BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames

Barbwire Archives

Dear Nevada Lawmakers:

Today rises the Day of the Dead at the Ledge. You have in your hands the only, if mild, potential relief for distressed Nevada renters, Senate Bill 398 and Assembly Bill 399. Please don't let them die.

Sparks Sen. Julia Ratti's SB398 would empower local governments to provide modest relief to renters.

It appears to allow rent justification under extreme conditions such as those now plaguing Nevada's urban boomtowns. (Barbara Bennett was elected Mayor of Reno in 1979 after unsuccessfully proposing a justification ordinance. Delaware passed a rent justification law in 2013.)

The question of local authority was never raised at the 1977 Reno City Council meeting which voted down Mrs. Bennett's proposal. I was there.

Temporary rent justification oversight is NOT rent control. Its goal is affordable housing and the word "rent" is absent. Landlords would simply have to substantiate actual cost increases during irregular conditions when out-of-state speculators have skewed the free market such as the booms of 2017-19 and 1977-78 (when even newly arrived middle managers were living in tents by the Truckee River. I filmed them).

Justification could trigger when rental availabilities drop below, e.g., 5 percent or perhaps less.

Speculators buying at exorbitant prices looking for a quick flip would have their potential rent increases dampened by an environment not allowed to run wild. I will bring you ethical longtime local landlords who could but choose not to abuse their longtime tenants.

Rent justification can actually spur new construction because new builds would deactivate oversight and solve everybody's problem — More housing begets a return to competitive prices as the market rights itself with a little temp help from government. What's not to like?

The alternative is the Tesla effect disgrace which has embarrassed Nevada worldwide. (See The Guardian of London/UK article to which I contributed last year — 1 Billion page views per month.)

I have interviewed the frightened Reno grandmother living in a vermin-infested weekly motel whose health has severely degenerated due the stressful environment on an always-noisy thoroughfare.

A Sparks complex recently locked its dumpsters and forced elderly tenants to pay for trash pickup at their doors. A Sparks grandmother there will be living in her car by September.

A decade ago, a young couple stranded at a weekly motel became regular callers to my talk/rock TV show. One of my viewers offered to fix their car for the price of parts. I brought them a bit of cash we collected at the station. To this day, that hovel remains the most depressing place I have ever entered in my life. If there's a hell, that's my concept of it.

The tiny darkened cel was piled to the ceiling with garbage bags containing their few worldly possessions. The only positive was that it stunk so bad of nicotine and smoke that no self-respecting rat would live there. Little light could enter because the windows had been broken and nailed shut. Every time I drive past, I look to see if the boards still keep the black hole black. The windows remain covered after 10 years. But the place still offers free cable.

Yes, impending recession may also serve to take the bloom off the boom, but families will suffer and people will die waiting for the fabled Invisible Hand of the Market to take its invisible thumb off the scales of commerce.

Henderson Assemblymember Ellen Spiegel's AB399 proposes establishment of a state-based retirement savings program, the "Work and Save Nevada Act."

Lt. Gov. Kate Marshall told the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce last week that it can alleviate some of the depredations of the payday loan business because of non-penalty withdrawal features when a worker might have an emergency such as an auto repair — or avoiding late rent payment penalties.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., last week said that "I believe in markets but markets without rules are theft."

Please help your vulnerable constituents weather the storm of good times gone bad for them. This is a win-win-win if you'll let it happen.

Your highest calling lies in helping people you will never meet. You can do it.

¡Sí se puede!

Peruse the Underbelly of the News —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

For all the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now: Tell your friends and friendly enemies to subscribe to Barbwire Confidential for warm laughter, cheap thrills, hot scoops and occasional cold logic at BallotBoxing.US/ Cheap at twice the price. (Hush Hush!)

BLACK LIKE ME 2119: The problem as solution
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-13-2019 Sparks Tribune / Updated 2-14 and 2-16-2019
Breaking News —> Culinary Union defeats decert at Circus Circus Reno
Dear Readers: The above column served as the conclusion of remarks I submitted before the "Tahoe Talks: Racism in America" symposium at the Incline Village, Nev., Library on February 12, 2019. So you might want to read "FADE TO BLACK" before you read "Black Like Me 2119".

	Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?
From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.	The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)	The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" — Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
Back to the story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist holocaust

Triangle tragedy recalled as requiem "The Fire in My Mouth," a new oratorio by Pulitzer honoree Julia Wolfe, premiered with the New York Philharmonic Jan. 24 By Michael Cooper / The New York Times 1-23-2019

SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

NevadaLabor.com | U-News | Bulletins + Almanac Casinos Out of Politics (COP) | Sen. Joe Neal Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors | BallotBoxing.US DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames Annual César Chávez Celebration War Rooms: Banks, Cabbies, Cabela's/cabellyup, Cable TV, Cancer Kids/Mining, Energy, Food, Health Care, Resurge.TV/consumers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart We Don't Need No Education Search this site | In Search Of...

Barbwire Archives

Copyright © 1982-2019 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 50-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is the executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Betty J. Barbano 2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory

Comments and suggestions appreciated. Sign up for news and bulletins