Barbwire by Barbano: Corporate Welfare Blues

ONE LAST CHANCE TO AVOID THE CABELA'S CON. The Reno City Council meets tomorrow to approve a massive amount of corporate welfare for the Cabela's sporting goods chain. The retailer has promised that the 150,000 square-foot store will generate three million tourists a year or more. [A]

The Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority included the Cabela's claim in its 2005-2006 marketing plan. [B] However, the RSCVA's own figures show that the entire 2006 visitor count for Reno-Sparks-Incline/Tahoe was only 5,180,692. [C]

Cabela's has thus promised a marketing miracle — an increase of almost 60 percent for an area which has seen annual tourism shrink by half a million visitors since 2002. Almost half (46%) of existing visitors come from California, which Cabela's asserts will be the primary source of its new customer-tourists.

Reno Mayor Bob Cashell and City Councilman Dan Gustin are longtime marketing men, Cashell a casino owner and Gustin proprietor of a sports-oriented advertising agency. Councilman Dwight Dortch was general manager of the Reno Silver Sox baseball team. Councilwoman Sharon Zadra was for years a marketing exec with area casinos and still runs her own firm.

A majority of the Reno City Council thus possesses substantial marketing and tourism expertise. Councilman Pierre Hascheff is a CPA as well as an attorney.

Can it be possible that no one at city hall or the RSCVA questioned Cabela's extravagant claim? Eight NFL regular season home games would not generate one million people in Reno or anywhere else.

This has the makings of the biggest and most expensive fish story this area has ever seen but unlike tall tales, it's not harmless. Local schools, roads, parks, police and fire protection, already underfunded, will be shortchanged for decades to come unless the council refuses to buy this pie in the sky.

At minimum, the council needs to build penalties for underperformance into the deal.

UPDATE: In the RED
First of a long series of wage complaints filed against Sparks Marina STAR project
Labor commissioner gives City of Sparks 30 days to investigate
12-21-2009

RENOWN WELFARE QUEEN FIGHTS ITS OWN WORKERS. Renown/Washoe Medical Center nurses begin voting today to stay unionized after management refused to recognize Service Employees International Union Local 1107 as successor to Operating Engineers Local 3.

Understaffing nurses while increasing their patient loads and thus endangering patients has been a chronic problem at the former county hospital since a corrupt Washoe County Commission gave it away for 30 pieces of silver in 1985.

The section includes the smoking-gun 1995 Washoe County Grand Jury Report, never available on the web until now.

A representative of SEIU Local 1107 told KOLO TV-8 news on Monday, Sept. 24, that the union will work toward organizing workers at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center in Reno if this week's election is successful.

They will have competition, as the California Nurses Association is already moving to organize St. Mary's nursing staff.

Operating Engineers Local 3 came close to winning an election at St. Mary's in 1999, the same year they won at Washoe Med, but having several elections throughout the west in close succession strained the union's resources.

St. Mary's hired a cadre of exorbitantly expensive and quite un-Christian union busters who defeated the organizing drive.

As at Renown/Washoe, the increasing stress caused by understaffing has not abated.

AND THE BIGGEST WELFARE QUEEN OF ALL – just had most its workforce go on strike. General Motors has been grinding concessions out of its workers for three decades while exporting their jobs to foreign countries. The United Auto Workers finally found their cojones and walked off the job yesterday.

This includes the workforce at the gigantic General Motors warehouse in Stead, north of downtown Reno. As of late Monday afternoon, no workers had crossed the picket line and almost all delivery trucks had turned away (with occasional exceptions, such as anti-union Federal Express).

UAW members or those of other unions, retirees, family and friends of the movement are encouraged to call and sign up for shifts on the picket line. Call UAW Local 2162 at (775) 786-8530. They can probably also use logistics support, such as transportation of food and drink.

This is important. The American worker hasn't had an inflation-adjusted raise since 1973. A major reason is that U.S. workers suffer under the most repressive labor laws in the industrialized world.

Labor unions have fallen below critical mass after three decades of government sponsored oppression on the one hand, while that same government has been encouraging and subsidizing the export of high-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs.

As the 1996 Hot August Strike at Hot August Nights proved, even a small group of workers — like Security, Police and Fire Professionals Local 1010 — can topple a giant like the Hilton Hotel chain if the workers maintain solidarity. All of the above can take heart from the Little Union that Could and go forth and conquer.

It's time to take a stand for the future of all of us.

Be well. Raise hell.

Smoking Guns...

NEW! Health Care War Room
NevadaLabor.com Exclusive: 1995 Washoe County Grand Jury Report detailing the scandals and skullduggery which resulted in the theft of Reno's public hospital
AFL-CIO leader asks affiliates to pressure management
Statewide 16,000-member seniors group endorses union drive

(1) Boxing Pandora / BARBWIRE 9-23-2007

(2) Striking blows for justice / BARBWIRE 9-16-2007

(3) Party like it's 1929 — Union-busting Reno hospital offers excuses for rape and pillage
BARBWIRE 8-12-2007

(4) Washoe Med renown for toxic sludge / BARBWIRE 8-5-2007

(5) Washoe Med antes into the game to put Medicare into a death spiral; Barbwire by Barbano; Daily Sparks Tribune, 6-12-2005.

(6) Like Washoe Med, Carson-Tahoe Hospital commits suicide and the taxpayers will pay — He who ignores the doofusses is bound to become one, Barbwire by Barbano; Daily Sparks Tribune, 8-5-2001; Carson City Nevada Appeal, 8-8-2001.

(7) Getting down and dirty / BARBWIRE 4-8-2001

(8) Washoe Med: Get Rich Quick at No Money Down; Barbwire by Barbano; Daily Sparks Tribune, 5 November 1995 et seq.

NEW 1995 BARBWIRE ARCHIVE — Analysis of the Grand Jury Report
Additional columns uploaded just in time for the nurses' union vote

NEW NevadaLabor.com Exclusive
Grand Jury Report downloadable in Adobe Acrobat Reader .pdf format
Title page, also in Acrobat Reader

...and more ammo

cabellyup.com

[A] Cabela's eyes Washington for retail location
        Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle); January 25, 2006.

    "(Company spokesman James) Powell said that by tracking catalog purchases, Cabela's knows the Pacific Northwest is a 'loyal' market. The average Cabela's retail store, he said, attracts an average of 3.5 million visitors per year."

[B] Reno-Tahoe Marketing and Sales Plan for 2005-2006; page 9; Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority.

    "The destination has begun to receive tourism investment projects. Cabela's incorporated, the World's Foremost Outfitter of hunting and outdoor gear, announced Reno as the site of a 150,000 square foot superstore to open in early 2007. Cabela's is more than a retail store – it’s a visitors destination and is anticipated to bring more than an estimated 3 million visitors annually."

[C] 2006 Reno-Sparks Visitor Profile Study; page 7; Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority.

Government contacts

Nevada Legislature
State of Nevada
Secretary of State

Clark County
City of Las Vegas
Reno City Council
Sparks City Council
Washoe County Commission
Washoe County School District Board of Trustees
Washoe Registrar of Voters

The Dean's List

The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.

RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006