And finally today, a roundup of some delicious news nuggets, which we call Quick Hits!

» Treasurer-elect Kate Marshall isn’t letting Weasel-in-Chief Brian Krolicki’s attempted office grab slow her down. Marshall has been busy hiring top-notch talent for her office, in the person of chief of staff-designate Renee Parker. In addition to being outgoing Secretary of State Dean Heller’s right-hand woman, Parker has served as deputy chief of staff and general counsel to Gov. Kenny Guinn. Marshall made a good choice.

» Can somebody sit Buffy Martin-Tarbox in front of the TV for a few episodes of Law and Order or something? The American Cancer Society’s lack of legal chops is starting to get embarrassing.

When she heard about District Court Judge Douglas Herndon’s granting of the temporary restraining order against the anti-smoking Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, Martin-Tarbox couldn’t sputter out a news release fast enough. Here’s what she said:

"I am dumbfounded by the decision to grant the injunction, to say the least. It goes directly against the public interest and the will of the voters."

We totally believe she’s dumbfounded, given that she’s totally mischaracterized the nature of the lawsuit — which argues the act is unconstitutionally vague and violates the equal protection doctrine. Oh, wait, she’s doing it again!

"What is particularly disturbing is that those opposed to Question 5 have already had their day in court on the same issues they’re contesting now and they lost. Yet once again, these special interest groups are trying to usurp the will of the people."

And once again, she’s wrong. Once more, s-l-o-w-l-y for the legally impaired: The previous lawsuit filed against the act was aimed at discussing constitutional flaws that would have prevented the measure from appearing on the November ballot. The Nevada Supreme Court decided that the measure was fit to go before voters, but justices did NOT rule on the merits of the language of the initiative! In fact, they specifically ruled that any interpretation of the measure before the election was premature.

Now that the measure has a.) gone before voters and b.) passed, it’s time to take up — for the first time — the merits of the actual language, which, from what we can tell, are few. But they’re two separate issues, two separate lawsuits.

Somebody, please get Martin-Tarbox the memo before she speaks again!

» You know, we really want to agree with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. After all, we do think he’s got a point about a major-league sports arena in Las Vegas.

Goodman lashed out at the Clark County Commission, comparing commissioners to a prostitute haggling over price. (Yes, seriously.) He takes issue with the county’s contention that the community can afford a new arena that doesn’t involve a pro team, which will require an $11 million annual subsidy, but can’t afford an arena with a pro team, since that will require a subsidy of about $27 million. (In that instance, the team would want revenue from the arena.)

"They’re saying, ‘It’s OK to have this funding gap to have this arena without a professional team, but if we have a professional team it’s going to cost more.’ To me, that’s silliness," Goodman said, according to the Review-Journal.

That’s where we agree. It is silliness. If you’re going to throw out public money, you might as well get a top team and actually give people a reason to go to the new arena in the first place!

But that’s the rub: It assumes that we ought to be subsidizing the construction of a new arena in the first place. And that’s hardly a given, since Las Vegas has plenty of other needs that ought to come before a stadium, pro team or no.

"The easiest thing for a politician to say is ‘We’re not going to spend any taxpayer money.’ But that’s not what’s at issue here. What’s at issue here is to make this into a world-class city," Goodman added.

Sorry, mayor, but we must disagree. We think it’s actually all too easy for politicians to spend taxpayer money, like on tax breaks for profit-making businesses that set up downtown, or rescinding deed restrictions worth double-digit millions for just $7 million, for example. It takes courage to truly be a guardian of the public treasury, and to have the wisdom to spend money on things the commonweal really does need. Besides, whether Las Vegas becomes a world-class city isn’t up to the government; if it happens, it will happen because of the capitalistic private sector and its amazing hotel-resort-condo-shopping-things.

Now, Goodman has claimed in the past that he has a secret plan to bring a pro team and an arena to town without using taxpayer money. If he can pull that off, more power to him. (We promise a positive blog if that happens, mayor! Not that the mayor cares or anything…)

But if taxpayer money is to be used, let’s make sure it’s used where it’s needed most. And an arena — pro team or no — is far from the top of that list.

"Naysayers are certainly welcome. It’s America," Goodman added. "But if they think this is going to stop a quest to have such a facility, if they think it’s going to impede potential discussions with professional sports franchises, they’ll certainly be disappointed."

Disappointed? No. We’d be disappointed if public officials actually started behaving themselves in office. The Goodmans of the world, and they’re antics with public cash, give us something to write about!

See you in the blogs, mayor…

» And finally today, there are a group of people in our community even crazier than the mayor. They’re those who are running in the New Las Vegas Marathon this Sunday. When the rest of us will be nestled, all snug in our beds, these crazy folks will be running, literally, around the town.

And, we’re told by a secret source close to the marathon, volunteers are desperately needed to help out. You don’t have to run yourself. You don’t even have to walk fast. They’ll find some non-physical thing for you to do.

So to volunteer (and watch some really crazy people run around) go to www.lasvegasmarathon.com and click on "Volunteer."

Current members of the Clark County Commission will be long gone by the time the newly extended monorail franchise ends in the year 2083. But that may be just as well, since the commission’s action Wednesday didn’t evidence a lot of deliberation. If anything, it seemed like a slam dunk done deal.

First, only one commissioner had a question. Myrna Williams asked if the monorail would take up an entire travel lane, the way it does on Paradise Road between Twain Avenue and Desert Inn Road. (Monorail officials promised it wouldn’t, but Williams added that as an official requirement anyway.)

Second, monorail officials admitted they were not finished with a ridership study that would show whether or not the train would be able to make money by connecting to McCarran International Airport. Even without that information, however, commissioners granted the monorail all necessary permission to extend the train on a 4.2-mile route to McCarran. (Voting yes were Commissioners Williams, Bruce Woodbury, Chip Maxfield and Rory Reid; Yvonne Atkinson Gates, Tom Collins and Lynette Boggs McDonald were absent when the vote was cast.)

Perhaps nobody on the commission felt there was anything at risk; monorail officials assured the commission that no private funds will be at risk. (In an interview today, monorail spokeswoman Ingrid Reisman said the monorail would not be seeking state-issued tax exempt bonds of the kind used to build the original route from the MGM Grand to the Sahara.)

Reisman explained the monorail needed the county’s approval of the airport route, as well as an extension of the original 50-year franchise agreement with Clark County, in order to start trying to sell private bonds for the project, which is estimated to cost about $500 million.

But who would buy the bonds for a project that costs $61 million per year (in operating costs and debt service), but brings in just $39 million per year (and those are the monorail’s own figures!)? Who would buy bonds for a project when existing bonds are rated in "junk" status? Who would buy bonds for a project that promised 50,000 riders per day, but delivers less than 20,000 per day?

(Reisman says the 50,000 figure was based upon certain assumptions that went awry when the monorail spent most of its first year of life idling due to technical problems. But it was the monorail company that selected the contractors who built the train, so fault still reposes with the monorail.)

"We will get a good share of the rides from the airport," Reisman says.

"The future of the monorail, it’s pretty bright," monorail President and CEO Curtis Myles told the commission on Wednesday.

And the commission bought it, especially Woodbury, who’s known as the board’s expert on transportation and a key backer of the monorail from the beginning. Wednesday was no exception.

"I understand that the monorail has become a favorite punching bag for some commentators," Woodbury said. (Yes, commissioner, but do you understand why it has become a favorite punching bag for some commentators?)

Woodbury noted that it was always part of the monorail’s plan to extend a line to the airport, and the county’s action on Wednesday was simply the fulfillment of that plan. "The monorail can be an important component in the overall resort corridor mobility needs of this community," Woodbury said. "If this monorail is to be the success that was envisioned, there has to be an extention. Without the extention, we’re probably condemning the monorail to mediocrity and even failure."

So many questions, commissioner.

First, why are you (and as an extension, the commission) responsible for making sure the monorail is the success that its founders envisioned? The monorail’s problems are its own fault: the train’s founders chose the contractors, oversaw construction and then saw the whole thing blow up in their faces. Why is the county condemning the monorail to mediocrity or failure by withholding permission to expand? In short, why has Bruce Woodbury taken it upon himself to save the monorail, when perhaps the better question might be, does it deserve to be saved?

Alas, that question was not asked. And on that theme, here are a few more that should be answered.

1.) The Nevada Tax Commission has classified the monorail as a charity, because it’s providing a service otherwise required to be provided by government. (Truth be told, moving tourists around the Strip is not a government mandate, but even so, the government already is doing it, using Regional Transportation Commission buses, which are wildly successful.)

But as a result of that "charity," status, the monorail is exempt from paying sales and property tax. Will those exemptions continue if the new line is built?

2.) Given that the monorail is now in direct competition with taxi, limo and shuttle bus companies, is it right that a "private" project get such consideration from the county and state governments? (We put "private" in quotes, because by getting special tax-exempt state-issued bonds, and by shirking on paying taxes, the monorail is hardly the "private" project that, say, Yellow Cab is. And Yellow Cab moves a lot more people.)

3.) What happens if the new line is built, but continues to fail? Bondholders would be responsible for bailing out the train, but will the county warrant that the monorail will never become a publicly owned project? (We’d be especially interested to hear that, since founder Bob Broadbent mused more than once that the county might eventually take over the monorail.)

The bottom line is this: The monorail stands a much greater chance of success if its extended to the airport. (Assuming the cars are big enough to accommodate luggage, or a service is devised to get travelers’ bags directly to their hotels.) A $5 ride on the monorail (even a $10 ride, for that matter) would be much cheaper than a taxi, and perhaps more convenient than a hotel shuttle, although not as nice as a limo. We’d bet that the train would come much closer to meeting its expenses and paying its debts if it was able to haul the thousands of people who’d ride it from McCarran to the Strip.

But the fact is, there are serious questions about the monorail’s performance up to now. And the Clark County Commission didn’t ask them. And that’s the final unanswered question for today: Why not?

Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons is continuing his quest to give everybody in Nevada a place on his transition team, and the team leader of one of his newest panels — Transportation and Infrastructure — will be sure to further anger his defeated primary opponent, Dina Titus.

You guessed it: The transportation team will be co-chaired by Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, who Titus beat in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in August.

Now, there’s precedent for a Democrat going to work on Gibbons’ team: former U.S. Sen. and Gov. Richard Bryan is one of three overall co-chairs. Bryan remarked that some partisan Democrats would be irked to see his name on the list. Why is it we don’t think anybody will be irked, or even surprised, to see Gibson’s name on the list of Gibbons’ little helpers?

Oh, by the way, that sound you heard earlier this morning was not another Henderson chemical plant exploding; it was Titus’ head exploding.

So, what’s Gibson’s transportation experience, outside of presiding over the (generally well-managed) growth of Henderson? Well, don’t forget he was President and CEO of the Las Vegas Monorail for 18 months, a job that earned him about $300,000 in salary and a roughly equal amount from a monorail trust fund. Gibson led the train while engineers worked to solve a series of problems that left it immobile for months.

But many members of the team look like they’ll be able to bring something important to the table, including Whittlesea Cab Co. CEO Brent Bell, Phyllis Frias, owner of Frias Cab Co., consultant Tom Skancke and acknowledged transportation expert (and Clark County Commission Chairman) Bruce Woodbury. In addition, state Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Dennis Nolan is on the team, as well as the mayors of Elko, Sparks, Mesquite and Reno. (You know, the traffic hotspots of the state!) Since somebody has to build all the roads we need, the transportation group includes folks like Steve Holloway, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors, and Norman Dianda, president of Q&D Construction.

Gibson’s co-chair will be Ty Cobb, CEO of the Northern Nevada Network.

That wasn’t the only transition team announced Thursday. Gibbons also appointed a health care team led by the respected Dr. Rudy Manthei, which includes physicians Dr. Tony Alamo, Dr. Joe Hardy (also a Republican assemblyman), Dr. Joe Heck (also a Republican state senator), Dr. Garn Mabey (another Republican assemblyman, and minority leader), Sunrise OB chief Dr. Florence Jamison, as well as Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association, Heather Murren, founder and CEO of the Nevada Cancer Institute, former Clark County Manager (and now vice president of community reinvestment and social responsibility for Harrah’s Entertainment) Thom Reilly, and Ann Lynch, vice president of government affairs and community service for Sunrise Health System (and the funniest woman in Nevada). The team also includes state Sen. Barbara Cegavske and Republican Assemblywoman Valerie Weber. No, we don’t know why.

Although Gibbons is now certainly acquainted with union members who represent nurses, having helped broker two months of peace between warring sides in the ongoing Valley Health System labor tussle, a representative of the Service Employees International Union somehow didn’t make it on to the team. However, Ellie Lopez-Brown, a registered nurse and family nurse practioner, is on the list.

A group of tavern owners, slot route operators and one fine cigar bar today won a temporary restraining order against the anti-smoking Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, set to go into effect on Friday.

The Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, approved as Question 5 on the November ballot, sought to ban smoking almost everywhere, including bars that served food, restaurants, grocery stores and convenience stores.