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Trustees get earful about Beatty school problems
Even counting the school district employees and their family members who attended the bond issue meeting in Beatty Oct. 4, the turnout was disappointing. Some people commented that it was not adequately publicized, although flyers were posted and sent home with students. School board President Deborah Wescoatt conducted the meeting, starting out by showing a video of school board members and administrators visited to gather ideas for construction of the new high school and two elementary facilities planned for Pahrump. Wescoatt explained that permanent modular construction, which consists of units constructed in the contractor's own plant and then installed on concrete slabs could save the district considerable time and money. Using this approach, she said they should be able to have Floyd Elementary, which will be built using the last of the previous bond issue money, ready to open in August 2007.
PNP MPs attack contractor general as he defends public interest
It was contractor general Greg Christie, and not the PNP MPs in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), who represented the interests of the Jamaican people at a sitting of the committee on September 19 to consider reports on the Sandals Whitehouse Hotel project. The country was shocked by the disgraceful treatment meted out to Christie by some government members at the sitting, all because he stuck to his guns in his crusade to clean up the mismanagement mess caused by the failure of some government entities to follow public sector procurement procedures. Instead of supporting the contractor general they attempted to put obstacles in his way and to confuse and humiliate him, tried to shake his confidence, throw him off track and perhaps get him to throw down the gauntlet so that their cronies in the entities could continue their misdeeds.
Red tape keeps Gaza evacuees from new homes
More than a year after they were removed from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria, the first 21 of 1,400 evacuee families living in temporary group situations received permits to start building their new permanent homes on Thursday. Government officials admitted on Thursday that the initial two-year timetable, which called for the final resettlement of all 1,400 evacuee families by August 2007, was optimistic. "It will take some time," said Interior Ministry spokesman Moshe Mosko, whose office is responsible for providing permits for the sites so that they can be released for construction. He estimated that most of the families would receive permission to build new permanent homes within the next two years, thereby extending the initial process by a year. The timetable went awry in the early stages, when settlers spent months, and in some cases close to a year, living in hotel rooms as they waited to move into their temporary modular homes.
FEMA shows heart in altering trailer deadline
Considering how its performance in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina bordered on pathetically cruel, it's refreshing to see the Federal Emergency Management Agency has a heart and a dose of common sense. At least it seems that way. .
Gulf Coast residents frustrated with delay
BAY ST. LOUIS Rhonda Thigpen thought her homeowner grant application would have been one of the easiest to process. Her home of 20 years was paid off months before Hurricane Katrina demolished it on Aug. 29, 2005. So, there was no mortgage company to pay off, which Thigpen thought would have eliminated red tape. Yet, she hasn't heard whether she is among the 17,000 Gulf Coast residents who applied for the $3 billion program handled by the Mississippi Development Authority. Last week, state officials celebrated a lightning-quick special session aimed at helping Coast residents rebuild. Meeting in special session for less than two hours, lawmakers voted to cut the sales tax on modular homes from 7 to 3 percent, allowing residents to save a few thousand dollars on a quick-built home.
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