SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CURRENT NEWS COVERAGE

The Denver Post, going all-out to reinstate former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill and line his attorney’s pockets, ran today (3/25/09) a front-page story by reporter Kevin Vaughan that could easily have been juxtaposed with leftist-liberal columnist Mike Littwin’s views, on page two. Not until we reach page 13B or 29 pages later do we get a different look at this issue in an opinion column by Vincent Carroll. Also, we all know that Bibles are nixed in the courtroom, yet Churchill was able to display a sacred symbol (feather and red cloth) at will. In my opinion, this inconsistency, along with the generous amount of hearsay evidence allowed in this case have been ignored by the media.

The Times-Call (3/25/09) ran a front-page story on the as-expected discovery of blight around the Twin Peaks Mall. This finding, of course, means that the city fully intends to partner financially with the mall company that owns both of Longmont’s shopping malls by diverting tax revenue into the Twin Peaks project through Tax Increment Financing, otherwise this expansion study would not have been needed. Unclear in this story: “The expanded area would bring in an additional $11.8 million in property tax value and $1.6 million in sales tax revenue for a total of more than $32 million.” How’s that again?

The Denver Post, now that the Rocky Mountain News is defunct, is having a field day promoting big government. In a 3/25/09 story headlined “Health care plan gains,” the Post breathlessly tells of a Democratic bill just passed by the Colorado House designed to snatch away $600 million a year from hospitals to pay for government-mandated health insurance. (Where in the Constitution does it provide for that?) Do the Post and these politicians really think that most hospitals are going to surrender that kind of cash meekly and not try to replace it through increased fees placed on all patients? Welcome to the land of make believe –- and price controls.

MORE MANIPULATION BY THE MEDIA

“Trillion-dollar trouble” screamed The Denver Post’s 60-point front-page headline over a two-and-one-half page presentation by reporter David Olinger on 3/20/09, followed by “Hazards in the water,” another two pages of near hysteria two days later -- all detailing how laggard we are for letting Colorado’s infrastructure just fall apart and it’s going to cost $2.2 trillion in the next five years to fix it.

Thusly the Post’s stern lecture series gets off to a feeble start by trying to pin the blame on you and me for somehow failing to address every conceivable infrastructure problem our state faces (where have all the politicians and their comforting press gone?) and forcing people to live in conditions of their own making, such as having to toss dishwater out the back door. No mention is made of governmental foibles such as misdirecting highway funds statewide or the bottomless FasTracks money pit or lack of personal responsibility.

Whose fault is it that our roads and bridges are crumbling? Never mind that the railroads used to build roadbeds and bridges that lasted a long time and did not crumble under the pounding of extraordinarily heavy loads and stress. And oh, they were maintained at a negligible cost, a must factor in the private sector.

Issue: Safe water, sanitary sewers. Haven’t those who choose to live in a rural setting ever heard of caveat emptor? (As most people should know, Colorado abounds in rocky soil, impervious adobe and shale deposits.) Olinger tells of the expensive sewage pumping and exporting necessary in a rural neighborhood but offers no clue as to why installing a modern disposal system would not be cheaper and safer in the long run.

The city of Alamosa’s water problems sound even more devastating (not good news for the local chamber of commerce), but because Colorado municipalities possess the unique authority to issue bonds to provide reasonably safe water and sanitary sewer services without a vote of the people, there is simply no excuse outside of an emergency for Alamosa to be distributing unsafe water. What has happened to the once state law that required domestic water providers in Colorado to publish frequent purity test results in the local newspaper so the people may know?

Not only do these rural and city “victims” apparently refuse to pony up for the most basic of services and repairs or replacements like the rest of us do, they expect us to pay for theirs too.

Unfortunately, this same blame-game is permeating Colorado’s primary and secondary educational system as well, as more and more people look to the state and now the federal government to pay for constructing and repairing their local school facilities. Why not? No use paying for something yourself if you can find someone else to pay for it.

It used to be called sustainability; now the politically correct code words are bailout or stimulus, the obvious reason for this series. I can scarcely wait to see the Post’s next episode to find out what else is my fault. All I can say is, I’ve done my best to try to be a responsible citizen.

WANNA RUN FOR OFFICE IN LONGMONT?
FIRST HIRE A LAWYER AND ACCOUNTANT

As if it isn’t difficult enough already to find qualified people to run for city offices, I wonder if it’s a mistake to keep adding to the red tape that we expect them to cut through in order to be elected. Is it reaching the point of having to hire a lawyer and an accountant in order to run for the office of dog catcher?

Upon volunteering to serve as mayor or councilperson, who wants to risk being fined up to $4,000 by an “election committee” for failing to promptly file some sort of a report required under the city’s convoluted Longmont Fair Campaign Practices Act? That’s right, listed in the newly revised version just adopted by this council is a penalty calling for a fine of $400 per day for up to 10 days. However, a candidate can accept coin or currency (contributions) in excess of the limits set by this Act and escape with a $50 fine. “Encouraging withdrawal from a campaign,” whatever that is, calls for a fine of $499. Beware of misuse of the city’s indicia (official insignia which you may or may not need), that’s a $499 fine. And get this: “Any violation of this Act not otherwise set forth herein, $100.” That covers an awful lot of possibilities. Read this legalese for yourself in Ordinance O-2009-12; I’m not kidding.

Also: If the current Longmont City Council members are serious about keeping partisanship out of city politics -- as stipulated in the City Charter -- then they should have deferred to us (the electorate) the right to choose who we think is suitable to serve on their newly created “election committee.” This panel is being endowed with awesome power and authority over our elections and processes, including conducting a court of law, and each member should be voted on by the people. I do not want to see it packed with the usual ideological activists from either side of the aisle.
That will be hard to avoid, and that’s why the council should stay out of it. Take applications, let the people decide.

LETTERS THAT DO NOT GET PUBLISHED IN THE PAPER

To: Denver Post sports columnist Mark Kiszla, 3/10/09

Carmelo Anthony has great potential but for some reason -– and I’m getting tired of reading and hearing about it –- he is unable to bridge the gap between being a young star and taking over the leadership role that the Nuggets so desperately need. His maturation here has not yielded the hoped-for result and he should be traded, for his benefit and the team’s. I don’t believe the coaching at Cleveland or Utah is superior to Denver’s, yet LeBron James and Deron Williams seem to have no trouble fulfilling their take-charge duties big-time, to which their teammates respond and the fans love every moment.

Thank you Mark Kiszla for not continually blaming fatigue when the Nuggets lose. TV-caster Scott Hastings should be arrested for not coming up with a better excuse. A “tired” Houston bunch came to town and sacked our Nuggets, even though they missed what, 15 free throws?

And oh, I hope Dean Singleton hustles you guys up some advertising so we can continue reading your stuff. Lots of copy and skimpy ads in a 10-page section is an ominous sign but I don’t have to tell you that.
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MANIPULATIVE MEDIA

AURORA, the essence of Colorado’s once high-flying cities, is experiencing a budget shortfall (isn’t everybody?), so the Denver Post comes up with a story on 3/12/09 headlined “Hard times for Aurora libraries.” Unfortunately, the Post falls for the same old formula used by politicians to get what they want (more money) by threatening immediate cuts in popular services such as libraries (and filling potholes in the streets.) And like good little boys and girls the taxpayers will probably open their pocketbooks wide.

SPEAKING OF good little boys and girls, Ward Churchill’s tort lawyer has lots of so-called journalists in the region’s print and electronic news media pretty much wrapped around his finger. This case may have to go through the U.S. Supreme Court before we ordinary citizens find out if it is possible for a college professor to hide behind the First Amendment for committing academic violations for which he was duly tried and found guilty by his own peers.

TALKING ABOUT M&M (manipulative media), it looks like we’ve got a suspect ahead. Suddenly blossoming out with their own taxpayer-funded newspaper (isn’t that nice?), could it be that the members of Longmont City Council see an election lurking on the horizon? Possibly, but there may be something else going on here: the growing tendency of those who govern us, even at the local level, of wanting us to believe that we cannot exist or even live our lives correctly without their voluminous official information being poked down our throats in one way or another. As everyone knows, the City already has numerous communication avenues (most of which we can take or leave) including person-to-person, a Web site (which could stand some upgrading), utility-bill enclosures, two exclusive TV channels, weekly meetings, a local daily newspaper that's legitimate, and local FM and AM radio stations. But what better way to attract favorable attention than to control the content of and periodically distribute a newspaper to every mailbox in the city. Who is next to enter this costly publicity game? Will the Boulder County Commissioners soon be publishing their own newspaper, courtesy of the taxpayers and distributing it to us? How about the St. Vrain Valley school district? Shouldn’t RTD be putting out a newspaper also to communicate with us about FasTracks? Oh, and DRCOG and Gov. Ritter and the state Legislature, wow! Just think of all the possibilities. First thing you know our mailboxes will be stuffed with government propaganda -- just like the turkeys that we are.
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Commentary

TOO LITTLE WE KNOW, TOO LATE

“Tree thinning at Heil Valley Ranch.” The Longmont Times-Call reported in its 3/6/09 edition that contractors have been brought in to “thin” (clear-cut, as the excellent and disturbing accompanying photo shows) 163 acres of trees on this taxpayer-owned property. Just how Boulder County’s open-space czar can unleash mayhem such as this on the environment without the public knowing about it until after we see a gigantic machine actually chewing up the forest and destroying habitat, is beyond the pale.

There are excuses all over the place, of course. Those responsible call it “healthy destruction.” But what sense does it make, especially in Colorado where it’s so terribly hard to grow anything green because of the thin air, short season and lack of moisture, to deliberately defeat natural replacement? There is nothing new about insect infestations and fires. If the county Open Space bureaucrats were truly interested in saving the forest from insect infestations, they would use insecticides and be done with it. Cutting the infected trees may slow, but it is not going to stop the offending beetles which will simply move on to infect and kill more trees. Likewise, if these county bureaucrats were truly interested in preventing forest fires, they would allow the careful, commercial harvesting of timber and underbrush to create breaks so that the taxpayers would at least not have to shell out $250,000 for periodical “thinning” – an amount that more appropriately should have gone toward repaying the huge $192,000,000 debt run up on us taxpayers by the unelected officials running the Boulder County Open Space department. Relevantly, was this quarter-million dollar job put out for bid?

“This project will make the forest resemble the ones settlers saw when they first arrived in Colorado … a mosaic of uneven-aged forest,” the news story said. Well, who knows what they actually saw? To try to replicate the past is a nice dream but there are many things about Colorado that no amount of money or good intentions can ever bring back. (Note: My great-grandparents settled on the east-central prairie of Colorado in 1888. I’ve lived here all my life. Gone from that region where I grew up is most all of the “tall grass”; but buffalo grass, a sturdy, nutritious drought-resistant variety has survived and taken over, naturally.)

The message? Rather than tinkering, sometimes it’s better to do nothing.
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Letter to Longmont Times-Call
Published 3/5/09

IMPROVING PROPOSED CAMPAIGN RULES

I see that Longmont’s Fair Campaign Practices Act is being revised by our City Council. For some of us who occasionally get interested in what goes into the sausage as it’s being made, here are a few ingredients that I think might be added to make it better (if not already included.) For example:

To be fair, powerful outside political influences such as the Denver branch of a national organization known as ProgressNowColorado.org, which has been very active here, should be barred from local politics. We’re supposed to have a city law against playing partisan politics, but by identifying themselves merely as a “think tank” they’re home free. If City Council truly intends for our city elections to be “local and nonpartisan,” then it should clearly define what that means and enforce it.

Likewise, If the genuine goal is to keep Longmont elections in the hands of bona fide Longmont residents, then something has to be done about people who live outside the city limits but insist on becoming quite involved in city politics anyway, even though they are ineligible to vote here.

Also, I’m not sure it’s wise to be putting the City Clerk into the role of accuser, judge, prosecutor and jury, all at the same time, when it comes to allegations of violating provisions of the Fair Campaign Practices Act.

I’m not challenging her ability to engage in all of those roles, but I think in a smaller city such as Longmont the executive function should be kept separate from the judiciary. That one or one-thousand former candidates may not have liked the decision a city judge handed out, is no reason to bypass the courts –- if, indeed, that’s what this specific revision is about.

And please, we’re debating policy here. So keep your cool.
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Letter to Erie (CO) Review
Published 3/4/09

DON’T TAKE HONOR AWAY FROM LEON A. WURL

No, no, no! That’s my response to the Erie Town Board’s apparent decision to rename the Leon A. Wurl Parkway. To rob this man of his legacy is to dishonor his unselfish contributions to the town. (Number one on my list in that regard is Erie’s Safeway Shopping Center, which he landed almost single-handedly right away.) After all, it was the town’s leaders who hired him in 1994 to come in and spur Erie’s growth, and did he ever comply -- perhaps too fast, some of us who lived there thought. But that’s not the point.

If the current Erie Town Board seeks uniformity in street names, why not simply change the name of the entire route of this arterial between U.S. 287 and I-25 to Wurl Parkway?

Despite the criticisms leveled by me (and others) at Leon Wurl regarding some of his administrative policies over the years, he was an outstanding leader in his profession and deserves the quasi-permanent recognition that a street name offers. Buildings, unlike streets, as you know, can come and go.

Give this man his just dues.
P.

Letters that don't get published:
3/3/09 to The Denver Post

Re “Legislature 2009 - Senate debate turns ugly,” news story in the emerged Denver Post, 3/3/09, bylined Tim Hoover.

Attaway, Denver Post: The conservatives are always the bad guys and the liberals know exactly what’s best for us. It’s this sort of crapola woven into the news columns that drove me away from the Post to the News years ago.

If Greg Moore cannot or will not sanitize the Post’s news columns, which seems apparent, then I have no desire as a transferee to stick around.

Sell your ideology on your editorial pages where it won’t stand in the way of disinterested reporting. Please.

–Percy Conarroe

Published 2/26/09
in the Old Berthoud (CO) Bulletin

ANOTHER LANDMARK BITES THE DUST

I appreciated Melanie Crane’s letter of 2/11/09. Although I do not live in Berthoud, I will miss the Wayside Inn. My wife and I discovered its delicious fried chicken over 50 years ago, while motoring from Simla where we published the local newspaper (1952-65) to Fort Collins to attend a football game. I’m wondering if rerouting U.S. 287 (while probably virtuous in many respects) had anything to do with the closing of the Wayside or other businesses.

Ms. Crane also mentions the eternal problem faced by many a small town: that of preserving its unique ambiance while at the same time trying to modernize. Apparently Berthoud is no exception.

I can only say that, in Louisville where we lived (1965-98), the city, despite my editorial protestations went ahead and installed decorative “elephant ears” to modernize Main Street. Later, when parking problems arose, business owners asked the city to please remove the protruding concrete obstacles to open up more spaces -- but the city said no, it would cost too much. They’re still there.

As for business owners everywhere, I believe that they can do a lot to help themselves by advertising regularly in the hometown newspaper(s). Thank you for letting an “outsider” comment.
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A REPUBLICAN, REALLY?

By co-sponsoring liberal legislation to remove a cap on state spending, Rep. Don Marostica of Loveland is abandoning a basic tenet of his own party: limited government.

If Marostica is unable to uphold and defend his party’s principles at crunch-time, then he should personally repay every dollar that the Republicans spent on electing him to the Colorado Legislature.

The quicker the GOP rids itself of the Snowes, the Collinses, the Specters and now the Marosticas, the stronger –- and more reliable -- the party will be.

Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said that if we don't hang together, we will all hang together?
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