We lost a good friend this week and Wendover lost a treasure in the passing of Alfonso Orozco.
A loving husband, devoted father, savvy businessman and reluctant political leader Alfonso was first and foremost a mensch. That is a decent human being.
He was not without his faults but he embraced them as a mensch will rather than make excuses or prevaricate or pretend they were not there and that made him more human.
We and our children will miss him greatly and long after most of us are forgotten stories will still be said of Alfonso.
Even now as we write these words we are smiling and we cannot think of a better tribute. We will always smile when we think of him.
As the cinco de mayo draws near we think it is only fitting that this year’s celebration be dedicated to him. the man may have passed but his legacy should live on.
We hear there is interest for to buy Wendover Gas.
We hope it comes to more than interest.
We don’t believe the city should purchase and run the gas company because beyond anything else we know it will do it badly. And then hide it so no one could no just how badly it is running it.
Eventually the publicly owned gas company will become a political football. A bastion of folly and incompetence with the requisite back stabbing, petty one ups-manship, and possibly out right mismanagement public enterprise is so famous for.
No we are not using our psychic abilities we are finally old enough to look back a long line of city enterprises to realize running a business is above and beyond its capabilities.
There is also something so fundamentally unfair about this whole sorry story that should be grossly apparent to everyone.
Let’s say there is a city takeover and let’s say that lo and behold all the casinos turn on their gas lines. Voila the company goes into the black. The city manager can give a glowing report on just how good the idea to buy the formerly boycotted business was.
Everyone is happy except of course for Nancy Green who paid for it, built it, and maintained it only to lose it because she rubbed some people the wrong way.
The city got a prize, the casinos get cheap gas and Nancy Green got the shaft.
Isn’t that special?