LETTERS: Sunday

NRA article misled readers

I am sincerely disappointed in your paper for even considering printing the article by E.J. Dionne about the NRA membership (“NRA membership is far more moderate than leadership,” Dec. 10). It was an out and out lie and I’m disappointed that you did no more research than you did. You did none. His article hadn’t an inkling of truth. You now owe it to your readers and the American people to print the truth! For what it is worth, I am an NRA Life Member and I will vote line item with our NRA leaders. If it wasn’t for the NRA, you would have lost your Freedom Of Speech many years ago.

Robert G. Bentley

Divide

What Ritter should cut

All Colorado taxpayers would like to see Gov. Ritter target illusory state agencies for his budget cuts. I would suggest that Ritter start by eliminating the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. This office investigates fewer than 10-percent of the formal ethics complaints against attorneys and magistrates that it receives annually, according to HALT, Inc., a nonprofit legal reform group in Washington, D.C.

Next, Ritter should eliminate the equally illusory Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline. It has not unseated a single judge in its 42-year history. Colorado citizens would not even notice the absence of these agencies and would be better served by a reallocation of the tax dollars that support them.

Dale Kim Thorup

Canon City

Council’s issue 300 games

Now that Issue 300 has been approved by the voters, City Council appears to be playing more games by questioning the clarity of this measure as well as its compliance with the City Charter.

To demonstrate their disingenuous nature, one merely has to look at the history of Issue 300. This measure followed the required process for all proposed measures. It had to go before an Initiative Review Committee (IRC), whose membership is comprised of council appointed pseudo-experts on initiatives. Then it had to successfully complete a Title Board hearing, whose members are the City Attorney, City Clerk, and Presiding Municipal Judge.

All these reviews afforded sufficient opportunities to address the clarity of Issue 300 before the petition forms were printed. To see the results of these reviews, one merely has to review the meeting minutes or transcripts. There were no objections based on clarity or conflicts with the City Charter.

To make matters even more ridiculous, you have to understand that Issue 300 is little more than Issue 201 from the previous election cycle. The only difference in their wording is a date. Issue 201 was also vetted through an IRC and Title Board, and then to a District Court hearing. At the District Court hearing the City prevailed in its argument that the issue was not in compliance (single subject, clarity, etc.) unless it was split into two separate initiatives. Hence, Issue 200 and 201 were separate issues — with each meeting all the requirements (clarity, no conflicts with the City Charter, etc.) for a ballot initiative.

So, in reality, Issue 300 was validated on two occasions as a valid ballot initiative by the City. For the City Council to now question its clarity, or any other aspect, is to be disingenuous with the people of Colorado Springs as well as the initiative review process that they set up.

I urge the City Council to immediately implement Issue 300 without any further delay or games.

Bruce Nozolino

Colorado Springs

Almost homeless with son

I feel as though a lot of the homeless are placed there due to our system. Most are doing the best they can on what the government has allotted them. It is truly a tragedy.

I, for one, received a DUI in 2007. I paid for everything, yet I was two months late on starting my DUI classes. I have been on unemployment for almost two years now. I was told to report to probation for two years. I need to pay $50 a month. Since my ticket in February of 2007, I have not gotten into any kind of trouble; yet they may make it almost impossible to move to another state or find a job.

I am in the process of receiving my college degree. My father would like to cease the $50 a month payment (since he has making the payments while I have been in college) and go for non-supervised probation because I am not a felon or hard-core criminal. My father can’t continue to pay because of cancer and it makes it so hard for him to relax thinking that I have been doing so well, yet may still get in trouble.

My father is a former Marine, so he is a man of honor, yet he is very disappointed in how our community as a whole is handling things.

My fiancé may be transferring, yet my 12-year-old son and I may be joining the homeless camps because they want that $50 a month and I might not be able to move out of state with my fiancé right away.

My father is going through an awful lot with his cancer. I am trying to do my best for him, yet he wants me to go with my fiancé because my father knows that I will be happier starting somewhere new.

Riff Riffel

Colorado Springs

I’m married to FREX

I have written, I have attended meetings over the years to keep FREX from being dissolved. We sit on the bus everyday discussing ways that the operators could save money. We attend meetings, share our concerns and ideas and as always — silence. I have written the Transportation Commission asking them to consider the options.

 If they do come to our rescue, I wish they would put conditions on the way FREX is utilizing the buses that remain. Perhaps they can stage buses in Denver and save fuel since the return trips to the Springs have little or no passengers and consolidate the runs back to Colorado Springs. Perhaps they could look at the ridership and consolidate a few buses going north. However, I would love the city council and director of FREX to stop the “all or nothing” approach.

This program works. Hundreds of cars are taken off the highways and the streets when people take public transportation.

This is a job killer and the cars will be back on the road emitting tons of pollutants again. I am married to the service. It is how I get to work evey day. I only wish I had a pre-nuptial agreement. I ask the city council, PPRTA and the director of FREX to please try to make our marriage work.

We have been doing our part.

Bill Althoff

Colorado Springs

King was overly harsh

State Senator Keith King’s assessment of the Public Employees Retirement System (PERA) as being insolvent, was unfair and overly harsh in my view (“PERA and their misguided solution for solvency,” Dec. 5). Based on the contribution and payout arrangements leading up to the present, Sen. King is right. PERA became unsustainable. However, the revisions PERA has made to the plan in light of current economic conditions seem proactive and aggressive enough to bring it back to viability.

What’s more, I think PERA made a good faith effort to communicate with its stakeholders and to evenhandedly spread the pain among them – without breaking its commitment to current retirees.

Sen. King suggests that dismantling the whole program in favor of front-loading employees with somewhat higher salaries and having them invest in 401(k) plans is the solution. Let’s shoot straight here. After 2008/2009, most private sector employees who had their retirement savings in 401(k) plans, stock purchase plans, etc… also found their retirement plans had taken a beating.

Sen. King asked, “What good does a high retirement payout get you when you have to pay for it throughout your career in wages?” I believe the grasshopper and the ant explained that pretty well. I can tell you as a teacher who has not had much of a raise in the last five years, I take comfort in knowing that while money is tight right now, I am accruing benefits in a well managed retirement plan that will allow me to enjoy a modest, but decent retirement.

Benjamin A. Fromuth

Colorado Springs

The girl’s milk problem

I think it is more than possible that our public school system is simply and logically covering itself liability-wise in regards to their requests that you have this lactose intolerance issues documented by your doctor (“School disrespects parents,” Letters, Dec. 10). If something happened at school with your daughter they may be held responsible. This isn’t being illogical or degrading. If it is this important to you, get it verified by a doctor or step up and provide your own substitute for her. This isn’t a restaurant; it’s school lunch! They keep costs down by buying in bulk. I’m sure you have an option of milk or water. Your little princess knows what she can or can’t drink. She’s 10 years old for heaven’s sake. If the school gives in for this child without documentation, everyone is going to demand something different.

Milk allergy is different from lactose intolerance. Lactose intolerant kids can eat stuff like baked goods with milk in it. Truly allergic people cannot.

Perhaps a better resolution for all would be for you to either send her lunch with her to school or continue to home school.

Susan Spears

Colorado Springs

Working with homeless

I got involved with the discussion group started by Matt Parkhouse many years ago. My involvement began when the Red Cross tried to take over the Mill Street neighborhood. I became a Colorado resident in 1998, evacuating with my teenage daughters from a San Diego neighborhood that first became unsafe after Father Joe opened his homeless shelter. Father Joe was touted in Colorado Springs City Council as a role model for the proposed El Pomar/Red Cross Homeless Campus. So I got involved with the issue and met Mr. Parkhouse. Matt and I both have long histories with homeless issues and we agree on many things, including accountability from all involved.

I’m glad The Gazette’s editorial (“How to take back Christmas now,” Dec. 13) brings attention to the homeless again, especially with the killing cold weather upon us.

Juliette Mondot

Colorado Springs

Secularization of Christmas

I wish to express my disappointment with the increasing secularization of Christmas and the lack of public nativity scenes.

At Christmas we pause to contemplate the nativity in the crib. There we find the Virgin Mother offering the baby Jesus — the one who stripped himself of divine glory in order to become poor, driven by love for mankind.

The beautiful initiative of the nativity is meant to reawaken in all Christians the desires to witness to the values of life, love and peace of which the solemnity of Christ’s birth reminds us.

Commemorating the crib means passing on the history of popular piety and religiosity. It means rediscovering joy and the solidarity of friendship which we must preserve in contemporary society, where the the search for material goods alone sometimes seems to prevail.

Christmas is a Christian feast and its symbol, the crib, hands down in time the true meaning of Christmas! The creator of the universe, in making himself a child, came among us to share in our human journey; he made himself little to enter the human heart and thereby to renew it with the almightiness of his love. In advancement of faith, family and fraternity may we all strive to keep Christ in Christmas!

Paul Kokoski

Colorado Springs

George Will’s pot hangup

George Will’s article on the “marijuana high racket” is an example of what happens when ignorance and bias overcomes the facts. He has not bothered to examine the scientific basis for why people suffering from “insomnia, anxiety, headaches, premenstrual syndrome, and chronic pain” would benefit from using marijuana medically, whether or not they enjoyed its psychological effects.

It should not be too difficult to understand that young people are the largest group of marijuana users, and therefore they would naturally be more likely to experience the effectiveness of marijuana in relieving chronic pain, and as a result get a medical marijuana permit.

I find it incomprehensible that any reasonable person would want someone to use the conventional pain-relief medicines that are based on opiates and are addictive, tolerance-promoting, depressive, and constipating in lieu of marijuana that has the horrible side effects of acting as a relaxing, stress-relieving, euphoric that just happens to have anti-aging properties (protects the cardiovascular, digestive, immunological, skeletal, and neurological systems from deterioration and also has anti-cancer and anti-metastatic properties).

Additionally, cannabis users do not fit the stereotype of the “Reefer Madness” fiend. Rather, they consume a God-given plant believing in their freedom to reach an altered state that they feel is personally beneficial. Thus, the stronger the plant, the less one must consume to achieve the desired endpoint.

Endocannabinoids regulate open-mindedness, which is the ability to replace old information with new modified information. It is an intrinsic truth that in a population some people will be lower than average and relatively deficient in this ability. This group will retain the ignorance and fear that has created and perpetuated marijuana prohibition.

Robert Meamede

Colorado Springs

God threatens scientists

In his recent opinion piece John Horner asks why people think that science poses a threat to their belief in God (“I science a threat to our belief in the existence of God?” Dec. 9). It seems to me that scientists are much more threatened by faith than believers are by science. I can believe in God and use the Scriptures as a guide for my scientific research. For example, if the Scriptures say the world is less than 10,000 years old, I can look for evidence to confirm that hypothesis. Many scientists, however, a priori reject any hypothesis that includes God in an explanation of the facts we observe. Many are so threatened by God-inclusive ideas that they ridicule, persecute, and reject those who would propose such a hypothesis. People of faith aren’t threatened by science, they are threatened by overzealous atheists/agnostics who claim they have the corner on science.

Michael Hanratty

Colorado Springs

Charter School CSAPs

The Cesar Chavez Academy was given extra time to take state CSAP Tests at an “extreme rate” for three years, according to a testing audit done for the Colorado Department of Education.

As a consequence, Education Commissioner Dwight Jones has requested that the Cesar Chavez Academy develop a plan to remedy training and implementation of testing procedures by Feb. 1, 2010 and submit it to Pueblo City Schools.

So... this charter school gets a slap on the wrist for this unfair advantage that many people would call cheating! Would a standard public school get the same treatment? The answer is probably “no.” Many public schools that have made mistakes with testing procedures have received 0’s on their tests. Why does Cesar Chavez get special treatment? Is there a double standard for charter schools? Every school has to adhere to the stringent rules and regulations of taking the CSAP tests. The fear of unintentionally mis-administering the CSAP test looms over every school. But yet, this charter school just has to develop a plan with no repercussions or revisions to their scores.

Patty Jerman

Colorado Springs

When life begins

Even though, in order to protect women from the old barbaric methods of abortion, I will do all I am able to keep abortion legal, I wish to make it plain that I believe that life begins when sperm meets egg, at conception.

If this were not so, fertile eggs could not be removed from women to be frozen, and later thawed to be placed in the wombs of the same, or, other women. The life had to be in those eggs before they were frozen.

One cannot revive life, from where there first WAS no life.

June Vandermark

Colorado Springs

Dionne and NRA members

E. J. Dionne left facts out of his article “NRA membership is far more moderate than leadership” (Dec. 10) The leader of the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns is anti-gun billionaire and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. He is spending his wealth to slant polls and lobby to take away your gun rights. Bloomberg wants people whose names are on the Terrorists Watch List to be banned from buying guns. Sounds good, except the F.B.I. will not tell you why you are on the list or give the criteria of why people are put on the list and you can’t go to court to get off the list.

The government says there are 700,000 people on the list and the ACLU claims 1.3 million people are on the list. Mr. Dionne wants politicians to believe they have nothing to fear from the NRA if they go after gun owners. Just ask Bill Clinton about that. He said he lost the House and Senate in 1994 because of the NRA. To get the truth about this issue go to nraila.org.

Ron Coleman

Colorado Springs

Frightened by plight

I am soon going to be fresh out of high school as a starving artist thrust into a world that I am neither ready, nor excited about entering.

My circumstances are a bit different than the average teenager’s, though. As my peers all worry about whether or not they will go to the college they want, or if they should get a job and move out from their parent’s home, I have a kid to worry about.

Now, he is not my birth child since I am only 18. But he is my 10-year-old nephew who is going to need a place to live come June and he is such an amazing kid that he has grabbed my very heart by the strings.

I’m really scared about how I will handle it all, being so young. I’ve helped raise my two nieces from the ages of five and six, and they are now nine and ten. Girls I have a complete handle on, being as I am a female, but I’m quite sure that raising an adolescent boy is going to be much different. I am aware that he will need counseling after everything he has been through but other than that I am not completely sure if I will know how to help him adjust.

Is there anything that I could possibly do that will help him, and me, transition into such an inadvertent situation, other then the precautionary steps that I am already taking?

Cassandra Gonzales

Colorado Springs

A new competitive sport

Between turkey dinner and football on Thanksgiving Day, my son-in-law told me how Fort Collins Utilities encourages conservation by engaging the American competitive spirit. It seems that FCU reports and compares his neighborhood’s average utility usage per square foot of improved property when it reports his utility bill — and congratulates or challenges him, depending upon how his utility usage compares to that of his neighbors.

Why couldn’t Colorado Springs Utilities do something similar to help promote conservation? Heck, maybe our Utilities could even award prizes for most improved, most conserving, etc. I know many of us would love to see the money stream reverse once in a while, even if it’s just for a lucky (and conserving) few!

Lawrence M. Reisinger

Colorado Springs

A selfless gentleman

I want to thank the store employees at King Soopers on Austin Bluffs and the gentleman who helped care for my mother-in-law when she collapsed in the store on Dec. 6.

I was so shaken up I was shaking and they really came forward and helped me out until the paramedics and my husband got there. I turned to thank the man and he was gone. I hope he sees this and knows what it meant to us. GOD BLESS YOU and again thank you, everyone.

The Hudsons

Colorado Springs

Why trust Gen. Rayburn?

Let me see if I have this right. It’s okay to lie, cheat and steal as long as you’re “man enough” admit it.

It’s okay to take someone else’s work and pass it off as your own as long as you admit it when you get caught. It’s okay to rob your clients as long as you throw yourself on the mercy of the court. It’s okay to kill someone because the devil made you do it. In this case, however, General Rayburn wasn’t being brave or heroic; he got caught with the proverbial hand in the cookie jar.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to trust General Rayburn with my tax dollars, my safety or any other position of authority. Frankly, I’m tired of having people like the general tell me it’s okay for him to lie, cheat, and steal as long as he apologizes but it’s not okay for the rest of us.

Tina Routhier

Black Forest

City Council credibility

Wow! The city cronies’ (excuse me, the City Council’s) tales of doom and gloom if 2C failed didn’t happen after all. Apparently someone dotted an “i” and crossed a “t” and the Pioneers Museum and the aquatic centers will stay open after all. Something stinks at City Hall. We need to vote these crooks out of office. Oh, and don’t worry. Money will suddenly appear so that the parks will receive water this summer. This city government has lost all of its credibility.

Tim Goodwin

Colorado Springs