Broken News Flash -- Impressions of June 8 Meeting

No. 17 -- VIRGINIA AND TRUCKEE RAILWAY -- Nevada Railroad Reconstruction Chronicles

Initial reports from the June 8 meeting of the Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the Virginia and Truckee Railway are .....

(drumroll)
...
POSITIVE!

Here's what I hear, and it's all based on hearsay, so don't quote me. I will review the meeting online in a few days and do a fuller writeup, or if someone else writes up some notes I will link to them. And on with the show!

-- The new Chairman is Dwight Millard, a local Carson City homebuilder and civic leader who has a clue and should be able to run the meetings well.
-- The new Vice-Chairman is Bob Crowell, total insider government lobbyist/lawyer type and current Mayor of Carson City, but a seemingly good guy who can't be "railroaded."

more...
-- The discussion of the "disposition" of the #18 locomotive has been delayed until July 10, when the Commission will hold a morning workshop to take the time to really understand issues in-depth.

This is a good idea, because at the typical Commission meeting the Commissioners come in without doing their homework. Then, after a little triangulation from Bonnie Weber and other displays of ignorance, the Commissioners vote based on who spoke most eloquently. Hopefully the July 10 morning workshop will provide some needed education.

-- Then on the afternoon of July 10 a regular meeting will take place.

-- I'm not sure where this is going, but the Carson City Convention and Visitors Bureau will be assigned a track use agreement for running trains on Railfest in August, the track celebration and possibly more trains later in the year.

The main reason IMHO is because the negotiations between the Gray's REAL Virginia and Truckee Railroad and the Commission broke down. The Commission needs to run trains on the new tracks and for reasons unknown to me was unable to complete an agreement with the Gray's. It seems to me that the CCCVB will be a fresh face.

Also, previously, the Commission wanted the Grays to pay all maintenance but recently the Commission has been looking to bid maintenance out to another company. If the Gray's don't have to pay for all track maintenance just so they can run one train per month, they will be more likely to go for it.

-- Apparently the Commission is considering building a temporary depot near a water tank south of highway 50 between flint drive and highland way. More detail on that later, it's a bit sketchy.

-- They discussed more engineering work for phase 3 and 4 but I don't think they decided to go ahead yet.

Remember, this is all sketchy hearsay until I review the meeting myself in the next week.

Be here again next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

For now let me close with some philosophy. In this country we are seeing a new trend. Remember Rahm Emmanuel's comment, "never let a crisis go to waste." In their quest for socialism, we are seeing the government running companies and industries where they don't have a clue. Obama's cabinet and staff are nearly all academics with little real-world experience running a business. Think Geithner, who famously had to clarify in a hearing that he had no investment banking or any banking experience.

So it looks like as far as a government body spending lots of money with no operational clue about what they're doing, the V&T Commission has been way ahead of the curve.

Just think, years from now we'll be able to tell our kids, "After San Francisco and Berkeley, socialism came next to Carson City!" We should be so proud of our bleeding edge politicians for getting us in this mess! We love Senator Reid -- NOT!