Guy W. Farmer: Vote 'no' on CC1 - the Nugget Project

In their increasingly desperate and very expensive propaganda blitz, Carson Nugget President Steve Neighbors and his eccentric "Proud Grannies for CC1" - the controversial Nugget Project ballot initiative - claim that those of us who oppose this budget-busting measure are negative old codgers who don't love Carson City.

What nonsense!

Neighbors, a self-described "outsider from Idaho," and his Grannies have appointed themselves as arbiters to decide who loves Carson City, and who doesn't. I've decided to counter them by creating a new group, "Proud Grandpas for Fiscal Responsibility." We Grandpas think it's wrong to raise taxes in the midst of a recession in order to pay for a big new library that we don't need, don't want and can't afford.

We Proud Grandpas also think it's the height of fiscal irresponsibility to raise taxes and saddle our children and grandchildren with some $40 million (including interest) in bonded indebtedness when our city already faces a budget deficit of $3.6 million. The Grannies tell us that we're living in "moments of wide-eyed enlightenment" and "are strangely at one with our grandchildren." Huh? What does this addled verbiage have to do with the Nugget Project?

We Proud Grandpas love Carson City and we love our grandchildren too, but we're simply unwilling to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a huge "feel good" project that future generations will have to pay for.

And by the way, I think I know which city employee is writing the Grannies' convoluted script but I won't name names in order to protect her from terminal embarrassment.

Neighbors' propaganda blitz includes paid advertising, otherworldly phone-in seances with the late Mae Adams, and occasional "advertorials," which are ads disguised as news. That's part of a PR campaign that was made public last year in widely circulated leaked emails between Neighbors and his friends.

Supporters of CC1 refer to the new library as a "Knowledge + Discovery Center," but we already have a thriving knowledge and discovery center here in Carson. It's called the Nevada State Museum and it offers a wide range of educational activities and programs for children and adults of all ages.

We also have four good libraries here - the Carson City Library, the state library and those at Carson High and Western Nevada College - that should work together to satisfy the needs of our town's library patrons.

As executor of the Hop and Mae Adams Trust (usually referred to as "Mae," as in "Mae says" and "Mae thinks"), Neighbors keeps telling us how much the Adams family - the late Hop Adams, his widow Mae and Hop's deceased brother Howard - loved Carson City, but former mayors Ray Masayko and Marv Teixeira tell a different story about broken promises to invest in downtown Carson City. Instead of investing here, the Adams family always took their casino profits back home to Boise.

And finally, if we have millions of dollars to spend on worthwhile projects, I suggest that we invest in an imaginative Computer Corps project to make Carson a "connected city" by providing so-called smart tablets to local schoolchildren. Now that makes sense in contrast to what Neighbors and his Grannies are proposing. Bottom line: Vote "No" on CC1. You'll be glad you did.

• Proud Grandpa Guy W. Farmer loves Carson City and his twin grandsons. Endorsements are Farmer's and not those of the Nevada Appeal.