LETTERS THAT DO NOT
GET PUBLISHED

Re: The Denver Post’s Perspective, 2-15-09, “Newspapers: The press will survive …”

Of all the foolish ways to try to preserve America’s freedom of the press, Mark Eddy’s government bailout proposal is the worst. The only fair way is to let the marketplace decide.

He uses the popular Thomas Jefferson quote of preferring newspapers to government (1787), but fails to note that Jefferson came to loathe the press, e.g.: “As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers,” 1806; “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,” 1807, and “Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper,” 1819.

But, of course, we journalists do not want the public to hear about that.

Eddy says, and I agree, “We need newspapers in every community.” He should go out and buy a small-town newspaper operation where he can help preserve freedom of the press the voluntary way. If people appreciate the contents of his publication, they will subscribe; advertisers will notice, and he is likely to succeed. If they do not like it, he will fail – as he should.

Starting out flat broke, I was there for 50 years –- without a bailout, and somehow I managed.
P.

Submitted to the Rocky Mountain News
Not published

HARDLY A CHOICE POLITICALLY WHEN
COMPETING PAPERS EMBRACE LIBERALISM

I do not know how publisher John Temple expects the Rocky Mountain News to continue to be known as the loyal opposition newspaper when he allows his opinion pages to reflect the same anti-conservatism as that of The Denver Post. Some examples from the Rocky’s opinion pages, Saturday (2/14/09) combined edition:

--“Presidents on a pedestal.” Many of us who lived in the FDR era know he was not a great president. One of the biggest liars ever, he promised to never send American boys overseas to fight on foreign soil, only to see 292,131 Americans die in battle. The authors’ list of bad presidents omitted the only two who were ever impeached: Democrats Andrew Johnson and William Clinton, then they fawn over liberal icon Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. who, with Eleanor Roosevelt, helped found Americans for Democratic Action.

--Garrison Keillor. A talented entertainer he is, but the anti-conservative bigotry he so deftly weaves into his writing should either be edited out or the column itself dropped.

--Mike Littwin. The reigning liberals will apparently escape his mad-dog style of writing; he has ignored several juicy opportunities. To be fair, Mr. Temple should now hire a replacement to write slash-to-the-bone commentaries about the Democrats.
P.

CUT LEGAL EXPENSES, CONFERENCES, CONSULTANTS

By Percy Conarroe
Special to the Times-Call
Published 2/17/09

Budget problems. How serious can the Longmont City Council be about running short of money when it went out and hired a pricey law firm to try to keep the town of Firestone from annexing the LifeBridge Christian Church project? The bill to the taxpayers “so far” for pursuing this anti-church mischief is $68,000, we’re told, and it isn’t over yet. Don’t we already have on staff lawyers who are supposed to be well versed in municipal law and litigation, including annexations? If this council does not have a savvy lead-attorney aboard by now who can plead these cases, after sending the last one packing, why not? Or, better yet, drop this costly, frivolous lawsuit.

My, oh my. Does anyone keep track of how many thousands of dollars this “progressive” council is spending on consultants to do studies and give advice? It’s hard to tell which consultants are necessary and which ones are hired to have somebody to blame if things go wrong. If that happens though, they’re usually long gone.

And what is this council doing to improve its relationship with the business community, especially the retail businesses that collect and forward the city’s sales taxes to City Hall? Believe it or not, it has lowered the vendor’s fee, the amount the businesses affected would ordinarily get to keep for collecting the sales tax, keeping track of it and periodically remitting the total to the city with a report under penalty of law, reducing the fee from $100 to $25. So businesses that already pay double the property-tax rate for the joy of doing business get no break, and scarcely anyone notices or cares. Then the council majority (and their cheerleaders who march redundantly to the podium at City Hall, often causing long meetings; where’s that 3-minute gavel, Mr. Mayor?) wonder why more people don’t go into business to generate more sales tax revenue.

If this council is serious about reducing expenses, it could take serious steps, e.g.: quit paying the over $40,000 a year into the Colorado Municipal League for banquets for city officials and lobbying; skip the trip to Washington D.C. (congratulations to those who’ve seen the light but why is the unelected manager going?); cancel the Portland trip; if applicable, stop paying personal membership dues of city employees into professional organizations; and revoke all but the most critically needed city-issued credit cards. But no, instead, in the face of Longmont’s crime wave, two additional police officers will not be hired, the City Library budget may be slashed by $25,000, and who knows what else will be cut to emphasize the shortfall.

Wait and see is not good enough. In addition to other actions, it is my opinion that one critical choice must be made by this city council immediately: Does it intend for the city of Longmont to be a welfare agency or not? I submit that our local city budget simply cannot support the additional financial needs of federal and state entitlement programs, for which we already pay taxes at higher levels of government (federal, state and county), and at the same time provide here in Longmont adequate police and fire protection (the basic purpose of government), fix the streets (examples, the east-bound lane of 9th Ave. from Francis to Gay is crumbling and Hover Street’s concrete is cracking), and have a decent parks system, a modern library, recreation center, and so forth.

Thus, the potential “Thistle” involvement in the downtown parking garage project bears watching. Some see “employee housing” as an attractive part of this project, but just how conducive a parking-garage environment is to the rearing of small children is questionable. Mixing housing with business in the heart of downtown Longmont is a poor plan, best suited to big cities and expensive lofts. Also, am I to believe that Longmont’s historic downtown ambiance will be enhanced by adding a massive urban parking garage? If somebody has $16 million to spend (plus interest) on the “parking problem,” why not purchase rundown close-in business properties as they come on the market, scrape off the improvements and use the land for employee parking? There are several sites that meet this criterion today. And please, I’m for a viable downtown.

Oh, you say, I’m a naysayer and the best, long-term answer is to simply “raise taxes and fees” or wait for a bailout. Sure. Unfortunately, in all of government, adaptability is an underestimated and misunderstood word. We need to see more of it in Longmont City Hall.

THE LIBERAL WINDS ARE BLOWING
IN OUR COLORADO LEGISLATURE

In a propaganda "special” to Sunday’s 2/1/09 Longmont Times-Call titled “Mounting an offensive drive for Colorado’s economy,” Democratic state Sen. Brandon C. Shaffer who represents Longmont points to several “innovative and creative” programs that he and his liberal colleagues are working on, but in no case does he mention who is going to pay for them and in most cases the details are as thin as rarified air. Let’s take a look at the programs Shaffer cites.

--Sen. Dan Gibbs(D) and Rep. Joe Rice(D) introduced a bill called FASTER that allegedly will create thousands of jobs fixing structurally deficient roads and bridges without raising fees and/or taxes?

--Sen. Rollie Heath(D) and Rep. Jim Riesburg(D) have a plan to “improve and expand the development of clean technology discoveries” at our colleges and universities. Fine, but Shaffer should explain how this is going to be accomplished without raising taxes and/or tuition amidst a recession, and what about the private educational institutions of higher learning that are not supping at the public trough?

--Sen. Gail Schwartz(D) has a plan “to put hundreds of Emergency Technicians to work almost immediately” after they relocate to Colorado. She actually wants the state to issue provisional licenses allowing them to compete for existing EMT jobs immediately upon moving here? How do we know that the state they came from has adequate rules governing EMT qualifications?

--Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter has a nice-sounding plan, which Shaffer endorses, “to increase the availability of credit” to small businesses throughout the state. How this can be done without expanding the federal and state bureaucracies and dealing with their endless red tape, which already hinders most small businesses, would be a miracle indeed.

And lastly, where is the bipartisanship in all of this? They are all designed by tax-and-spend liberals.
P.