Colorado Editorial Roundup

By The Associated Press - Associated Press - Wednesday, July 24, 2019

The Denver Post, July 22, on recall petitions against lawmakers and the governor:

This summer we urge Colorado voters to decline to sign recall petitions for three elected officials.

These men and women - Gov. Jared Polis, Sen. Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood, and Sen. Pete Lee of Colorado Springs - have done nothing nefarious, or illegal or untoward. Rather, they face recalls for their votes, or in the case of the governor his signature, on issues the petition gatherers disagree with.

These are not matters that should be decided by a special election. These are issues that should be decided by the next regular election. That’s how our democracy works - someone is elected for a term and barring some exceedingly rare and horrendous action on the part of an elected official, they serve that term until the next election. Then voters can have their say.

Recalls are not meant to be do-over elections.

Voters knew when they cast ballots for Polis, Pettersen, and Lee that they were progressive Democrats. These three individuals won while being honest with their constituents about the positions they held. Furthermore, all three have served in public office for years and had extensive voting records indicative of how they would vote in the future. Nothing has occurred in their recent voting records that should surprise anyone - especially those behind the recalls.

For example, Republican Nancy Pallozzi became very familiar with Pettersen’s policy positions when they ran against each other in the 2016 election. Pettersen won by a healthy margin. Pallozzi is now trying to recall Pettersen for the very types of issues they argued about on the campaign trail.

Arthur Steele Graham and Barbara Ruth Hernandez wrote in their recall petition that Polis should be ousted six months into his term because “he supported and signed” four bills: joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact; giving local control to the oil and gas industry; amending the state’s content standards for human sexuality courses; creating an extreme risk protection order to take guns from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others.

This editorial board supported all four of those bills, and we urge voters to dig into the issues and see if they agree with Polis’ support. These are the issues that will be debated in the November 2022 elections. There is much room for reasonable people to disagree with us and Polis on these issues.

It is unreasonable, however, to paint Polis’ support of these bills as so extreme and unusual that he must be recalled.

Finally, Scott David Fisher is pushing the recall of Sen. Pete Lee. Fisher, according to Colorado Politics, has a history with paramilitary groups that have sent armed members to the border.

Lee is being targeted for his votes on the same issues as Pettersen and Polis. Before joining the Colorado Senate, Lee served in the Colorado House for years.

This summer, if enough people decline to sign these petitions, we can send the message that recalls should be rare and reserved for extreme circumstances, not political disagreements.

Editorial: https://dpo.st/2SKiLst

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Craig Daily Press, July 19, on welcoming addiction therapy:

The city of Craig, in all its rural perfection and isolated beauty, isn’t immune from a problem found too often in communities across the country: addiction.

Felony drug arrests for possession of methamphetamine, heroin, and other dangerous drugs are common in Craig. The same faces often frequent our jail, many of them opioid or methamphetamine addicts. Others suffer from alcoholism and might be facing their fourth or more charge of driving under the influence of alcohol.

However, many live and work in Craig, and despite their addiction, they are still people. They’re our friends and neighbors, our sisters and brothers. They make up the fabric of our community just like we all do. They’re all people who are loved by someone. They are all “ours.”

Some think addicts aren’t criminalized enough, that tough laws against drugs enacted during the Reagan and Clinton administrations were too lenient, and we should continue jailing drug abusers at record levels. Some think it’s fine our state and county jails have become de facto addiction treatment facilities.

We realize treating the root causes of drug addiction is critical to reducing the number of addicts who find their way to our jails, but we don’t think folks belong in jail just for being ill. Allowing the most ill among us to remain ill with no local opportunity to receive treatment that directly addresses addiction isn’t a good way to keep our community safe and our health care costs down. We want our community healthy and happy and part of that will involve welcoming those seeking treatment at Craig’s new addiction treatment center, wherever that may be.

Providence Recovery Services’ recent decision to rescind their plans to make the Yampa Building into an addiction treatment center was met with praise by many in the Craig and Moffat County communities. Some felt Moffat County School District wasn’t acting in the best interests of future students and taxpayers by essentially donating the building for use by drug addicts. Many feel they want an addiction treatment facility in Craig, but MCSD wasn’t transparent enough about the Yampa Building deal.

Providence Recovery Services and Memorial Regional Health should see the recent events concerning the Yampa Building as an opportunity. The Yampa Building deal falling through may have been the best thing for a successful future treatment center in Craig because the community can get behind it now. The emotional connection to the Yampa Building - its place in the childhood memories of so many Craig residents, its market value, and prime location - will no longer impact Craig’s potential addiction treatment center once a fitting location is found.

But, the future of the Yampa Building is still uncertain, so this week’s school district listening session and meetings like it are crucial going forward. They allow the school board to hear from constituents who are busy with their everyday lives - their children, their homes, their families, and their jobs - residents who heard what was happening to Craig’s Yampa Building and were moved to action.

Those resident taxpayers shouldn’t be chided for not attending school board meetings until now. They should be respected and listened to so the school board can avoid claims of no transparency in the future. The public may have been disengaged while the Yampa Building deal was being discussed, but that’s even more a reason for the school board and for Providence Recovery Services to keep the public’s attention on their plans throughout the process instead of feigning transparency near the end.

The Craig and Moffat County communities also bear some responsibility for keeping abreast of what our school district is doing. Public officials work for us, but the only way they can represent out interests is if we make attending public meetings and sharing our opinions a priority.

Show up and speak up. Your opinion only matters if it’s heard. Perhaps if we band together as a community and all play our part in this our great American experiment, we can avoid another valuable but empty public building in Craig.

Editorial: http://bit.ly/2SBauqk

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The Aspen Times, July 18, on the mountain town’s bear and trash problem:

Despite countless hours of education, outreach and banging their heads against the proverbial Dumpster, Aspen cops aren’t getting the message about locking up trash in the downtown core through to business owners.

Well before Aspen police’s community response officers comb the commercial core in the early morning hours, bears already have broken into multiple trash cans.

Trash haulers and property managers usually clean up the evidence before the cops get to the alleys, making it difficult to punish those who are violating the city’s solid waste and wildlife harassment ordinance.

Every business owner in Aspen knows we have a bear problem, which typically ends badly for the animal.

Every time a bear gets rewarded with a human food source, there likely will be a human-bear conflict that will result in the bruin being euthanized, per Colorado Parks and Wildlife policy.

Yet people continue to keep unsecured trash near their businesses out of sheer laziness, and the Aspen police hand out warnings instead of citations that come with steep fines.

Why is this so difficult?

If business owners and their employees can’t make securing their trash part of the daily routine - like accepting payment from customers, or locking the door - then they need to be reminded with tickets, which can go as high as $999 and an appearance before the city’s municipal judge.

So far this summer, the APD has issued four citations and a whole lot of warnings.

Aspen City Council last year passed a new wildlife harassment ordinance and made the fines much steeper than they were.

The law was designed to stop people from doing stupid stuff such as feeding bears and chasing them for selfies, which was the case two years ago when a mom and her two cubs were trapped in a tree on the busy Cooper Avenue mall.

This is a huge public safety issue, but also has serious implications for the wildlife/human co-existence that makes mountain towns special.

Its obvious warnings aren’t enough, so we say no more enabling. It’s time to dole out the tickets with a heavy hand and no longer enforce the rules in a passive manner.

Aspen police should be working under the same ethos as the CPW, which is to eliminate conflicts by eliminating human attractants.

And businesses should be taking ownership of this issue and leading by example.

If enforcement and doing the right thing are not the choices that are made, then the next move will be to publicly shame these people into compliance.

Perhaps we need to add a new weekly feature, much like the police blotter that publishes the names of individuals who got arrested that week.

We’ll call it the “Jeers for Bears” blotter and publish photos of overturned dumpsters and the business owner responsible for each and every one of them.

If warnings and citations don’t do it, maybe some good old fashioned public shaming will.