Today's Opinions

Thumb DOWN for ... WITHOUT A HOMELESS SHELTER. Members of the Samaritan House have asked the city for help with getting a permanent place for a homeless shelter. The group once had one, but it didn’t meet regulations, members said.

Last year, First Presbyterian Church and Faith Hall donated space temporarily for a cold-weather shelter. From Nov. 23 to April 1, that shelter served 47 people, who used the facility for a total of 835 days. So there’s clearly a need in this community for a shelter.

In recent months, top Las Vegas city officials have urged the community to focus on the positive in city government. Indeed, Mayor Tony Marquez has been upset with negative coverage of his administration in this newspaper.

Now City Hall thinks it has figured out a way to get everyone to forget about recent controversies — just pretend they never happened. That smacks of the content of George Orwell’s novel, “1984,” in which officials revised history in favor of the state’s mere interpretation of it.

I was delighted to see that Las Vegas (was) considering a moratorium on filmmaking. As a veteran location manager of many Las Vegas projects (including Wyatt Earp, East Meets West, John Carpenter’s Vampires and North Country), I have watched the film climate in Las Vegas steadily erode over the years. Most recently, the ambivalence (and dare I say greed) I experienced from some segments of the business community during the filming of No Country For Old Men left a bitter taste in my mouth.