A huge injustice

I have never written a letter to the editor before (although I have been a Gazette subscriber for many years), but feel strongly that a huge injustice is happening to our nation!

I am a retired military officer and a registered Independent voter. I do not care which party is in power — elected politicians are voted into office to lead the government whether local, state or national, and not to shut down the government.

My brothers and sisters serving our country in the military are being betrayed.

I believe any shut down is a vote not to do one’s duty and all politicians should not be paid or receive back pay when the shut down has ended.

Wilford Dean Wooten (LTC-USA retired)

Colorado Springs

Don’t add to taxpayers’ expense

Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy wrote favorably about RTD’s ridership in Denver in the 2 Nov. 2025 Gazette article ‘Rocky Mountain West passenger trains get high grades’.

The pro-transit group ‘Greater Denver Transit’ shows abysmal RTD ridership statistics on their web page. Total RTD Ridership was 106 million in 2019 and was 65 million last year, despite low fares and heavy promotions. The quote on their web page following this statistic is: At this rate, it will take 738 years for ridership to recover to 2019 levels. The RTD’s own budget report for 2025 shows that 5% of operating costs are covered by fares. RTD appears to be a taxpayer funded 1.5B jobs program (including $229M in debt service, of all things!) to create transit that few people ride.

If the proposed Front Range Light Rail is run by the same bankrupt ideology, we’ll have another sales-tax funded wasteful program that will create vanity train rides for those who want them, and won’t materially address I-25 traffic woes. So far, all proposals have mentioned a sales tax hike to pay for front range rail. Why not make Front Range Passenger Rail a for-profit corporation and charge full market rates for fares? That would be fiscally honest, at least.

Our state is broke and there are no reasons (romantic rail notions or environmental ones) to add to taxpayer expense. People regularly make fun of California’s boondoggles – what part of our current and proposed rail solution ensures that this isn’t another one?

Steve Helmreich

Black Forest

Colorado needs to step up

Months ago, US Department of Agriculture requested the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP aka food stamps) data from every state in order to conduct audits and verify illegals aren’t improperly receiving benefits.

Among 21 states that refused to cooperate is Colorado. Why is this? USDA says among the cooperating states, they’ve already found “massive fraud”. Is Colorado hiding something?

SNAP is primarily funded by the federal government. That’s taxpayer money. USDA distributes funds to states which then manage the vetting of applicants and distribution of benefits. The USDA should be auditing the handling of their money (aka our money). They owe that due diligence to the public. Therefore, Colorado needs to step up and show transparency or stop taking the money.

H. Wayne Hall

Colorado Springs

Ignoring federal law

The Gazette Editorial Board published an article about how Colorado’s wolf reinteoduction violates federal law. This was Colorado voters response: So what? Get the wolves from Canada and get them now.

This federal government is a rogue entity determined to punish blue states for their hatred of Donald Trump.

US Fish and Wildlife director Brian Nesvik is a political actor initiating a campaign of political vengenace. As such, these anti-American wackos should be completely ignored. They, ironically, are ignoring federal law time after time.

Let’s finish the wolf reintroduction this year, by bringing in more wolves from Canada.

Adam Jacobs

Denver