Las Vegas folks treated poorly by government

Posted on by December 27, 2017
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Las Vegas folks treated poorlyIt happened again. A lengthy article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal tells how the state government of Nevada has long failed to enforce its own law requiring review of emergency response plans filed by big places like casino hotels. This is no small matter especially given the October 1 massacre by a gunman firing from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino across the Strip to an outdoor performance venue that killed 58 and wounded more than 500 (just voted the year’s biggest crime story by CNN).

Earlier this year, I wrote a long piece for The Nevada Independent about how the state Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t comply with a 2013 state law requiring that full financial statements or IRS Form 990s be posted on its website of charities soliciting for contributions in the state. This makes it a lot easier for sketchy charities that spend as much as 90% of the money raised on fundraising and overhead to hide their scandalous financial efficiencies from my now-fellow Nevadans.

Several state officials, including Republicans Gov. Brian Sandoval and Attorney General Adam Laxalt (who is campaigning to replace Sandoval when his term ends next year), have refused to enforce a law calling for background checks on private-party gun sales that was actually passed statewide by voters in 2016. They say the law is flawed.

As someone still New To Las Vegas, I find only one conclusion to draw from this and other governmental actions–or inactions. Nevada is a state whose governmental entities and agencies do not take very good care of its citizens. Continue reading →

Pitch from dodgy cancer charity graces holiday time in Las Vegas

Posted on by April 17, 2021
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dodgy cancer charity Holiday season. The time of giving. The phone rang at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters. Molly–or rather, an interactive computer programmed to say it was Molly–was on the line. After telling a lame joke, she/it cut to the chase. She/it said she/it was soliciting donations to the Women’s Cancer Fund, and hoped I could be counted to make a financial pledge.

I had not heard of the Women’s Cancer Fund (not all that surprising since there are thousands of charities in the country with the word “cancer” in their names). Where is Women’s Cancer Fund located, I asked. “Harrisburg, Pa,” she/it replied cheerily.

I asked for the organization’s federal tax ID number. “You know, I don’t have that,” she/it said, adding that her/its supervisor could help. Indeed, a real live human–who likely was monitoring the back and forth between “Molly” and me–quickly came on the line and gave me a nine-digit number.

Except that after looking it up online, I discovered the number wasn’t in the name of Women’s Center Fund. It was in the name of something called Cancer Recovery Foundation International. Women’s Cancer Fund is one of several cancer-themed trade names that CRFI uses as it asks an unsuspecting public for funds. Other d/b/a’s include Nevada Cancer Research Fund and Pink Diamond Women’s Cancer Fund.

And do I mean unsuspecting. In its latest fiscal period, according to my reckoning, only a sliver of the cash donations CRFI received went directly for anything that I would call good works. The rest was spent on fundraising, marketing and overhead. CRFI does business with several sketchy outfits–several of which I have written about–while using an accounting ploy to make its financial efficiencies and largess seem better than they really are. Continue reading →

Around Las Vegas, Veterans of America is elusive

Posted on by November 17, 2017
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Veterans of AmericaIn the past week or so I’ve received several calls at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters asking if I would like to donate my car–or real estate or even time share–to an outfit called Veterans of America and take a tax deduction. The calls consisted of a tape-recorded message inviting me to either call an 800 number or hit a button on my phone to speak with someone.

Since I never had heard of that organization, I did call or hit the button, several times. But when I asked whoever came on the line for the specific office address or the tax ID number–which would be needed for a valid tax deduction–that person abruptly hung up.

A legitimate nonprofit concerned about its reputation likely would not do that. Continue reading →

Far from Las Vegas, an amusing Trump hack of Google Maps

Posted on by October 30, 2017
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The federal indictment released today in Washington, D.C., against against ex-Trump campaign manager Paul J. Manafort Jr. alleges among other things he used laundered untaxed money presumably generated by his pro-Russian activities to buy a nice brownstone house in the trendy Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Now, decades before becoming New To Las Vegas, I lived in Park Slope, the very next neighborhood to the east of Carroll Gardens. I know the area well but wanted to see exactly how far away that was from my former abode. So I went to Google Maps and punched in the address listed in the indictment, 377 Union Street. Here’s the screenshot I got:

Trump hack of Google MapsThat’s right, folks. Someone today hacked Google Maps to insert a picture of President Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office in the spot where an image of Manafort’s house normally would appear.

If you take a very close look at the map. you’ll see there’s marker for “Persons of Interest” on the same block as the property. I think that is the name of a barber shop. But what a coincidence.

While I don’t especially approve of computer hacking, this is tooooooooo funny. Continue reading →

Wealth of Las Vegas richest folks rises less than stock market

Posted on by October 18, 2017
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See update at end of post

I don’t know how your last 12 months have gone. But the nine richest people around Las Vegas collectively are more than $5 billion richer than they were a year ago.
The 36th edition of the Forbes 400 list came out today, and the estimated net worth of the nine entrants from the Las Vegas area totals $55.6 billion. That’s up from $50.1 billion.

Normally, a 11% jump in one year would be nothing to laugh at. But this year it actually is. That’s because the S&P 500 index rose 16.2% in that same period. As a group, the Vegas Nine would have done better by throwing it all in a big Vanguard mutual fund and spending the year on a beach. Hell, you might have done better than they did in your own IRA or 401(k).

Sheldon Adelson, the 84-year-old casino tycoon whose family also owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state’s largest newspaper, retains by far the title of richest man in Las Vegas (and Nevada). He remains No. 14 on the Forbes list, with a net worth of $35.4 billion, up $3.6 billion from last year.

Here are the others:

Continue reading →

Las Vegas massacre brings out worst of blogosphere

Posted on by October 3, 2017
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Las Vegas massacre

Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino (via Wikipedia)

Within a few hours of last night’s horrendous Las Vegas Strip massacre, various outlets on the blogosphere had identified the killer. In my New To Las Vegas home just a few miles from the crime scene, I watched on the Internet overnight as they displayed his name, his picture, his hometown–Reno–his age. There was no confirmation of any of this from Las Vegas authorities.

The blogosphere outlets, generally of a conservative persuasion, especially had this–the murderer was a supporter of the liberal MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow and other progressive causes. I presume this connection was intended to diffuse the certain-to-come allegations that right-wing objections to gun control laws had fostered the carnage.

Small problem here: The outlets identified the wrong person. Completely and totally.

Later in the early hours of today, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo identified the sole shooter firing across the Strip from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino at the Route 91 Harvest Festival as Stephen Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nev. That’s a growing retirement community on the Arizona state line 85 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

Since then, some of the posts have come down, and others have been updated. But I haven’t seen many apologies. That’s something purveyors of fake news aren’t very good at, even when they’re so conclusively exposed. Continue reading →

Far from Las Vegas, the racism of the National Anthem

Posted on by September 25, 2017
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racism of the National Anthem

Francis Scott Key (portrait attributed to Joseph Wood)

All of America is talking today about NFL player conduct yesterday during the playing of the National Anthem. President Donald J. Trump called the sit-down protests a lack a patriotism rather than, say, a reaction to police brutality like what Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett recently alleged against Las Vegas police.

I would like to suggest folks focus on some of the words in “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the character of its lyricist, Francis Scott Key. In my judgment both are racist beyond belief.

Don’t believe me?

Let’s first take a look at the National Anthem’s rarely sung third stanza. The passage explicitly envisions and welcome the killing of fleeing slaves even as it extols “the land of the free and the home of the brave:”

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!  

The reference to refuge of the slave refers to the fact that British ships in Baltimore Harbor during the War of 1812 were offering to take away runaway slaves, something that Key fought during his professional life. Oddly, that is somewhat the conceit behind Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation a half-century later. Indeed, the slaves who fled to the Brits represented the largest emancipation of blacks until Lincoln. Continue reading →

One Las Vegas official should watch what she wishes for

Posted on by September 25, 2017
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See update at end of post

In today’s Sunday edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Clark County Treasurer Laura B. Fitzpatrick ran a big ad saying that quarterly property taxes were due in a week, on October 2. Folks were advised that they could see what they owed by going to the Treasurer’s web site.

Oops! Here’s what taxpayers saw for hours all day long when they tried to access the tax info:

Las Vegas official

I assume the part of the Treasurer’s site with this information crashed under the weight of inquiries from many of Clark County’s 2 million residents. (I tried using different computers and browsers, all with the same result.)

To me, there are several noteworthy points here:

  • An IT tech should be put on overtime any non-business day a government agency runs an ad with the headline, “Reminder of Property Taxes Due.”
  • Government officials should be prepared for the possibility their efforts will succeed.
  • The Clark County Treasurer is an elected position, next facing the voters in 2018.

Meanwhile, still New To Las Vegas, I’ll try again on Monday after the IT staff gets in.

  Follow William P. Barrett’s work on Twitter by clicking here.

———-

Updated on Monday, September 25, 2017, at 9:00 am

A full 24 hours after I first started looking online for my quarterly property tax bill at the written invitation of Clark County Treasurer Laura B. Fitzpatrick, things aren’t any better:

Las Vegas official

Notwithstanding the language here, I should point out that the Clark County Website is fine. It’s just the property tax bill inquiry page that isn’t working.

Charity solicitation regulation in Nevada and Las Vegas is elusive

Posted on by September 18, 2017
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Charity regulation in NevadaIn 2013 Nevada passed a law bolstering its regulation of most charities soliciting for donations, especially over the telephone. Among other things, the law required such charities to file with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office a financial report such as an IRS Form 990, which the agency “shall … post” on its website. A would-be donor contacted by a cold-calling telemarketer could determine if this was one of the many that spend only 10% or less of donations on its professed charitable cause.

But four years later, the secretary of state’s office still doesn’t post the required financial reports or 990s on its website. Nor does that agency or the Nevada Attorney General’s Office do much to make sure that charities asking Nevadans for their hard-earned dollars are on the up and up or to provided all the needed information. It doesn’t appear, for example, that either of the agencies, which by law share jurisdiction over charities, has even a single staffer devoted exclusively to charitable regulation. The secretary of state’s office is so sloppy that, until I pointed it out, the website listed citations to state law repealed several years ago.

Civil penalties? Cease and desist orders? Revocation of solicitation permissions? Not in Nevada.

I’ve only been New To Las Vegas for barely a year. But as as many of you know, I’ve been writing about charities for decades. To me it’s clear that as it’s being implemented, the Nevada system for overseeing charities is exceedingly weak and an open invitation for sharpies. I put that very observation in writing to flaks for both the SOS and AG–they are elected officials–asking for a response, and got none.

To gain a wider local audience, I’ve written a long essay about the shortcomings I see for The Nevada Independent. This is an donor-funded online news site recently founded by the well-known Nevada journalist Jon Ralston focusing on policy and politics in the Silver State.

Some of the material will be familiar to visitors to this blog, but there’s lots of new stuff. I invite you to read the article by clicking here.

And if you live in Nevada, weep.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on Twitter by clicking here.

It Didn’t Stay Here: Las Vegas trip by alleged Michigan embezzler

Posted on by August 24, 2017
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It Didn't Stay Here

Michelle Schneider (courtesy Grand Traverse County, Mich.)

The bug light known as Las Vegas glows far and wide. To remote corners of the country. Places like, say, Traverse City, Mich. That’s a remote, cultured scenic burg of 15,000 on an inlet off the eastern shore of Lake Michigan near the northern tip of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. (Just before becoming New To Las Vegas, I put Traverse City on a Forbes retirement list.) The town is 2,000 miles from Las Vegas.

If the Traverse City authorities are to be believed, Michelle Schneider saw the glow. They say she embezzled funds from the Traverse City community college where she had worked as a technology specialist for four years to fund a number of personal expenses, including at least one trip to Las Vegas.

Schneider, 46, of suburban Grawn (yep, that’s the name of a place), faces one count of embezzlement for using a credit card issued by Northwestern Michigan College to charge up more than $9,000 in unauthorized expenses. She pleaded not guilty earlier this month in Michigan’s state court system and awaits further proceedings.

That’s enough to earn a nomination to my list It Didn’t Stay Here. The roster highlights folks in difficulties elsewhere for something that happened in Vegas. It’s a mildly satirical refutation of the incredibly well-known marketing pitch of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” The full list sits elsewhere on this page. Continue reading →

Unregistered charity with high overhead trolls for Las Vegas money

Posted on by August 16, 2017
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For once,Unregistered charity the cold caller to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters was a real person, as opposed to a computer using voice recognition technology. That made it a little easier to have a meaningful back and forth as she asked for a charitable contribution.

The cause, she said, was something called Veterans Trauma Support Network. I asked for its address, and she said it was based in Orlando, Fla. She described the organization as nationwide in scope, contributions to which would be tax-deductible. I listened patiently to her pitch that the money would help vets cope with PTSD and other ailments.

She said she worked for an outside paid fundraiser named Charitable Resource Foundation. Finally, I asked how much of donations would go to the stated cause as opposed to fundraising expense. Twelve percent, she said somewhat matter of factly.

Oh, I said. So 88% of all the money raised goes to the fundraiser like you?

The caller said coolly she wasn’t going to discuss the terms of her own compensation. As you might imagine, the call ended soon thereafter.

Quick research by me showed that Veterans Trauma Support Network isn’t its own charity at all but a fundraising trade name used by another charity called Crisis Relief Network. According to official websites, CRN’s fundraisers solicit for money under all kinds of evocative, wallet-tugging names. Besides Veterans Trauma Relief Network, they have included Child Watch of North America, Childhood Abuse and Trauma Foundation, Children’s Cancer Relief Foundation and Breast Cancer Relief Network. (The Child Watch department got some bad press in the San Francisco area last year for using pictures of missing children in its fundraising efforts without parental permission.)

That’s an awful lot of causes for a parent organization that according to the first page of its latest tax return had just one paid employee. Nor was that the only surprise. Continue reading →

Nevada mountain north of Las Vegas still named for Confederate leader

Posted on by August 14, 2017
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Jeff Davis Peak (via Wikipedia)

From what I see, folks in Nevada–which became a no-slave state on the Union side in 1864, during the Civil War–are feeling smug about all the Confederate memorials and statues being taken down across the South. Not to mention buildings and institutions named after slave-owning politicians being renamed, especially in the North and elsewhere. The Nevada attitude: nothing to see here.

But maybe not so fast. The state’s third highest point is Jeff Davis Peak. That’s right. It’s named for the same Jefferson Finis Davis of Mississippi who was the slave-owning president of the Confederate States of America during the four-year-long conflict from 1861 to 1865.

The 12,677-foot-high Snake Range summit is 300 miles due north of Las Vegas, southeast of the small city of Ely, off U.S. 6 near the Utah border in the scenic Great Basin National Park. That makes its owner the Federal Government, for those interested in seriously complaining about the name. Continue reading →

Firefighters charity cleared to solicit in Las Vegas is more smoke than fire

Posted on by August 3, 2017
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From the website of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, you can determine if a specific charity is registered to solicit for donations in the Silver State. But that website won’t tell you at all if that charity has spent almost none of the money raised on good works and/or is poorly rated by charity watchdogs.

Indeed, the bland, bare-bones summary financial listing available–revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities–might even provide false comfort to an unwary donor. The display seems to be in keeping with Nevada’s failing grade regarding public access to information.

For such important charity data, you have to go to sources outside Nevada. Having written for decades about nonprofits big and small before becoming New To Las Vegas, I know a little bit about how to find, interpret and explain this material. So from time to time in this space, I’ll offer an overview of specific charities allowed to ask for money in Nevada, along with my opinion. Since most of them operate nationally, my musings might be of interest to viewers elsewhere.

Today’s subject is the Firefighters Charitable Foundation, of far-away Farmingdale, N.Y. It filed its current registration to solicit in Nevada less than a month ago on July 7.

According to its latest public IRS Form 990 tax filing (which I found outside Nevada), the FFCF spent less than 4% of the money raised on what I would call good works. Equally outrageously, nearly 90% of the donations went to paid fundraisers. And from the filing, it’s appears there was no iron-clad requirement that the few dollars remaining for good works all went to firefighters or even victims of fires. Reputable charity monitors have nothing good to say about the FFCF.

Want to know some more? Read on. Continue reading →

Las Vegas weddings are still a big industry

Posted on by August 31, 2020
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Las Vegas weddings

Britney Spears (via Wikipedia)

Remember that Britney Spears marriage to a childhood friend in 2004 that lasted only 55 hours? The wedding took place in Las Vegas, where nuptials remain almost as big a deal as gambling and entertainment.

Last year, 81,325 marriage licenses were issued in Clark County, home of Las Vegas. That’s one out of every 25 marriages in the entire country. County officials estimate 80% of the licenses go to tourists, or folks who don’t live here.

While way down from the 126,000 licenses generated in 2004, all this love still generates a lot of local loot. By one estimate, Las Vegas weddings create $2 billion a year in local revenue. Experts think 4% of the 40 million annual visitors to Las Vegas come to attend a wedding.

Las Vegas calls itself the Wedding Capital of the World, and there’s actually a Las Vegas Wedding Chamber of Commerce to promote the industry. Local poobahs bragged when the 10,000th same-sex marriage license was issued earlier this year.

Nevada has what are just about the most liberal marriage laws around. Don’t have to be a resident. No blood test required. No waiting period. Just be single, stay away from first or second cousins, be 18 years old, and bring ID. The state will allow an officiant to preside at a wedding with an “ordination” obtained over the Internet from an outfit like the Universal Life Church. This is a common way for a friend or family member, even from out of state, to preside at a Nevada wedding. Continue reading →

It Didn’t Stay Here: Trump partied in Las Vegas with Russians and infamous email writer

Posted on by July 12, 2017
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It Didn't Stay Here

Donald J. Trump (via Wikipedia)

For my list It Didn’t Stay Here, I have even a bigger name to nominate than French President Emmanuel Macron: Donald J. Trump.

CNN just posted video of a June 2013 schmoozy meeting in Las Vegas involving Trump, assorted rich or prominent Russians, and Rob Goldstone, the British publicist who wrote the now-infamous “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” email to Donald J. Trump Jr., who released it yesterday to the public just ahead of The New York Times.

Trump Jr.–who answered that email, “I love it”–wasn’t at the session, which occurred long before I became New To Las Vegas. But Trump Sr. certainly looks pretty chummy with all the Russians, some of whom are at the center of this email brouhaha. Trump ties with Russians are causing him all kinds of political problems in far-away Washington, D.C. He has denied much in the way of connections, but this isn’t going to help him.

My It Didn’t Stay Here list notes people in trouble elsewhere for something that happened in Las Vegas. It’s a takeoff on “What Happens Here, Stays Here,” the famous marketing slogan of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. You can see previous nominees elsewhere on this page.

I think Trump may have some ‘splainin’ to do.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on Twitter by clicking here.