GarCo leadership
I’m glad to see the vacancy on the Garfield County libraries board filled, and congratulations are due to Myrna Fletchall who appears to be a wonderful candidate.
But to the GarCo Commissioners: your use of selective over-reach in this process isn’t fooling anyone in the electorate. That partisan politics, and your need for control, are what informed a sudden and abrupt change in how appointments have been handled for over a decade, just shows us your true colors. Now we know what to expect from your leadership in the future.
Respectfully,
Izzy Stringham, Carbondale
Gaza doctor
I have been involved in the national and local #ceasefire movement since last November. Recently, I have attended the Carbondale trustee meetings (online or in-person) to help support or ask for them to discuss a proposed ceasefire resolution. They have responded at every meeting (except for two trustees) saying that this is not a local issue and to please find another venue for this conversation.
I connected with two other faith groups, the RFV United Methodist Church Justice Ministry and Two Rivers Unitarian Universalist church along with my congregation, Western Slope Mennonite Fellowship, to present an educational opportunity to bring the community together around this issue. On Thursday, May 23 at 7pm at the United Methodist Church in Glenwood Springs, we are hosting Dr. Barbara Zind, a pediatric oncologist, to share her work and experiences. She was in Gaza on Oct. 7 to treat sick children and was caught there for 40 days until returning home to Grand Junction.
I invite you to join this presentation by Dr. Zind who has worked with critically ill children in a variety of war-torn countries over the years. She will speak and then refreshments will be served. Child care provided.
Katrina Toews, Carbondale
Freedom of speech
Americans are forgetting our Bill of Rights. We have a constitution in Colorado that gives citizens greater free speech rights than the First Amendment, according to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Therefore, #Solidarity with artist and Native American mother of two Danielle SeeWalker who was canceled from Vail for criticizing Israel’s ongoing #genocide in Gaza. Our ruling elites often use Aspen as a test case. Take union crushing: Aspen was the leader! The sociopathology of the billionaire class in regards to abuse of power and illegal union canceling tactics continue what the government and big money (mine owners) started in the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-04. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.
The United States government is the largest organization in the history of the world. The “people’s house” passed a resolution that aims to criminalize any American who criticizes Israel. Do we realize where we are?
Lee & Sandy Mulcahy, Basalt
Highway 133
Ron Kokish notes in the May 15 Sun that our CO-133 commercial suburban strip is a nightmare. Some planners call this a “stroad,” a dysfunctional combination of a through road and a local street which can’t make up its mind about what it should be, though planning seems to keep prioritizing the tyranny of the through road.
Discussions about its problems often emphasize its impediments to bike and ped mobility, but it doesn’t work for local car and truck traffic either. It certainly brings out the worst in me as a driver.
I say, make it a street. The worst section is really quite short. Just put in coordinated traffic lights every 500 to 700 feet or so at existing and reconfigured intersections. Think downtown Glenwood or Aspen but without the on-street parking. Through traffic doesn’t stop at every light, so six or seven added lights isn’t as much stop-n-go as it sounds. Less stress for most folks, but it won’t be a faux rural route anymore. I’d bulldoze the roundabout too with its crazy crosswalks. Statistics say there are more pedestrian accidents at traffic lights, but that’s really a statistical fluke because pedestrians are rare at most roundabouts.
Minimizing lanes to discourage traffic has been a mantra for progressive planners, but it’s not working. Eventually plan on a consistent five lanes, so traffic can stack and pulse with gaps. The existing assemblage of random acceleration and deceleration lanes means there are already four or five lanes at many intersections, so we could just start with cheap cable-hung traffic lights. There would be a bit more noise and fumes from stops and starts for now, almost all of that from the 5% of vehicles which are somehow exempt from minimal pollution controls. That needs to be and, technically, can be fixed easily. (I find it hard to get excited about the grand green future of clean quiet EVs when it seems the number of foul diesels is currently increasing, not decreasing.)
I’m not going to hold my breath for this; a little first step would be for the street department to increase crosswalk markings and switch to some paint that doesn’t wear away in a month.
Fred Porter, Carbondale