By Rolando Larraz
After three months of semi-retirement, with plenty of time to think and reorganize my future, I have made the decision that if there are no serious, reliable and nonpolitical figures to run for the city council seat soon to be vacated by termed-out and useless city councilwoman Lois Tarkanian, I will run for that seat.
The city council has women, Blacks, Greeks, corrupt ex-military, but not even one Latino name on the entire board, so I may throw my hat in the ring.
I guarantee that I will do everything possible to be a champion by defending everything the current councilwoman has not fought for or defended, so I will do the opposite.
I’ve lived in Clark County for the last sixty years and in Ward One for one-third of those sixty years, and it is a reality that Ward One has always been the number one trouble-maker of the city council board — with the exception of the time Michael McDonald was the councilman in that jurisdiction.
Mayor and City Council positions are elected by registered voters in the city of Las Vegas. These positions are four-year terms and those elected are limited to a total of three terms on the City Council.
I have never belonged to any party because I believe that as a journalist and as the owner of a two-media business, it would be unfair for me to register with any political party.
Even when I was the publisher of La Verdad, the very first Spanish newspaper in Las Vegas, I was never a member of any Latino organization, not even the Circulo Cubano de Las Vegas (Cuban Circle of Las Vegas) founded, among others, by my late friend Agustin Menendez.
How can I honestly write an article pro or con about an organization if I am a member of that organization? How can I be fair in my article about another organization or party if I belong to an opposition group?
I also never believed that it is a good idea for an advertising salesman to double as a columnist or a writer, which is very normal and common for weekly newspapers; but, in my opinion, it is unethical, and borderline unfair.
The salesman goes out and tries to sell advertising space to a business, but the business owner says no, so the salesman finds issues or damaging information about that business and “doing his duty as a reporter” or following his intuition as a columnist/writer, he “exposes” that business’s dirty practices. Would the good salesman have written that expose on that business if he was able to sell the advertising space? In all fairness, considering his position as a salesman, most likely not.
Fodder for those of the corrupt media does not even have to be the truth; corrupt media people are made out of the same “special material” as corrupt cops. If they don’t have damaging information, they just create it or fabricate it, or to be blunt, just plain lie about it.
If I win the city council election I will make sure that the law is evenly and equally enforced for everyone who lives in this city legally (at least in my ward) and I will make sure to copycat former city councilman Michael McDonald, who in my humble opinion has been the only working city council in Ward One.
I will run my campaign with that in mind: “Vote for the Spanish Michael McDonald” or “Vote for Tarkanian’s opposite.” And I will take a look at the STRs (short-term residentials) and will grant the license fair and square not only to friends or wealthy voters or generous campaign donors.
That is one thing I can say for myself, while running newspapers, the advertisers never were able to control the editorial department and even the two times that I have had hefty offers from people who wanted “to invest” in this newspaper, when I told one of them that the editorial department was not included in the deal, they never wanted to finish the transaction.
The other offer was too good to be true; enough money for me to retire on and pay all my debts, but I found out that the first consignment was all I was going to get and then they would close the newspaper and that was to be the end of the troublemaking newspaper by the name of the Las Vegas Tribune.
I like to play by the rules even if many people think I do not, and because I feel the inclination to run for office I know many people are going to start digging into my past. Before they do I am going to start, in the next few weeks, narrating many chapters of my life, and then I will let the constituents of Las Vegas and the voters in Ward One decide for themselves without lies and without fanfare. Like Sergeant Friday on the television show “Dragnet” used to say, “The
facts ma’am, just the facts.”
My name is Rolando Larraz, and as always, I approved this column.
* * * * *
Rolando Larraz is Editor in Chief of the Las Vegas Tribune. His column appears weekly in this newspaper. To contact Rolando Larraz, email him
at: Rlarraz@lasvegastribune.com or at 702-272-4634.
After three months of semi-retirement, with plenty of time to think and reorganize my future, I have made the decision that if there are no serious, reliable and nonpolitical figures to run for the city council seat soon to be vacated by termed-out and useless city councilwoman Lois Tarkanian, I will run for that seat.The city council has women, Blacks, Greeks, corrupt ex-military, but not even one Latino name on the entire board, so I may throw my hat in the ring.
I guarantee that I will do everything possible to be a champion by defending everything the current councilwoman has not fought for or defended, so I will do the opposite.
I’ve lived in Clark County for the last sixty years and in Ward One for one-third of those sixty years, and it is a reality that Ward One has always been the number one trouble-maker of the city council board — with the exception of the time Michael McDonald was the councilman in that jurisdiction.
Mayor and City Council positions are elected by registered voters in the city of Las Vegas. These positions are four-year terms and those elected are limited to a total of three terms on the City Council.
I have never belonged to any party because I believe that as a journalist and as the owner of a two-media business, it would be unfair for me to register with any political party.
Even when I was the publisher of La Verdad, the very first Spanish newspaper in Las Vegas, I was never a member of any Latino organization, not even the Circulo Cubano de Las Vegas (Cuban Circle of Las Vegas) founded, among others, by my late friend Agustin Menendez.
How can I honestly write an article pro or con about an organization if I am a member of that organization? How can I be fair in my article about another organization or party if I belong to an opposition group?
I also never believed that it is a good idea for an advertising salesman to double as a columnist or a writer, which is very normal and common for weekly newspapers; but, in my opinion, it is unethical, and borderline unfair.
The salesman goes out and tries to sell advertising space to a business, but the business owner says no, so the salesman finds issues or damaging information about that business and “doing his duty as a reporter” or following his intuition as a columnist/writer, he “exposes” that business’s dirty practices. Would the good salesman have written that expose on that business if he was able to sell the advertising space? In all fairness, considering his position as a salesman, most likely not.
Fodder for those of the corrupt media does not even have to be the truth; corrupt media people are made out of the same “special material” as corrupt cops. If they don’t have damaging information, they just create it or fabricate it, or to be blunt, just plain lie about it.
If I win the city council election I will make sure that the law is evenly and equally enforced for everyone who lives in this city legally (at least in my ward) and I will make sure to copycat former city councilman Michael McDonald, who in my humble opinion has been the only working city council in Ward One.
I will run my campaign with that in mind: “Vote for the Spanish Michael McDonald” or “Vote for Tarkanian’s opposite.” And I will take a look at the STRs (short-term residentials) and will grant the license fair and square not only to friends or wealthy voters or generous campaign donors.
That is one thing I can say for myself, while running newspapers, the advertisers never were able to control the editorial department and even the two times that I have had hefty offers from people who wanted “to invest” in this newspaper, when I told one of them that the editorial department was not included in the deal, they never wanted to finish the transaction.
The other offer was too good to be true; enough money for me to retire on and pay all my debts, but I found out that the first consignment was all I was going to get and then they would close the newspaper and that was to be the end of the troublemaking newspaper by the name of the Las Vegas Tribune.
I like to play by the rules even if many people think I do not, and because I feel the inclination to run for office I know many people are going to start digging into my past. Before they do I am going to start, in the next few weeks, narrating many chapters of my life, and then I will let the constituents of Las Vegas and the voters in Ward One decide for themselves without lies and without fanfare. Like Sergeant Friday on the television show “Dragnet” used to say, “The
facts ma’am, just the facts.”
My name is Rolando Larraz, and as always, I approved this column.
* * * * *
Rolando Larraz is Editor in Chief of the Las Vegas Tribune. His column appears weekly in this newspaper. To contact Rolando Larraz, email him
at: Rlarraz@lasvegastribune.com or at 702-272-4634.
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