Unchecked growth

What a beautiful place Monument used to be. My family moved to Monument in 1989 to get some space, to be closer to nature, to be outside the city. I would think that’s why a lot of people move there. I went to school at Lewis-Palmer High School and my parents still live in the same house 32 years later. I try to visit twice a year and every time it gets harder to watch the eternal sprawl of homes, gas stations, and mini-malls that are turning Monument into the asphalt jungle that will soon make it indistinguishable from any other town in America.

There is a large town just down the road where you can buy anything and everything you could ever want. If you wanted a gas station, chain grocery store, Wal-Mart, etc., close to your house, then why would you not stay in the city? Where does the building stop? Will there ever be any beautiful, untouched land that supports a variety of plant and animal life that is too sacred to bulldoze? Any animal life that we shouldn’t gas and kill so another bank can be built?

Any system has to have a balance to be healthy and sustainable and this exponential growth promotes neither of those. A bit of reflection about the consequences of unchecked development could offer an outlook and plan forward that saves the small town we love from becoming just another big town like the ones most of us moved to get away from.

Mary Stuart, Albuquerque, N.M.

• • •

LETTERS POLICY: Letters to the editor are published on a space-available basis, first-come, first-served in The Tribune. Email letters to michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. Priority goes to letters 250 words or fewer. Letters should have the author’s full name, address and phone number for verification purposes. The Tribune reserves the right to edit submissions.

Re: June 2 Johnson letter

When I see a letter defending the “other guy” (OG) in the last election, I just sit back and revel in the inaccuracies, outright falsehoods and mythmaking. Mr. Johnson’s letter is no exception.

He thinks the only problem with the OG is tweets? Try over 520,000 dead on his watch, many of which can be lain at the feet of an incompetent and ignorant response. Inject disinfectant? It’s just the flu? When only 12 people had died, the OG said it was all getting better, not worse, and would soon disappear.

Try the numerous and never-ending callouts to white supremacists, the “many fine people.” Try the corruption, like lining his own pockets by overcharging the Secret Service protecting him and his family? Try the embrace of Kim Jung Un, Putin, Erdogan — cruel despots he admired.

Johnson goes on the list issues leaders have to deal with, most of which have nothing to with who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania, or predated the current occupant. A few counterpoints: North Korea tested missiles in 2019, when the OG was in office. Johnson said they are “restarting their nuclear weapons program again.” Uh, they never stopped, even as Trump was praising Un as smart, funny and a great guy. Iran became emboldened when the OG left an agreement that Iran was complying with fully, according to every OG administration official, like Tillerson, Mattis and Pompeo.

Johnson’s statement about Ford is just made up: “… a Ford spokesman told PolitiFact: “The business decision in question was not a result of then-presidential candidate Biden’s corporate tax proposals.” Mr Johnson’s numbers are wrong. One interesting one is putting $29 trillion in debt at the feet of the guy who has been in office for four months. One might want to consider that about 36% of that debt was put there during the OG’s term.

Another false statement is that there is a “new green deal.” I’m sure Johnson meant “Green New Deal,” and that is something not even proposed, and not supported by the current president. Another puzzling one is Johnson saying unemployment is at “9%+”, which is 30% off. Unemployment is at 6.1%, and jobless claims dropped to a pandemic low for last month. Also, the fact that more jobs were created in the last four months than the first four months of any presidency since immediately after WWII seems not to have broken through the delusional cloud many find themselves in, least of whom is Johnson.

Finally, Johnson talks about tax hikes. Another falsehood. The current guy has proposed tax increases, on those making over $400,000, and only on the income above that level. Make $500,000, and plan to see increased taxes on the last $100,000. Sorry, that is not “all of us,” Mr. Johnson.

It is not just mean tweets that caused many to vote for the current guy. And the continued lying about election fraud that did not exist, the attempted insurrection at the Capitol at the urging of the OG (“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong”), make that vote feel even more correct.

Michael Eaton, Divide

_______________________________

Labor shortage?

We don’t have a crisis of labor shortage. We have a crisis of not having enough people willing to actually work. This “shortage” has been caused by politicians at just about every level across the country, but mostly at the federal and state levels. The June 2 Courier article, “Labor shorage at crisis stage,” correctly points out that too many people are willing to sit back and not go back to work because “unemployment” and other handouts pay more than they can get working. Those people who were working when the pandemic hit and businesses were closed, schools shut down, etc., are still living here. They did not go away.

We need to demand that the president, governor, senators and congressmen stop this insanity and stop all the “freebies”! And it needs to be done immediately. When the government teat runs dry and people face the attendant unpleasant consequences, they will be glad to return to work.

Jimmy Sims, Florissant

_______________________________

Re: Green Mountain Falls parking

So now Green Mountain Falls is going up-town and thinking of charging for parking. Wow! Seems to me this is going to put folks off from visiting this area, the trails, the restaurants … the whole area.

What is going to happen to the look of the town with all those parking meters on the roads? What is going to happen for Bronc Day when there is an influx of visitors participating in and watching the parade? To participate, will you need to get there early enough to pay for parking. And most folks who go for this event stay for the day. Will they need to continue to run back and pay the meter? What about weddings and funerals at Church in the Wildwood. Will folks now have to add parking fees to their list of fees for the ability attend or host these events? How about the Green Box Festival? Will folks who take one of the many excellent classes need to figure in the cost of parking for the day?

And then there are the businesses that will lose out if their patrons need to figure in parking costs. With 2020 being such a crazy year for businesses this charge is just one more nail in their coffin.

Green Mountain Falls has become a place where officials seem more interested in the almighty buck than welcoming people into their hamlet. Even renting the Gazebo for an event in late 2020 was expensive, especially when, due to drastic and abrupt changes in the Colorado COVID rules, having to cancel and the town said they would return the deposit, but then didn’t.

People should find another way to visit the trails. Go to the other end and walk back to Green Mountain Falls. There are other cities not that much further up the Pass that offer free parking, great restaurants and good parks (Woodland Park is looking at adding three to four more alone) that would welcome more visitors.

Summer is always a difficult time in the mountains with the great influx of visitors. Sure it would be nice if our quiet spaces would stay quiet and calm, but we need the summer crowds. We need the visitors to come and enjoy what we have year-round.

Ss for the city of Green Mountain Falls, I think they should change their name to GREEDY Mountain Falls.

Mary McInnis,

Woodland Park

• • •

Letters to the editor are published on a space-available basis, first-come, first-served. Email letters to michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. The Courier reserves the right to edit submissions longer than 250 words. Letters should have the author’s full name, address and phone number for verification purposes.

Share the land

In Seth Boster’s article about an upcoming, controversial mountain-climbing guidebook (“Controversial Pikes Peak guidebook set to be published,” May 26 North Springs Edition), I totally empathized with author Phil Wortmann’s critics. They specifically want Phil to quit telling the public about heretofore secret mountain-climbing routes, but their sentiments reflect the general attitude that outdoor enthusiasts often share: Public knowledge of wild places causes “overcrowding and degradation,” so keep their locations to yourself.

I feel the same way, even though it feels like hoarding. I prefer to walk around the neighborhood when the temperatures are in the teens and single digits, for empty streets are practically guaranteed, and distractions are minimal.

These days, however, if I’m on an empty mountain trail I’m distracted by worry. I worry that a lack of public interest makes the land vulnerable to other kinds of hoarders, the kind that really CAN keep it to themselves; the kind called “private landowners.”

With hunting and fishing enthusiasm in decline, along with their associated licensing revenues, open spaces are getting harder to pay for. In the long run, we hoarders are either going to have to pay more to support open spaces, or encourage wider public interest and tolerate larger crowds.

Businessmen like Jeff Bezos really can afford to buy an entire mountain. Would he allow us on his land?

Lance Kildare, Colorado Springs

• • •

LETTERS POLICY: Letters to the editor are published on a space-available basis. Send letters to michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. Letters should have the author’s full name, address and phone number for verification purposes. The North Springs Edition reserves the right to edit submissions.