{"id":2611,"date":"2010-03-18T10:35:23","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T18:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2611"},"modified":"2011-11-10T15:36:55","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T23:36:55","slug":"love-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/love-train\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Train"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sig'sAs in the flowering bromance between Sen. Harry Reid<\/strong> (D-NV) and mouthpiece-for-hire Sig “The Fixer” Rogich<\/strong>. The former, a longtime supporter of a proposed maglev train betwixt Las Vegas and Anaheim, switched his allegiance to Rogich’s Choo-Choo-to-Nowhere<\/strong>, by the strangest of coincidences, at the very moment that the Sigmeister was lining up casino bosses to endorse Reid’s troubled reelection bid.<\/p>\n

Since Rogich has been carrying water for Reid by the tubful<\/a> lately, the senator is returning the favor by yanking $45 million in federal seed money<\/a> out from under the maglev project and redirecting it to local highway improvement. The good news is this will expedite the all-important McCarran International Airport<\/strong>-to-Fiesta Henderson<\/strong> commute.<\/p>\n

The bad news is that Southern Californians and Nevadans alike will have to resign themselves to the near-inevitability of Rogich’s Desert Xpress<\/strong>. Both it and the maglev train may have been pie in the sky notions but Desert Xpress is an obvious non-starter. If you’ve fought your way over the El Cajon<\/strong> Pass<\/strong>, why would you park in Victorville<\/strong> and take a train into Vegas? For that matter, what sane Las Vegan would pay to ride the rails to V-ville, then pay again<\/em> to rent a car for the rest of the journey?<\/p>\n

The viability of the whole project<\/strong> rests upon Caltrans<\/strong> playing deux ex machina<\/em> by building a connector line that will link Desert Xpress to the rest of the Golden State’s commuter trains. In light of California’s crippling budgetary problems, I wouldn’t hold my breath.<\/p>\n

Ditto Rogich’s claim that Desert Xpress won’t require taxpayer support. We’ve heard that one before and its afterbirth was the bankrupt Las Vegas Monorail<\/strong>. But if maglev is effectively dead and Desert Xpress is a conceptual non-starter, why not do the unpalatable but obvious thing and try to drum up funding — and new management — in order to connect the Monorail with McCarran? It’s that or tear it down, and it’s the only sort of commuter rail Las Vegas is wont to see in this decade.<\/p>\n

(A digression<\/em>: I don’t begrudge firefighters $200K a year for risking their lives on my behalf, so I don’t see why Rogich does. He gets paid a lot more than that to whisk about with his entourage and flap his jaw at no physical risk to himself whatsover.)<\/p>\n

Like the proverbial stopped watch<\/strong> that’s right twice a day, Rogich stumbles onto an obvious but generally unspoken truth about Nevada’s overreliance on casino taxes (6.75% of gross revenues) vs. mining ones (5% of net revs). The latter is an extractive industry which means that once the precious stuff is gone, it’s gone — and so is the industry. You’d think the folly of placing most of Nevada’s eggs in gambling’s basket would be obvious by now, but it’s still a tough sell.<\/p>\n

Grudge match<\/strong>. There’s a lot of history between the Culinary Union<\/strong> and Archon Corp<\/strong>. Treasurer\/MILF Sue Lowden<\/strong>, none of it good<\/a>. As for Paul Lowden<\/strong>‘s career as a casino mogul, if it weren’t for his wife’s celebrity he’d be on the same “Whatever happened to …” slagheap as Margaret Elardi<\/strong> and the Herbst Brothers<\/strong> … assuming he’s not there already.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As in the flowering bromance between Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and mouthpiece-for-hire Sig “The Fixer” Rogich. The former, a longtime supporter of a proposed maglev train betwixt Las Vegas and Anaheim, switched his allegiance to Rogich’s Choo-Choo-to-Nowhere, by the strangest … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46,34,14,26,123,33,57,31,19,100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7917,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions\/7917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}