well aware of the fact that by their very nature, governments intrude more and more and grow more and more in expenses and employees. We can now rid ourselves of many employees at the town level whose job functions can be merged into or combined with county positions. I had been considering writing this post a week or so ago when to my surprise, I had my very own serendipity moment this morning. On the front page of the Pahrump Valley Times was an article about some comments that Commissioner Donna Cox had made at a concerned citizens meeting on Monday. Donna verbalized the obvious, even though other commissioners have hedged on their public statements and refused comment. Donna outlined a series of cuts in employment and services. Do we need an ambulance service run by government? Do we need a fire department in its present form? Do we need a town lawyer? Do we need a town manager? The list goes on, but I believe you can see the point. At every government level you find similar positions, the beauty of our situation is that over 90% of the county residents and services are located in the town of Pahrump. Plus we have four of the five commissioners and now overseers of town management, as neighbors here. The perfect opportunity to shrink government and question the very bloated entity it has become. We could contract out ambulance services and so forth and save a bundle, plus be rid of any benefit expenses and pensions down the road. That would be the duty of the contractor to pay. Do we need to pay high wages and benefits to town department heads when we have county department heads serving the same or similar function at the county level? Of course we dont. Right now, beginning on Monday, we should expect the commissioners to verbalize the direction they will take to deal with this, and to announce any decisions they already made. We know that Donna Cox is on board for smaller government, and for those who have yet to tip their hand... we should demand they justify every single dime spent, job and service that will be carried forward. I have had some conversations with the commissioners and I feel that at least a majority sees the wisdom in combining county and town savings. After all, we are about $3 million in the red in forecast expenditures. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that most if not all plus a surplus, can be found in riding the county of government payroll and allowing the private sector to handle many services. Plus, we need to as a lovers of liberty and freedom start the process of a much smaller government and much larger public involvemnt of the needs in the valley. Im reminded of a saying that Harley Kulkin would say at town board meetings government is a business. My blood would boil every time he would utter that nonsense... and yet it was his arrogance and that of others on the town boards of present and past, that gave us this moment to treat government like a business. A business never grows in expenses and employees unless they are justified, and a business is constantly looking for ways to become more efficient and cost effective. Those in the private sector know this well, as most in their working life have received a pat on the back, a well wish for the future and a pink slip in a Friday. Thank you Harley for the serendipity. Dwight Lilly
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 18:13:52 +0000
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