This land matters
Is there a better place to feel alive than the slopes of Pikes Peak?
Where else do wind and rock remind you who you are? Have you stood on the summit and felt your chest rise with the land? Can a man look out 100 miles and still think small?
Aren’t these trails — Barr, Crags, Devil’s Playground — holy ground in worn boots?
Isn’t the Cog Railway a miracle of grit and grace?
Have you seen the new visitor center — glass and stone at the edge of heaven?
Doesn’t it feel like a promise kept, or maybe one still waiting?
Why isn’t this already a national park? Do we protect malls faster than mountains now?
Shouldn’t this place — this peak — be sacred by law, not just by feeling? If not this mountain, then what? Will we wait until it’s too late to do the right thing?
Or will we rise — like the peak itself — and say yes, this land matters?
Will our children climb and ask, “Who saved this?” — and will we be able to answer?
Steve Ritzdorf
Omaha, NE
No need for legacy project
While we struggle to patch potholes, repair aging water lines, and keep our basic services afloat, city leaders are daydreaming about kayaks drifting past the old Drake Power Plant and waterfront parks along a stretch of Fountain Creek that most of us wouldn’t dare wade into, let alone float over. They’re talking about a billion-dollar plan — and that’s billion with a “B” — to turn a neglected urban drainage channel into something out of a lifestyle magazine.
And of course, we’re told not to worry because federal funding will cover much of it. As if federal money grows on a different kind of tree than the one we all pay into with our taxes.
Here’s a radical idea: before chasing vanity projects, let’s show we can handle the fundamentals. Fix the streets. Reinforce the storm drains. Take care of the infrastructure we already have. I’d love to see a restored Fountain Creek someday — but I’d rather see the pothole in front of my house filled first.
Colorado Springs doesn’t need a legacy project. It needs leadership with its boots on the ground, not its head in the clouds.
Jeffery Chandler
Colorado Springs
Blurring the lines
At the October 9th D49 Board of Education meeting, a startling announcement slipped through the public microphone: a new partnership between District 49, ERBOCES, and “Riverstone Academy,” proudly described as Colorado’s first Christian public elementary school. Let that sink in, a publicly funded Christian school.
We’re now staring down a precipice, one that blurs the line between church and state, a line etched by generations who understood that once the state begins financing faith, neither remains pure. It’s a precedent that doesn’t just invite a lawsuit; it guarantees one.
Supporters may argue this is about “choice” or “values.” But let’s not be naïve. When taxpayer dollars flow into religious institutions, accountability dries up. Who decides which faith gets funding next? Christianity today, Islam tomorrow, Scientology by Thursday? Once you open the coffers, every creed will demand its cut, and they’ll be legally right to do so.
Board member Mike Heil was the lone voice of reason, questioning the legality and ethics of such a partnership. For his courage, he was promptly scolded, told “separation of church and state isn’t in the Constitution.” True, neither is the word “democracy.” But the principle defines us nonetheless.
This partnership is not innovation. It’s infiltration, of ideology into governance, of belief into bureaucracy.
District 49 may think it’s pioneering something noble. In truth, it’s lighting a match near the foundation of the First Amendment. And when the fire spreads, it won’t just scorch this board, it’ll burn through every taxpayer who thought they were funding education, not evangelism.
Ryan Brown
Colorado Springs
A peaceful protest
I’m sitting on my roof right now, trimming some trees and getting ready for fall. From up here, near Peterson Space Force Base, I can hear the rumble of F-22s overhead. You always know when the fighters are in town — they shake the air on this side of Colorado Springs.
The sound took me back to 2003 — I was on my first deployment to Kyrgyzstan. I remember sitting outside our tent, watching F-16s roar into the night sky, flown by our Dutch and Danish allies. You’d see that blue flame trail out behind them, and you just knew you were part of something bigger. You were part of ensuring freedom and democracy for an oppressed people.
It was shortly after 9/11, and back then, we believed deeply in what we were doing. We carried a sense of purpose — of righteousness — that felt unshakable. Those jets symbolized hope, strength, and unity.
Now, more than twenty years later, I sit on my roof and hear the same kind of sound — but it stirs something entirely different in me. When I hear those engines now, I think of oppression. I think of power used not to defend, but to divide.
I hear our Speaker of the House refusing to seat a duly elected representative — silencing the voices of hundreds of thousands of Americans — all to protect the powerful and the corrupt. I hear leaders using words like “treason” and “patriotism” to describe peaceful protest, twisting language to turn citizens against each other.
So let me be clear: our No Kings gathering on October 18 is not treasonous. It is patriotic in the purest sense. It is peaceful. It is an act of unity in a time of suffering — a moment for us to come together, to hold hands, and to remember that our strength has always come from one another.
We don’t need to raise our fists. We need to raise our voices.
So I’ll see you out there on the 18th — standing together, peacefully, as Americans, saying No Kings.
Adam Gillard
Colorado Springs