Happy Impact Day

While most Nevadans observe the traditional holidays — Memorial Day this weekend, for instance — the folks at the Department of Motor Vehicles have apparently added an additional celebration to the calendar. It’s relatively obscure — sort of like Festivus — and is known as “Impact Day.”

Festivities for the fifth annual “Impact Day” took place on May 17. That’s when 20 DMV agents fanned out across Las Vegas in search of garage owners, body shop owners and other dangerous scofflaws who had failed to obtain the proper permits.

In North Las Vegas on that day, Jose Tinoco, owner of Tinoco’s Auto Body, didn’t realize he was about to get run over by the DMV’s “Impact Day” parade. He had business licenses from both the secretary of state’s office and Clark County, but DMV investigators nailed him with a $1,500 citation anyway because he was operating without approval from the agency.

Mr. Tinoco, who opened his shop just two months ago, told Review-Journal reporter Art Marroquin that he didn’t know he needed to register with the department. Who would?

DMV spokesman Kevin Malone points out that the agency has long been involved in licensing automobile-related businesses. The DMV has jurisdiction, he said, “to ensure the abuses in this particular industry are handled by a state agency.”

All this is ostensibly to protect consumers from things such as car dealers that ignore contract law or body shops that low-ball estimates. But is it really necessary for entrepreneurs such as Mr. Tinoco to obtain permission slips from three separate government bureaucracies? At the very least, shouldn’t such licensing requirements be consolidated?

And why not issuing warnings to new proprietors before reaching for the hammer? Let’s remember that garages and body shops also need a whole host of other permits, many environmental related.

Small-business owners routinely complain about the challenges they face navigating bureaucratic red tape. This might serve as Exhibit A.

Nevada continues to be relatively business friendly. But the DMV’s “Impact Day” reveals there’s plenty of room for sensible regulatory reform. Now would be cause for a state holiday.

I find it laughable that the Democrats are criticizing Donald Trump for buying low and selling high during the housing crisis (“Trump draws flak over ‘07 comments,” Wednesday Review-Journal). I don’t believe anyone in his right mind would buy high and sell low if he had a choice.

I will bet you doughnuts to dollars that Sen. Elizabeth Warren and our own Rep. Dina Titus — and other Democrats who are criticizing Mr. Trump — would do the same thing and smile all the way to the bank if they had a chance to make a profit. Who knows, they might have.

Maybe that is why our national debt is so high and out of control. The Democrats keep buying high and selling low.

In her May 19 column, “Clark County public defender’s office turns 50,” Jane Ann Morrison writes that at one point, the office’s “reputation had plummeted because it was failing to bring cases to trial.”

Headed by Philip Kohn, the public defender’s office has special teams representing juvenile court, homicide, sexual assault and appeals. But does it also have a team to tell victims and their loved ones why Mr. Kohn’s office is delaying the trial of individuals accused of horrendous crimes, including murder, against innocent victims?

Are you hoping witnesses will disappear and cannot be found or their memory gets hazy or forgetful after so many years since the crime?

The public defender’s office, through legal maneuvering and continuances, manipulates the judicial system and does not care about giving some closure to the real victims of these brutal crimes and their loved ones.

I read that Bank of America won an appeal that eliminates the $1.27 billion fine that was imposed on it for corrupt actions during the mortgage fiasco that left millions without homes. The judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed this to happen. Are you kidding me? No arrests were made and yet billions were illegally earned for the executives of the firms. So when the fine was imposed we felt a little vindicated — but now even that is gone.

The interesting thing is this bank and others are still screwing with us and making billions of dollars. This is happening right under our noses — like when the bank declines to foreclose on the loans, no one pays the taxes nor keeps up the land and homes, yet nothing is done about it.

We have to demand more from our government. Vote these people out. Make them do the job they were paid to do and stop them from filling their own pockets while we keep getting taxed more and more.

I have been reading a lot about the possibility of the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas. But they want millions in hotel taxes to finance a new stadium.

Are we, the people of Las Vegas, crazy? Why in the world would we use tax money to build a new stadium?

First of all, that money should go to our educational system. We have one of the worst school systems because we do not invest in our schools, which must develop our talented young people.

Second, who will really benefit from the Raiders moving to Vegas? The team owner. The owner will get richer and he wants us to put up the money.

Sure, it would be nice to have an NFL team here. But I do not think we want to use our tax money.