Carson City

Jones, Smatresk meet a casino exec, get earful. UNLV President Neal Smatresk and Clark County Schools Superintendent Dwight Jones recently met on separate occasions with a top Strip casino executive. Smatresk delivered a gloomy picture of what could happen to the university if deep budget cuts are adopted by state legislators - the loss of classes, students, professors, grant dollars and a further blow to UNLV's reputation.

State needs a long-range plan to diversify the economy, spur development. In an effort to kick-start Nevada's economy, Gov. Brian Sandoval and other leaders have talked about diversifying the economy by bringing new businesses here.The state has been trying to lure businesses here for years in an effort to broaden the economy, which would give the state more stability in downturns. As it is, Nevada depends on tourism and mining, and anything that affects those industries can have a major effect on the state.

CARSON CITY - Sen. Allison Copening has introduced seven bills to regulate homeowners associations this session, the product of nearly 18 months working with industry experts.

CARSON CITY - The strength of a citizen Legislature, proponents argue, is that lawmakers lead real lives outside of government and bring that experience to bear on legislation, hopefully imbuing it with common sense.

News item: New York Sen. Chuck Schumer is caught instructing colleagues on talking points before a conference call starts: "I always use the word Ôextreme.' That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week."The incident got me thinking, and not just about whether many D.C. Democrats wish they could mute Schumer. I wondered what would happen if Carson City reporters could hear what goes on in legislative caucuses right before media events or releases.

Quality of health care has improved when hospitals are transparent. Nearly a century ago, a Harvard-trained surgeon created a controversy in the Boston medical community by advocating for hospital transparency. Dr. Ernest Amory Codman, an innovative physician whose work is still referenced today, targeted hospital care. He said hospitals should compile and release information about whether their treatments worked. Codman argued that doctors could learn from patient outcomes, and he was open to admitting mistakes.Codman was quickly rebuffed and ostracized by many colleagues ? the local medical society even asked for his resignation. In the years since, doctors and hospitals across the country have largely stood against releasing data on patient outcomes.

CARSON CITY - As his fellow Republican governors have declared public-employee unions to be public enemy No. 1 and moved to strip their collective bargaining rights, Gov. Brian Sandoval has avoided a similar fight. He has focused instead on the state's flatlining economy, beleaguered budget and struggling schools.

All options, including taxes, should be on the table in budget debate. Gov. Brian Sandoval's budget proposal underwent a hearing in the Senate on Monday, and it wasn't a pretty picture.The legislative staff explained how the governor's budget would shuffle $1.5 billion by taking money from local governments, shifting various funds and borrowing money from the future. It's all part of the Sandoval's disingenuous plan to close a massive deficit without violating a pledge not to raise taxes.

Daughter: Openness about care could have saved her mother. CARSON CITY - Eighty-seven-year-old Dorothy Schweitzer died in a Sparks nursing home in 2008, the result of severe dehydration, infection and other complications acquired at the facility, a state investigation into her death would find.

CARSON CITY - Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford continued his relentless public flogging of Gov. Brian Sandoval's proposed budget Monday, holding a two-hour budget hearing for the entire Senate in his attempt to convince Republican lawmakers the spending plan is unworkable.

Scott Schmitt is the face of Nevada's new generation of hopeful entrepreneurs. He was a construction foreman at City-Center for nearly four years, a 35-year-old native of upstate New York who earned up to $118,000 a year plus benefits.

BOSTON HOSPITAL LED THE WAY ON TRANSPARENCY. Boston

Some succulent Carson City leftovers to munch on at week's end, with an Angle morsel for dessert:¥ Click on our juice, gamers: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the state's gaming industry are against the PokerStars bill to open up Web poker in Nevada. So what do you do if you are a company worth billions and you need to get something through the Legislature?

CARSON CITY - Lobbyists testifying before the Legislature must tell the truth, under penalty of law. But there's the truth, and then there's a version of it.

I walked into Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford's office in Carson City feeling pessimistic. A business lobbyist had just told me that most newly elected Republicans are ideologues committed to allowing taxes passed in 2009 to lapse and then to cutting schools, universities and social services - sometimes drastically so - to balance the budget.

1. Medical pot advocate arrested with husband in alleged grow house bust: Rhonda and Lowel Shade were charged with child endangerment and possession of marijuana with the intent to sell.

Kyle George, the irrepressible student leader from UNLV, had a question for the governor Monday as he sat a few feet away from Brian Sandoval in his capital office."Where's the middle ground?" George said with urgency in his voice. "No one is speaking compromise."

Gutting university budgets will have long-term negative effects on Nevada. College students from across the state converged on Carson City on Monday, protesting Gov. Brian Sandoval's proposed cuts to the Nevada System of Higher Education. The Republican governor's budget calls for closing a deficit estimated at more than $2 billion by slashing government, notably education.Students rallied and filled the halls of the Legislature, making their concerns known. Student leaders also met with the governor.

CARSON CITY - Assembly Democrats introduced sweeping tax bills this week - on corporate earnings, cigarettes and alcohol. But they aren't the bills they will use once they begin their push to raise taxes and offset proposed cuts in Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval's budget.

The Republican presidential field, if it can even be called that yet, has begun an early flirtation with Nevada's GOP power structure.