PUBLIC RELATIONS ADVICE FROM MAYOR QUARANTINO: Don’t play dumb when public documents are requested.
Veteran KOLO TV-8 journalist Ed Pearce has been reporting on abuse of public workers injured on the job who have no recourse at law when governments won’t pay.
Washoe County’s Olivia Benson, former Sheriff’s Detective Kim Frankel, was severely injured on duty by a drunk driver. She suffered whiplash, a concussion, and developed dystonia, brain damage causing involuntary spastic contractions of arms, hands and feet.
If Washoe County had paid for early care, she’d be back on the job investigating sex crimes. Washoe reneged. Sheriff Darin Balaam wouldn’t even make a phone call. She and her family lost their house and moved to Oregon to live with relatives. She’s finally getting treatment there, paying for it herself, but the bodily convulsions are permanent. She is working to change the abusive law.
She said that if the county had paid for her care instead of fighting and losing in court, taxpayers would be money ahead. I asked for an accounting. Indeed, the $73,436.00 in legal costs to date is almost half of everything.
The state has also fined the county for the abuse in her case. How much?
Officials play dumb.
“Washoe County is not in possession of responsive public record to the request. If there were responsive public records they would be subject to confidentially rules under (various state laws).” Translation: Taxpayers have taken another hit and we don’t gotta tell you nothin’.
“Uh oh, you must have hit a nerve,” Ms. Frankel responded.
“They‘re too busy continuing to try and intimidate, harass and bully me by sending their 552-page appeal directly to me instead of my association or my attorney. Maybe you will hit less of a nerve asking them why they continue to tax injured deputies’ non-taxable income, forcing deputies to overpay taxes when they’ve been asked repeatedly to fix the issue,” she added.
Sen. Skip Daly, D-Sparks, is introducing legislation to fix the legal loophole which has caused thousands of public workers to be thrown away like litter on the roadside.
LEGAL ADVICE FROM FATHER QUARANTINO. May the wonderful Rebecca Gasca score $250,000 from the City of Reno’s insurance fund this week. She sued after being shot three times by Reno Police during the May 2020 George Floyd riot in front of city hall. She was wearing clearly-marked attire as an ACLU observer and put her hands up when she saw rifles trained in her direction. Didn’t matter.
Don’t kid yourself about the danger of rubber bullets. Hard rubber buckshot hits your face and you’re blind. That’s happening all over the world as a prelude to live ammo. Aren’t we supposed to be better than that?
Fortunately, she got hit lower. If Rebecca’s trauma causes city policing to change, it’s worth a $250k slap on the risk and kick in the balls to this retro town. City Attorney Karl Hall has wisely recommended the settlement. The new lady chief has her work cut out for her.
SPIRITUAL ADVICE FROM FATHER QUARANTINO. Separation of church and state is well on the way to the dustbin of American history. There have been many harbingers including the deadly case of the Dayton, Nevada, church that successfully sued to keep holding packed worship services despite the pre-vaccine 2020 COVID-19 shutdown. Like the lawless Washoe County bus system, the church became a Coronavirus superspreader.
Several other recent cases have used religious dogma to allow discrimination against those of alternative procreative proclivity.
In the current instance, a small town postal worker quit after refusing to work on Sunday during December, the busiest time of the year. That’s perhaps no problem in a major metro, but in a small town, it leads to serious delays for medicines as well as Christmas cards. A conservative think tank sued on the worker’s behalf. As with Roe v. Wade, the current Catholic majority has already telegraphed its punch. So Justice Samuel Alito need not fear leakage of this draft.
I can make money off this travesty. Padre Barbano could register the Divine Church of What’s Happenin’ Now, sell a buncha memberships, and my parishioners could plead religious exemptions at any workplace. All while I get tax-free rich.
Don’t wanna wear pants to work? Don’t wanna be bound by blasphemous rules like showing up on time? Don’t wanna get canned if you pinch your co-worker’s can. Not to worry. Pope Andrew will write you an excuse for religious exemptions, especially during football season.
Don’t wanna work Sunday so you can see how your NFL bets are doing? No problemo. Football is America’s most popular religion and Sunday is sacrosanct. I’ll sell introductory memberships for only $79.95 a year while supplies last. Guaranteed gluten-free. I bet I could get Donald Trump’s endorsement if I cut him in on the action. He loves avoiding taxes.
Clarence and the Supremes, the gods of the new business paradigm. Call your broker and tell them to watch for my IPO.
RELATIONSHIP ADVICE FROM DR. QUARANTINO. Do you know the difference between a lie and diplomacy? Two examples will suffice.
When Czar Putin the Terrible tells a mediator he will not kill Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that’s a lie. When Vlad the Butcher said so to the former prime minister of Israel last March right after Russia invaded, he had in fact already dispatched a hit squad to kill Zelenskyy. Fortunately, the murder squad was intercepted.
Putin’s statement was unimpeachably, verifiably a lie.
In contrast, when a husband replies to his wife that her lovely new dress does not make her ass look big, when it actually does (God bless her), that’s not a lie. That’s diplomacy!
HEALTH ADVICE FROM DR. QUARANTINO. A new strain of bird flu is coming and it’s more deadly than anything we’ve seen during the current plague.
Are the government and its drug profiteers working the problem? Yes.
Will it be enough? Not likely. Short-attention span America only reacts to crises. Instead of building a better ship, we wait until the Titanic is within sight of the iceberg. (Zeynep Tufecki, NY Times 2-5-2023) Be very afraid. Get all your current jabs. They provide some defense against the ugly new cousin.
Stay safe and pray for Ukraine and other currently war-torn lands, now up to 63.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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