Will Nevada's lawmakers fall for the oldest trick in the book?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 8, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Will Nevada's lawmakers fall for the oldest trick in the book?
In the old folk tale, the villagers hide the bounty of their fields when they see the bedraggled company of soldiers straggling up the road.
The tired and hungry troops would force the villagers to reveal their supplies at swordpoint if they had their way. But their wise captain calms them down, explaining that won't be necessary.
Instead, he sets a huge pot of water to boil over a fire in the town square. Laboriously selecting a large stone of just the right shape and weight, he lowers the rock carefully into the boiling kettle, explaining that he knows the magical formula for the most delicious soup in the world -- stone soup.
Unable to contain their curiosity, first one villager and then another emerges from hiding to watch the captain sample his simmering broth with a ladle, exclaiming over its delicious qualities. Of course, he confides sadly, it can't really be the best stone soup without a few carrots -- just a single bunch of carrots would give it all the added flavor it needs.
Hesitantly, one of the villagers brings forth a bunch of ripe orange carrots.
The captain is ecstatic. He virtually dances with delight at the broth's developing aroma. Now, if only there was a way to add a few parsnips.
Anxious to see the venture succeed, another villager dashes home to bring forth an armful of parsnips ...
Out in suburban Henderson, Nevada, Richard Moore is trying to make stone soup. Hired as the "founding president" of the new Henderson state teachers college -- which doesn't exist -- he and the project's other backers initially insisted the pipe-dream project could be built without any state aid at all -- private corporate donations would cover all the brick-and-mortar construction costs, if the state would merely agree to accept the new institution into the pantheon of official state institutions of higher ed, perhaps contributing a wee bit to operating costs ... down the road, you understand.
By the time the Nevada Legislature went into session last winter, Mr. Moore and company had moved along to, "All? Did we say our corporate donations would cover (start ital)all(end ital) the start-up costs? Actually, if we had just a million dollars in state moneys, that would make (start ital)such(end ital) a difference ..."
Turned down at the Legislature, Mr. Moore has now asked the Board of Regents to approach the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee, seeking just $700,000 in "seed money" to get his venture going.
Those corporate contributions? Moore said Wednesday the LandWell Co. -- development arm of Henderson's Black Mountain Industrial Center -- will continue to cover his own $175,000 salary and those of two assistants through early fall -- a "cash contribution" on which he sets a $300,000 value. Otherwise, he claims to be able to count $700,000 in promised "in-kind donations," though most of those seem to either consist of or be dependent on state moneys set aside for the new college's first building and its second year of operation.
What's going on here? Finding successful people who will agree in principle to "help you finish the building if you'll put my name on it" or to "subsidize part of the tuition for 20 of my employees once you get that computer course up and running" is easy enough. But what university system Chancellor Jane Nichols told Mr. Moore is that he has till mid-August to come up with $1 million in private startup money and $10 million in private construction funds -- checks, not promises.
"This is ridiculous," comments Regent Steve Sisolak of Las Vegas. "Where is all the private support for this college? We were told at one point there was $50 million. Now there's still nothing."
"They're basically admitting they do not have the community support they said was out there," concludes Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, who sits on the Interim Finance Committee. "It puts them in a vulnerable position."
It begins to appear this particular set of village rubes has seen the "stone soup" act before. Could it be they're going to insist Mr. Moore show them what he's got in his pot before they throw in any carrots?
Let's hope so.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
