Boosting Las Vegas benefits the state

By Michael Pravica, Las Vegas

Sunday, March 16, 2014 | 2:01 a.m.

I enjoyed reading the March 2 editorial “The North just doesn’t get it.” It is amazing that Nevada still has an antiquated political system that favors a minority over the wishes of the majority when it comes to improperly distributing state-garnered money by not giving Southern Nevada its fair share.

This is anti-democratic and anti-American.

Clark County is the most populous county in Nevada and houses the largest university in the state, UNLV. Yet, Las Vegas, Nevada’s largest city, is the only major metropolis in America that does not have its own medical school to serve its citizens, resulting in a shortage of doctors and a horrible and inadequate medical benefits/insurance system for public employees such as myself.

What our lawmakers don’t seem to understand is that by supporting efforts such as Interstate 11 and a UNLV medical school that benefit Southern Nevada, they will further expand the taxpaying base of our state by improving the economic might of the state’s golden goose: Las Vegas. It’s a “win/win” for all.

We need to elect leaders who can think beyond their constituencies and their political affiliations and have a vision of a prosperous state where all citizens are fairly served based on 21st-century democratic rules, not 19th-century elitist rules that favored landowners up north when our beloved town was just a water stop for trains.

If not, we need to seriously consider partitioning America’s 36th state.