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?
P.

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.

Published 1/31/09 in
the Longmont Times-Call

T-C LINE CALLERS SHOULD NOT BE
ALLOWED TO BREAK THE RULES

The Times-Call’s rules for the T-C Line say that calls that are highly critical of local individuals or organizations or that disagree with opinions stated in signed letters to the editor will not be used. But what about using calls that AGREE with the derogatory opinions expressed in a signed letter that were personally directed at another letter writer?

Such seems to be the fate of Ida Mae Ray, whose letter stating some of her religious beliefs was published on 1/23/09. On 1/25/09, a rebuttal letter extremely critical of Ray from Vicki Mead appeared.

What adds salt to the wound in this episode is the cleverly devised attack on Ray, without even mentioning her name, that followed in Monday’s (1/26/09) T-C Line, “Hear, Hear, to Letter Writer” -- four responses which seem to have turned the signed-letters limitation on its head. Either that, or maybe the T-C rules need tightening to assure fairness to all open-forum contributors. Any discussion on this?

Disclosure: I do not know either person named here.

P.

LETTERS SUBMITTED THAT DO NOT
GET PRINTED IN THE NEWSPAPER

Reference: "American Tale," p. 19, 1/24/09 Rocky Mountain News.

By devoting nearly two broadsheet pages (a whopping 164.5 col. Inches of news space) to glorify Gov. Bill Ritter’s appointment to the U.S. Senate, the Rocky Mountain News confirms that Denver may need only one major newspaper, after all.

Two supposedly opposing publications with both using their news columns to further the new liberal Progressive political machine in Colorado is one too many. About the only distinction now between the News and The Denver Post is in their editorial pages, but that too at the News is being overrun with Progressive-minded columnists, e.g. instead of Tom Sowell, we get a C.U. professor of law.

That Michael Bennet comes from a notable background is touching, but what he does not know about Colorado would probably fill a book. This handicap was made embarrassingly clear when Ritter had to take him around the state to introduce him. At whose expense will he gain experience?

Promoting political ideology in the news columns is not an honorable journalistic mission. Small wonder the press is going down the tubes.

(s) Percy Conarroe

NEIGHBOR HELPED LOUISVILLE (COLO.) RESIDENTS ENJOY LIBRARY SERVICE
IN EARLY DAYS, IS IT TIME NOW TO RECIPROCATE AND SHARE WITH SUPERIOR?

Typical of small mining towns, Louisville had to struggle for its economic sustenance during its heyday and even more so, after the coal mines closed down in the 1950s. There were not many amenities, such as a well-stocked public library, that these settlements could afford.

Having lived there while publishing the Louisville Times for 33 years (1965-98), I watched the Louisville Public Library evolve from a meager collection of mostly resident-contributed books in a backroom at City Hall, into a wing of Leon Wurl’s renovated on-site structure in the mid-1970s, then into the spacious two-story Fischer Building a half-block down the street in 1989, purchased for $660,000 through the same $5.3 million bond issue that built the Louisville Recreation Center. Thanks to a recent bond issue, the library has expanded into custom-built quarters just across the street -- a splendid achievement.

A long time before the Conarroes came to town, the Saturday Study Club, a plucky group of local women, helped fund the Louisville Public Library to keep it operating. Vera Taylor was a mainstay of this group. Townspeople I recall who served as librarians at a very modest salary included Marian Thirlaway, Larella Stout, Emmajane Enrietto, Pam Ferris, Eileen Schmidt, and my wife Carolyn.

The point here is that, for decades, had it not been for dedicated volunteers, plus access to the Colorado State Library system and the gracious cooperation of the Boulder Public Library in lending its books without charge to the Louisville Library for circulation to its patrons, the local library service would have been severely handicapped indeed.

Remembering the unfettered sharing by Boulder’s main library for the benefit of Louisville residents, I was ashamed to see the brouhaha develop between the town of Superior and city of Louisville over the use of the new Louisville Public Library, dissension that unfortunately ended in mutual disgust and mistrust.

The Louisville City Council is in command, no doubt about that. And yes, it costs a lot of money to build, stock, maintain and operate a modern library, but isn’t it the purpose of a public library to distribute information and incidentals to everyone at the lowest fee possible? I wonder, what kind of a society is it that would deliberately deny books to children?

Superior’s offer of $100,000 a year seemed fair; any figure beyond that looked like blackmail to me. In lieu of a direct subsidy, it is perfectly fair to charge outsiders a user’s fee; but unless that fee is uniform and applied equally to all outsiders, it is clearly discriminatory. Where is the ACLU on this issue?

Yet another factor figures into this equation: Because of a favor that the developer of the new Superior, Larry Mizel, once did for Louisville, I’m surprised that anyone in Louisville could now claim “they (Superior) have never done anything for us, so why should we (Louisville) accommodate them?”

Well, it was Mizel who had the capital and the clout to tap into the Northern Colorado-Big Thompson (Colorado River) Project for water that he critically needed to supply his ambitious Superior development.

Boulder had Big T water, and Broomfield was hooked to Denver water, but for the first time Western Slope water was made available to local municipalities that had been dependent almost solely on over-appropriated Eastern Slope water from South Boulder Creek and Coal Creek – a major breakthrough.

Mizel’s bold project involved construction of a large pipeline from Carter Lake near Berthoud to Superior. This made it possible for first Louisville and later Erie to hook into Big T and buy shares, solving to a great extent not only Mizel’s water-supply problem, but also Louisville’s and Erie’s growth needs as well.

Library alternatives for the town of Superior? Forming a library district would be nice, but it’s highly improbable, as is the possibility of Louisville establishing a Superior branch. Superior might try building its own library, but with such elaborate libraries established in Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield and Boulder, so close by, that does not seem likely and appears superfluous. And, fend-for-yourself is not a good answer.

All things considered, history tells me that Louisville’s current City Council should rethink its attitude and policy, go back to the negotiating table, and unselfishly share Louisville’s fine new library with the neighbors in Superior -- as another neighboring city once did, for the sake of Louisville.
P.

Published in The Colorado Statesman, Denver
1-2-2009

CRITICS, COMPETITORS OUTSMARTED IN DENVER NEWSPAPER WAR

After six years, the Joint Operating Agreement between The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, designed to save the latter, is grinding down, a financial failure. News owner Scripps wants out, even if it means shuttering the News.

Self-styled newspaper critics can pontificate all over the place about blame, cause and effect, but in the driver’s seat is Dean Singleton, a brilliant print-media magnate who is just too smart for them and, so far, his growing list of competitors including the once-mighty Scripps.

Noted for playing his cards close to his vest, Singleton deserves credit for his guts, energy and tenacity. He can play either side of the JOA game and currently is involved in apparently the minority role in daily newspapers in Detroit, Salt Lake City and Charleston, W.V.

His privately held company MediaNews Group has blossomed into one of America’s largest predominantly paid-circulation newspaper chains. He owns, operates or has his fingers in at least 60 dailies and 97 non-dailies. Critics can holler "monopoly," but realistically the newspaper business is so tough today that numerous of these communities might not have a local newspaper of record if it were not for Singleton. They all can’t be winners.

In Colorado besides the Post, his company owns or operates at least five dailies and six non-dailies -- still behind Swift Communication’s six dailies and seven non-dailies, although Reno-based Swift just closed down its weekly Valley Journal at Carbondale.

Just how far Singleton can extend his newspaper empire before it too collapses along with other newspaper chains under the weight of the numbing decline in the industry itself and now the economy, remains to be seen. Together these crippling factors also make it almost impossible for start-ups to succeed, even in non-competitive markets.

It’s no secret that Singleton chairs the Denver Newspaper Agency, which controls both Denver dailies and his other Colorado affiliates. The newspaper business is not your ordinary creature, yet it has one thing in common with most other commercial enterprises in that who ever allocates the money usually also gets to call the shots.

Still, the lack of full, transparent financial disclosure by both principals in this Denver fight to the finish is bothersome. Reports kept saying all along that the Post was making money while the News was losing its shirt. How could that be?

Scripps’ other Colorado newspapers, the Boulder Daily Camera, Colorado Daily and Broomfield Enterprise, are also in the DNA mix and the Camera announced Dec. 18 that it is doing nicely financially.

Critics can quibble over page-size affecting advertising revenue (News=tabloid vs. Post=journal) but that should make no difference if under the JOA the combined total was supposed to be split. Both, as do most dailies, overcharge for classifieds and capitalize on obituaries -- not good ways to enhance the image of a caring press serving the public.

Retail businesses started moving away from run-of-press advertising years ago when newspapers, dailies especially, decided to deliver preprinted inserts, not a few but by the ton, at discounted prices. In the Denver market where circulation has held on pretty well considering, there may not be enough ROP left for two major dailies to wrap their news and commentary around. In contrast, the WSJ and USA Today seem to thrive without inserts.

Couple that complication with the unforgiving Internet, and it’s doubly unlikely that any sane publisher would want to face-off with Singleton in Denver, whether in or out of a JOA. Under the current JOA with the News he has veto power over any successor thereto. All parties involved including the Justice Department signed off on that stipulation, so that’s that.

For some of us with printer’s ink and metal in our veins (mine comes from 50 years of editing and publishing Colorado small-town newspapers) the answer to whether Denver can continue to have competing major daily newspapers lies within its retail business establishments and their advertising agencies. It’s their decision and so far they’ve said no.

Newspapers get results but cannot publish on desire alone. Wake up, Denver!

(Conarroe served as president of the Colorado Press Association in 1981 and is an honorary lifetime member. Before retiring in 1998, he and his family last published the Louisville Times, Lafayette News, Erie Review and Superior Observer.)
P.

Published in the Longmont Times-Call 12-26-08
METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
BEST WAY TO FUND MALL

Kudos to Councilwoman Sarah Levison for opposing the wasteful $3,000 update study designed to expand the “blighted area” for urban renewal quite beyond Twin Peaks Mall, but the council proceeded anyway. Where does it stop?

Rarely does a consulting study of this kind fail to find blight. If I owned property in the targeted area (between Hover/Sunset and Nelson/Ken Pratt Blvd.), I’d be nervous about having an Urban Renewal Authority (URA) with its eminent domain power and red tape taking over.

The city just funded a separate study regarding the mall’s redevelopment concepts (now they’re into housing?) so that “a partnership between the city and mall-owner could move forward.”

When did this private venture, unlike numerous other businesses around town, become a “partner” with Longmont taxpayers and what kind of financial kickbacks are involved?

Uh-oh, the unfair tax-increment financing scheme (TIF) is back on the table. Which means, as the mall prospers as anticipated, the mall-owner would get to keep the expected increase in city sales-tax revenues that the mall collects (which normally would flow into the city’s general fund to pay for things like police and fire protection) and apply that money to making payments on long-term bonds issued by the URA (no vote required) to fund his improvements. How nice.

In years ahead, the city’s general fund would still get some sales-tax revenue from the mall, but no more than a predetermined base amount, probably the same as this year.

And what if the mall still fails? Longmont taxpayers could be stuck with URA’s bonded indebtedness (viz. city of Englewood, CO.).

Alternative? The Metropolitan District concept is the best and fairest way to keep the financial burden of redeveloping Twin Peaks Mall where it belongs: on the back of the mall-owner and off the backs of Longmont taxpayers.
P.

WHERE DOES ALL THE
HIGHWAY TAX MONEY GO?

Since Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor is a key member of Gov. Bill Ritter’s Blue Ribbon Transportation Panel which visited Longmont a while back, I’m wondering what sort of an ongoing program Boulder County has budgeted to closely monitor, maintain and replace, as appropriate, the county’s 643 miles of roadway and its 76 bridges of over 20 feet in length. Roadways and bridges just don’t fall apart overnight.

Construction costs have risen sharply, but so has the number of highway users who shell out tremendous amounts money to pay for vehicle fuel taxes, ownership taxes, licenses, fees and permits. Perhaps another dog-and-pony show should be organized by the governor and sent out to explain where all the money goes, in the foggy world of highway high-finance.

If our county commissioners are indeed unable to guarantee the public reasonably safe roads and bridges due to budget shortfall, I was about to recommend floating a bond issue for that purpose. After all, the majority of voters in Boulder County don’t seem to mind running up a huge debt on our children and grandchildren to buy land.

But on second thought, the 2007 financial report of Boulder County shows that its long-term debt already stands at around $198 million.

So maybe putting our descendants further in debt to fund our roads and bridges is not such a good idea. Oh well, why worry? Obama will take care of it.
P.

Published 12-10-08 in
the Longmont Times-Call
BOULDER COUNTY OVERREACHES
IN OPPOSING CHURCH PLAN

Despite being found guilty by a federal jury of violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the Boulder County Commissioners persist in trying to keep Rocky Mountain Christian Church (disclosure: I’m not a member) from expanding to meet the needs of its congregation. There’s nothing extraordinary about the church’s plan to add space for worship, a gym for better health, and a school building to educate children. Also, the site seems quite adaptable and appropriate.

Essentially at the heart of this issue and at risk, as Richard Yale pointed out in his letter to the Times-Call (12-06-08) and I agree, is the First Amendment’s guarantee of “free exercise …of religion.”

As for RLUIPA, I don’t think AG Janet Reno would have let President Clinton sign it into law had she doubted its constitutionality. Yes, the Supremes might reject it, but I question the commissioners’ desire to spend big on legal fees to find out, especially when we’re in a recession and Boulder County is $193 million in debt (annual financial report for 2007).

Having resided in east Boulder County for 43 years, I’ve watched unincorporated Niwot, which the county governs hands-on, expand rather dramatically. Niwot showed a growth rate of 56% between 1990 and 2000, compared to Boulder’s 14%, Lyons’ 29%, Longmont’s 38%, Louisville’s 53% and Broomfield’s 55%. Only Lafayette, Erie and Superior outpaced Niwot.

The county would like to pretend that it has allowed little or no growth in this once-rural area, but the facts indicate otherwise.

First, it was IBM across Colo. Highway 119 that “ruined the landscape,” then it was nearby Gunbarrel that exploded and now it’s multi-million dollar mansions that encroach.

But I admit I’m not all that sensitive to all of that activity and, again, I fail to see the problem with the church expansion. Merry Christmas!
P.

A LONGTIME REPUBLICAN
AND PROUD OF IT

As a Colorado native who turned 21 in 1948 (the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1971), I chose the GOP and have never regretted it. But right off the bat, and much to my disappointment, the American electorate turned away the "invincible" Tom Dewey-Earl Warren ticket. The Republican/Dewey combo had lost again in its second pursuit of the presidency, this time to the Harry Truman-Barkley ticket, despite the Chicago Daily Tribune’s assuring headline proclaiming “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Of course, it was only four years earlier that the GOP’s Dewey-John Bricker ticket had lost to the Franklin D. Roosevelt-Truman duo.

So, after seeing our ideal candidate humiliated twice, one might think that we Republicans should have folded our tent and gone home. But we stuck to our principles and in 1952 came trumpeting back with a Dwight Eisenhower-Richard Nixon ticket to “landslide” the highly touted Adlai E. Stevenson-John Sparkman ticket, and again in 1956 when the surely electable Stevenson was paired with Estes Kefauver, in sort of a joyful Dewey retribution.

I notice that the post-election advice to Republicans when they fail hasn’t changed much in 60 years. Critics are always quick to point to the Party’s right wing, but when Democrats lose, scarcely anyone ever blames their left wing, an uncompromising force to which president-elect Barack Obama is now so deeply indebted politically that their demands will be extremely difficult to appease. Only time will tell us when the serious infighting occurs, but it is bound to come when our new president discovers, as he inevitably will, that contrary to his campaign promises the government cannot be all things to all people.

Wasn’t it Lord Acton who said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? All the elements are now be in place in Washington, D.C. for the perfect storm. The GOP will be ready, willing and able to go in and pick up the pieces afterwards, as usual.
P.

Published 11-29-08
in The Denver Post

WHY SHOULD GOP BE THE
ONLY PARTY TO CHANGE?

Regarding pundit Fred Brown and the disgruntled Republicans he quotes in his column, “The GOP’s journey to the right,” (Perspective 11-23-08) why is it always the Republicans and not the Democrats who are expected to tweak party principles and shut out loyalists in order to reach the ethereal status of political centrism? The Republican Party is no more obligated to expel its right-wing religionists than the Democratic Party is to oust its radical leftist-secularists.

Both parties emphasize their “big tent diversity” and that’s the way American politics should be. The people rule, and those who become disenchanted in one party should strive to change it, find another or go independent.

Mastery of nationwide confidential Internet communications, massive infusions of cash from Soros nationally but Colorado had its own Big Four mother lode, plus the media’s “get Bush” mentality, flummoxed the GOP this time. Stubbornly adhering to his campaign finance philosophy, John McCain was hugely outspent, essentially hoist on his own petard.

Defector Colin Powell, who endorsed Obama, forgets that he was a member of one of the most diverse presidential Cabinets ever assembled, that of George W. Bush.

Republicans “anti-intellectual”? Rubbish.
P.

Published 10-14-08
in Longmont Times-Call

LACK OF CONFIDENCE
NOT A GOOD SIGN

It’s a sad reflection on Longmont when upwards of 100 local business and professional people, including one of the town’s leading entrepreneurial families, become so disenchanted with the direction the present city council is taking our city that they have found it necessary to form a group called LIFT to encourage and protect not only their own well-being, but that of future business and commercial investors as well. Regardless of what the “experts” say, whenever a business community loses confidence in its city government, nobody wins and the biggest losers will be homeowners whose property taxes and city user-fees for water/sewer/electricity/trash will rise dramatically as business-generated revenues fall. Is that what the people of Longmont want?

A sagging economy will make it tough for even the most business-friendly cities to attract attention. Once publicity gets out that a city council is not seen as a positive factor by numerous local businesses, as is the case now in Longmont, that perception quickly spreads to the outside world and it’s nearly irreversible.

Councilwoman Karen Benker’s promises of improving the business climate (T-C 10/4/08) ring hollow, especially after being a ringleader in chasing away the significant amount of permit fees and commercial/retail taxes tied to the LifeBridge Union project. She and her cohorts drove the Union project right into Firestone’s arms, where voters did not buy into the anti-church propaganda and approved the annexation 509 to 357.

Although I usually see eye-to-eye with Mayor Roger Lange, it is not in the best interests of this city to be running up horrendous lawyer fees in trying to kill Firestone’s Union annex. Longmont had its shot at this property; the council majority worked hard to keep it out, and won. Why should we taxpayers now be expected to pay dearly to keep it out of Firestone?
P.

Published 9-28-08
in Longmont Times-Call

DEMOCRATS IGNORE
OWN ETHICS LAPSES

When the Democrats took over the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised ethical purity. Well, Tom Delay (R-Texas) was sacked when he was indicted (not convicted) on charges of violating campaign finance laws, but still sitting is William Jefferson (D-Louisiana), who is under indictment on charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire-fraud, obstruction of justice and money-laundering. He is the chap whose freezer yielded a cool $90,000 in cash.

And now, according to The New York Times, Charles Rangel (D-New York), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee which writes the income tax code, “has earned rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns.” The Times headline read, “Rangel Failed to Report $75,000 in Income.” Pelosi says the Democratic controlled House Ethics Committee “will look into it”--much like they’re looking into Jefferson’s activities, no doubt.

Closer to home, Democratic 4th Congressional District candidate Betsy Markey is having big trouble explaining her involvement in a company that depends heavily on contracts with federal agencies, while at the same time she was serving as an aide to U.S. Senator Ken Salazar. The Denver Post reported, “Markey’s signed financial disclosures list the Maryland-based Syscom among her assets and say she held a director’s position between Jan. 1, 2006 and May 15, 2008. For part of that time she also served as Salazar’s regional director.” The headline over the Rocky Mountain News report read: “Public filings contradict Markey’s words.” To which her campaign staff replied, in effect, that if anything is wrong, it was just an “oversight.” But that’s precisely the excuse Rangel’s high-profile lawyer Lanny Davis is already using.

It makes no sense to me to add another “insider” to Washington. I’m voting for Marilyn Musgrave.
P.

MY FELLOW CITIZENS
BEWARE OF REFERENDUM O

They can’t take that away from us, but they’re trying.

In this context, the “they” refers mostly to public officials whose ox has been gored via the initiative process (as in TABOR), and the “that” identifies our right to petition our state government for whatever reason we see fit, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, securing the winning result in the state Constitution to keep the politicians at bay. Occasionally, the judiciary steps in afterwards and decides what’s “fit,” but mostly keeps its hands off.

Denouncing Colorado as a stomping ground for citizen initiatives, they have floated Referendum O seeking, for one thing, to sharply increase the number of signatures required to put initiated laws on the ballot. They want to fix it so that only the special interest groups (think tanks, unions, 501s) will be able to file initiatives because they will have the money and power to organize petition drives to collect signatures, no matter the number. If the news media want to promote participatory democracy, then disempowering the grassroots is not the way to go.

So they throw us a bone called “initiated statutes” which are good for five years. What a sham. They must be kidding.

Long ballot? County officials can speed up voting by setting up more polling places. People who intend to continue governing themselves must take the time to do so.
P.

Letter published in
the Rocky Mountain News
August 27, 2008

MUSGRAVE IS RIGHT

ABOUT DRILLING
      Judging from the initial flood of letters to the editor aimed at unseating 4th District Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, maybe the attacks by her adversaries will rise above the sewer this time around proving they are indeed intelligent enough to engage in rhetoric without using dog excrement for emphasis. Let’s hope so.
      Musgrave is on the right side of the oil-drilling issue and a separate poll shows 67 percent of Coloradans agree. But that probably won’t stop Colorado’s liberal cabal of the two Salazars, Udall, DeGette and Ritter from trying to stifle all of our state’s fossil fuel development to please their special-interest groups who have taken over the government, while we ordinary citizens and the state’s economy are second thoughts.
      As for Musgrave’s new opponent, she may or may not be qualified. What is relevant is that it makes no sense to seat more Democrats in a Congress whose crowning achievement during its two-year term was proposing over 1,900 resolutions. That shows you how much they care about the price of gasoline.
      No wonder Musgrave and her fellow Republicans were unable to summon Speaker Pelosi back from her vacation so the House could consider relaxing oil-drilling restrictions to smooth the transition between oil and yet-to-be developed energy.

      Acting on all of those resolutions had simply worn her out.
      I’m voting for Musgrave.
P.

Letter published in

The Denver Post

8-02-08

BEWARE OF THE EFFECTS

OF A FEDERAL SHIELD LAW

     Your 7-26-08 editorial “Federal shield law necessary” wrongly promotes the idea that all newspapers deserve special protection when choosing which government secrets to keep or print. Too many indulge in biased politics to be trusted, e.g., The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

     As a longtime newsperson I say, beware of a Beltway shield law -- for whatever privilege Congress bestows, it can license, regulate, tweak, or use as a weapon. Requesting a federal shield law to protect a reportorial practice that the watchdogs themselves are no longer willing to defend on principle (by going to jail if necessary) does not speak well of a fearless free press, and it sends the wrong message to the public.
     The First Amendment specifically protects the press from government interference. The legal profession received no similar mention in the Constitution, yet lawyers are free to enjoy attorney-client secrecy as they go about their work — but not reporters?
     Colorado has a fairly good shield law, but unlike the First Amendment, it must include caveats, one of which is that a newsperson does not have to disclose a source “unless the information cannot reasonably be obtained by any other means.” New York Times reporter Judith Miller of Libby-trial fame arguably could not have been saved from jail under Colorado’s shield law either.

P.

Letter published in

Longmont Times-Call, 8-1-08

MALL NEEDS GROCER,

GROCER NEEDS MALL

        With all due respect to those in the public and private sectors who deal closely with Longmont’s planning and economic development, it seems to me that two headlines on the front page of the 7-24-08 Times-Call reflect a possibly missed opportunity. One announced the “complicated” mall plan being put on hold; the other, “Natural grocer eyeing Hover.” Why can’t they get together?
       From a planning standpoint, the mall needs a natural foods outlet to attract shoppers, and the grocer needs the mall traffic. It looks like a winner—for the grocer, the mall owner, and the city treasury.
      Of course, the grocer is free to settle on the announced Hover site. But a far-better accommodation of vehicular traffic than what is currently available along there will have to be made because of the poor access to and from Hover Street. Mitigate traffic, join the mall lineup.
       Also, I wish whoever is riding the TIF horse around town would dismount and send that critter out to pasture because Tax Increment Financing—although legal—is unfair to the taxpayers. A legacy of LBJ’s “Great Society,” TIF allows public money (taxes) to be diverted to help pay for privately owned urban renewal projects.
      Talk of using TIF to help pay for renovating the mall has calmed a bit, but I see where the Longmont Downtown Development Authority is now toying with the idea of using Tax Increment Financing to start a façade improvement program. Naturally, the same question regarding TIF arises: who makes up for the tax money that will be diverted from the city of Longmont into this program until it is finished? In times of budget shortfall, the city may have trouble replacing diverted TIF revenues and the choices are limited: increase other fees and-or taxes, cut programs, or both.

P.