STORM OVER STORMWATER

Developers, city officials to blame for drainage woes

Sunday’s Our View on the city’s proposed stormwater enterprise fee was good, as far as it went (“Swept away?”). One thing that wasn’t addressed, but is at the heart of the issue, is who should really be responsible for infrastructure improvements. In fact, both stormwater controls and the Southern Delivery System are projects that rightfully should be paid for by those who most benefit — land developers.

In the case of our stormwater woes, a lack of oversight by city and county officials has allowed developers to have free rein to develop unsustainably, oftentimes within the 100-year flood plains. Instead of enforcing good stormwater management practices, officials have frequently allowed developers to shirk their responsibilities. This has resulted in taxpayers having to pay to fix problems, oftentimes at much greater expense.

I resent having to pay for the mistakes and poor planning of others, especially when I have little opportunity to influence the process. I certainly hope that our city and county officials get their acts together soon.

Lawrence M. Reisinger

Colorado Springs

Pueblo’s concerns can’t be shrugged off

This is in response to The Gazette’s editorial concerning the clean-up of the Fountain Creek problem. The statement that Pueblo’s “obstructionism is fueled by envy, insecurity and a fear of being overshadowed by a growing and prosperous Colorado Springs” is a red herring.

Our downstream neighbors’ righteous indignation is fueled by the millions of dollars they have paid to create the Riverwalk and other water-dependent recreational areas, and their disgust with the prospect of rafting and wading in our sewage. Pueblo has a financial stake in our shared waterways, and Colorado Springs has a moral obligation to be responsible caretakers of shared resources.

With sewage overflowing into the creek at the current rate, Pueblo can ill afford our foot-dragging on the issue. The problem has been decades in the making — let’s just fix the problem now. Does The Gazette really think it requires a vote?

Diane D. Whitley

Calhan

BALINK’S BLUNDER

Officials failed voters in recent election

I found County Clerk Bob Balink’s comments regarding voters waiting 20 minutes, or whatever time, offensive (“Heavy turnout translates into ballot shortages in El Paso County,” The Gazette, Nov. 2). Balink is obviously ignorant about what went on in Peyton at the polls.

People don’t mind waiting in line even an hour or two if they know they can vote. When I arrived at 6:10 to vote, I was advised that they had run out of ballots but ballots were on the way; I heard this several times over the next 2½ hours. One man waited more than four hours to try to vote. The ballot judges several times tried contacting someone in Balink’s office to get guidance on how to proceed and weren’t provided any.

There’s an old saying: “poor planning leads to poor performance.” I would say that’s what happened here. Balink should have had a contingency plan in place to deal with this. If he did, it failed miserably.

I encourage those who were denied an opportunity to vote because of the lack of ballots to file complaints with the Colorado secretary of state. The address is 1700 Broadway, Suite 270, Denver, 80290.

Robert Strauss

Peyton

ACCESS DENIED

Schoolhouse snub the result of CEA ‘thuggery’

Rod Paige, the former secretary of education, was in town Oct. 31 to congratulate the students of Helen Hunt Elementary School for improving CSAP scores over the past year. In a stunning, arbitrary decision by a government administrator, this American success story had his invitation canceled at the last minute because of a perceived threat from the local teachers union to picket the school in protest of his appearance.

As if I needed another example of how not to run a school district, Superintendent Sharon Thomas stepped up to show me the power of the teachers union is greater than common sense and decency. I’m embarrassed by her actions and I regret that she works for me. That’s my fault. I’ve let the teachers union and their board members take over what should be the most basic and responsive elected board in town.

They have, in an effort to protect their rice bowl, created a palace for themselves built with the bricks of state laws.

I’ve not been sufficiently active in my school district, but that’s about to change, if for no other reason than to demand an accounting by Thomas.

Union thugs, led by now D-11 board member Sandra Mann, were the reason for the potential disruption, not Paige.

James Davis

Colorado Springs

THE PLAME GAME

Wilson became target for telling the truth

I am appalled, but not surprised, by James Rothrock’s letter to the editor (“Wilson’s yellowcake claims should earn orange jumpsuit,” Nov. 3). Rothrock claims that Joe Wilson had no “intelligence background, technical expertise, or security clearance” and should be in jail for disclosing information obtained on a secret CIA mission.

If Wilson broke a law, rest assured that the Bush administration would have spared no effort to put him in jail.

Wilson was eminently qualified to investigate this claim: he is a former ambassador to Niger, personally knows the operators of the mines involved and required no security clearance to ask the mine operators if they had received inquiries from Iraq.

For his efforts, this man of impeccable integrity has been smeared because he looked for the truth. When he found the truth and the truth was ignored, he told the American people about the lies that were being used to mislead this country into war. The Bush administration retaliated by outing a CIA agent, a crime of treason in my book. To me, Joe Wilson is a hero.

Kathy Wallace

Peyton

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Academy scandals have eroded cadets’ morale

As a 1950 West Point graduate, I am glad Army won Saturday’s football game. It was inevitable. Having monitored the trials and tribulations of the Air Force Academy via local media, glimpses from insiders and even an Air Force blog, I knew there were deeper reasons for the academy’s decline in football fortunes.

The sex scandal, the religious flap, the DeBerry politically incorrect comment thing and the poor handling of these crises — by the uncertain academy, then-Secretary of the Air Force and grandstanding Colorado congressmen — was bound to erode the cohesiveness and attitudes of the Cadet Wing. I knew it would corrode everything else.

The 4,000 cadets are the same, the stadium is the same, DeBerry is the same, the ration of football talent that any academy can field is the same as when Air Force was riding high.

But the entire AFA environment was changed. It resembles what happened to the Corps of Cadets for years after the 1951 West Point cheating scandal.

The bitterness, divisiveness, dispiritedness that flowed from events in 1951 deeply affected those cadets who were still there.

It’s about far more than football. Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s dictum still holds: “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.” It’s about leadership. And the important and costly job of making the best military officers this nation can produce.

Air Force cadets deserve better.

David Hughes

Colorado Springs