I hold as a personal value “walking the talk” and hold as a model of behavior the following quote:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

• Edmund Burke

Below are some of the things that I have written about on bardeblog.com, participated in and spoken out about during the various meetings that I attend, most notably the County commission meetings.  Interesting to note that none of our current commissioners opposed some of these things at the time……or ever.

• opposed the use of county tax revenues to pay for the effluent pipeline from Sparks to TRI which is a private developer expense not a taxpayer burden
• opposed the numerous “free” land giveaways to TRI including the re-conveyance of USA Parkway where TRI yielded approximately $25 million dollars in profits on land we gave them for free with nothing coming back to the County in terms of TRIC debt.
• opposed the increase of the gas tax, and the implementation of a potential merchant tax to fund VCTC.
• opposed the use of Eminent Domain to seize the Freight Depot from its owners for County use
• opposed the inappropriate payment of lavish bonuses ( $250k of our tax revenues ) to highly paid county executives by county management and I am still calling for accountability
• opposed preferential treatment of key players in how the county does business specifically the continued amendments  of the brothel ordinance, the manner in which a lease option to buy was executed for the Courthouse parking lot property, and the funding of an all male organization which excludes open membership.
• opposed the continued disbursement of the ¼ cent sales tax to fund the V&T rail commission due to an ambiguous and unfair MOU between the Commission and the County.
• supported our communities through my involvement as Board Chair of the V.C. Senior Center, Pipers Opera House  board membership and activities and participation in numerous community events.
• supported community sharing of tax revenues. Along with others I fought for the park fund monies to go back to the communities, I asked the commission to add all communities to the infrastructure funding list, asked about establishing an Economic Development zone or strategic plan for VC merchants
• supported and repeatedly called for prudent and conservative financial decisions based on sound practices such as cost benefit analysis and financial projections
• supported our businesses in Virginia City and on C Street by working with hoteliers to develop a plan to increase overnight stays