Correction: Matt Solomon is a former Eagle town council member, not Eagle County commissioner as mistakenly stated in last week’s Garfield County Report.
Straight shot nightmare
As a downvalley resident who spent years commuting from Carbondale to Aspen, I want to let my fellow travelers know that the straight shot into Aspen will not make our trip any faster. In fact, it will likely make it longer.
I know this sounds counterintuitive, but please hear me out. I spent years reporting on this issue for The Aspen Times back in the early 2000s and am very familiar with the details.
The straight shot is the plan to redirect Highway 82 across the 75-acre Marolt Open Space at the entrance to Aspen with a four-lane highway and new bridge across Castle Creek. It affects about a half mile of the 30-mile trip from Carbondale to Aspen.
Here are the reasons this plan won’t make our drive to Aspen any easier:
- It does nothing to address the massive morning backups at the airport where two lanes of traffic merge into one.
- The straight shot extends the bus-only lane to Main Street. That means one lane for buses and one for cars in both directions.
- There will be a new traffic light at 7th & Main, near the Hickory House, backing traffic up in both directions. Afternoon rush hour traffic on Main Street could be an even bigger mess.
- The existing highway between Cemetery Lane and the roundabout will be permanently closed, forcing all traffic into town. Morning traffic will be a disaster, as students and commuters from McLain Flats Road trigger the new traffic light and slow our commute.
The straight shot is designed to save buses about one minute of travel time. For the rest of us, nothing will change. Or it might be worse. Urge your friends in Aspen to vote no on Referendum 2.
Allyn Harvey
Carbondale
Courtesy photo by Scott Ely
Social justice
Trump promised the biggest deportation of undocumented criminals ever. “Criminals” sounds like convicted felons, not law-abiding refugees fleeing corrupt dictatorships. “Undocumented” sounds like entering illegally. Yet felon Trump directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to look busy, and “criminals” seems to mean brown-skinned people.
Almost 20% of Venezuelans (8 million) fled Maduro’s brutal dictatorship, mostly to neighboring countries. After months walking across Central America and Mexico, almost a million surrendered to ICE, applied for Temporary Protected Status and were detained in prison-like conditions sometimes for months. When released, they were told not to work legally or receive government assistance, to register addresses with ICE and wait (for years) for their court hearing. What a broken system!
Eventually, many received permission to work legally and pay taxes to the U.S. government. Now Trump has decided these people constitute “criminals” who must be purged from the U.S. He has made a deal with election-stealing Maduro and will end Venezuelans’ Temporary Protected Status and deport them. Most will face prison for fleeing their country. ICE officials, having their addresses, won’t have to look for real criminals, because they can go after easy pickings of people who trusted the U.S. government.
Peter Westcott
Two Rivers Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Committee
Mayors must act
In one of Donald Trump’s first acts in office, he stripped away protections for schools, hospitals and places of worship from immigration enforcement. These were once safe spaces where people could learn, receive health care and pray without fear. Now they have been turned into targets for ICE raids.
This is unconscionable. As the world’s largest historical climate polluter, the United States has a responsibility to immigrants. Our pollution is causing the climate chaos — droughts, floods, hurricanes, rising waters — that is forcing people in Latin America, Asia, Africa and elsewhere to leave their homes. Others are fleeing violence, poverty and hunger — all of which are caused or made worse by the climate crisis.
People have the right to be able to leave their homes and migrate with dignity to find safe haven. But right now, immigrant families are facing the unimaginable: the fear that seeking education or health care could mean deportation, or a peaceful moment of prayer might be shattered by ICE agents barging in.
As municipal leaders, mayors have the power to fight this. They can protect immigrant families by ordering police not to participate in ICE raids and even to block ICE agents’ entry into schools, hospitals and places of worship.
The future of so many families in our communities is on the line. We must call on local leaders to do the right thing, even as the federal government does not. I’m writing to urge mayors to hear this call and take action to protect immigrants.
Evan Weger
Glenwood Springs
Kathleen Sgamma
I am writing to express my deep concern and firm opposition to the potential nomination of Kathleen Sgamma as the next director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). As a constituent of Colorado, I urge you to reconsider supporting this appointment, given Ms. Sgamma’s troubling record and her stance on public lands, conservation and climate policy.
Ms. Sgamma, as the president of the Western Energy Alliance, has consistently advocated for policies that prioritize the interests of fossil fuel industries over the well-being of the American people and our planet. Her track record suggests an unwillingness to protect the land entrusted to the Bureau of Land Management, and her views could endanger the public lands that are a vital resource for future generations.
The BLM is a critical agency, responsible for managing nearly one-fifth of the nation’s lands. It oversees not only energy extraction and resource development but also the conservation of our ecosystems, wildlife habitats and cultural heritage. As such, the director of the BLM must be someone who will prioritize stewardship of these lands with a long-term vision of sustainability and environmental protection. Unfortunately, Ms. Sgamma’s leadership in the energy sector demonstrates a disregard for the need to balance these interests with the urgent climate crisis we face today.
Her promotion of unregulated oil and gas drilling and her staunch opposition to meaningful climate action represent a failure to recognize the moral imperative of safeguarding our planet for future generations. The leadership of the BLM demands an individual who will protect the land — not merely as a commodity to be exploited, but as a sacred trust to uphold for the common good.
Moreover, the stakes are high. The BLM director is tasked with overseeing the management of a vital cog in the wheel of government.
Please write your senator asking them to vote no on her nomination. Use this template if you wish!
Steve Kuschner
Glenwood Springs
Putin’s playbook
Trump’s descent to fear and chaos has placed him solidly in the realm of treason. He has weakened America and our allies, in some cases irreparably, and it is time for him to be removed, forcibly if necessary, or our country and continent will face the consequences.
We need both eyes open to Hitler and Putin’s playbooks being enacted by a depraved ruler who won by a minuscule 1.6%.
John Hoffmann
Carbondale
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