Re-evaluate this decision

I am deeply disappointed and angry at the failure of our elected city council officials,(with the exception of council Dave Donaldson)
to protect our citizens, especially the vulnerable (seniors, disabled, children) by choosing to allow the continuation of car camping.

The data indicates that allowing people to live in their car will not change their addiction/mental health issues with 75% refusing services paid (by taxpayers). Instead the sober, tax paying, law abiding citizens are stuck looking at and cleaning up after them. I am disgusted with those of you who voted to continue allowing this to happen in what was once our beautiful safe city.

I will be watching closely at the next vote and hope you will re-evaluate this poor decision.

Dawn Ignatius

Colorado Springs

A gift worth protecting

As a one-time resident of Colorado Springs, like many of you, I’ve noticed how the influx of people, businesses, and development has changed and transfigured Colorado’s natural character and beauty, making forever wildness unrecognizable in many ways. Even though a career took me away from your great state years ago, upon return, I view what I perceive to be a rampant disregard for the state’s ecological protection.

It is time to protect the state’s wildlands, the forest’s integrity, and biological diversity before it’s too late. Colorado has recently made some great strides in native and natural protection, but there is much more to do. Specifically, I’m referencing the Lower North-South Vegetation project in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest. If there ever was an area that has changed more distinctly and adversely in these last 50 years than the Front Range of Colorado, I dont know where it is.

Population influx and adverse effects of climate change will continue to have harmful impacts upon your montane, subalpine forests. The projects design will exacerbate drought, invasive plants, wildfire, and the potential extirpation of species from the region. Massive treatment projects such as this require an Environmental Impact Statement, not a lackluster Environmental Analysis. Not doing so is a dereliction of duty and provides the U.S. Forest Service with a lack of accountability.

According to the Forest Service, Rampart East is “largest and least human-impacted area remaining in the Rampart Range. It forms a critical core area for wildlife at the edge of a rapidly growing Interstate 25 (I-25) urban corridor”. The Bear Creek portion is a “pristine example of a Colorado front range transition zone between montane and plains ecosystem”. Residents must speak out against actions that violate the sanctity of this critical and biodiverse landscape.

Colorado, you have a gift worth protecting. We need to maintain spruce-fir stands and the U.S. Forest Service needs to maintain existing roadless areas across the state. Past wildfires have proven high intensity fires found in this regime cannot be managed. That scenario has played out across the west, especially in Colorado. Please let our forest be a forest, it’s time.

Clinton Nagel

Bozeman, Montana

Counteracting the cartels

Good to see The Gazette pick up on one of the many writings of
Victor Hanson, “Confronting the anti-Ellis Island immigration
strategy” (Nov. 17). His lengthy article is comprehensive, yet
concise. Hanson justifiably picks-on Joe Biden’s unrestrained illegal
immigration infiltration into America during his four years as
president.

In his article, Hanson articulates Biden’s presidential years in the White House: “… (Biden) allowed up to 10,000 aliens a day with
little concern for whether they carried fentanyl, had criminal
records…or belonged to violent gangs.” President Donald Trump and
ICE have practically closed the Mexico / US border to illegal
immigration. Thereby severely curtailing the cartels from smuggling
fentanyl across the Southwest border. Has anyone noticed if fentanyl
overdoses in Colorado have dropped since Trump and ICE sealed off the
border?

But the Venezuelan cartels have been utilizing a water-route to ramp-up bringing fentanyl to American shores. Venezuelan cartels are
using small speedboats to sneak in fentanyl. Trump has been using
a novel way to counteract the cartels. Trump has authorized
drone attacks on over twenty speedboats recently, allegedly carrying
fentanyl to America from Venezuela. The drones drop bombs that are
designed to kill and not take prisoners.

Trump’s recent bombings of suspected fentanyl-smuggling speedboats are licit or legal. In the meantime, the cartels are certainly aware that their “shipments” are being blown to smithereens and will be fearful of dying a horrible death.

Daniel Pryor

Peyton

Food for thought

It is time for people in this country to stand on our own two feet, free of political, religious and media brainwash. Not only that, but we need to show inner strength, compassion and the ability to speak up against what goes against our value system.

Corrupt politicians assume that their followers are either just as void of a conscience, as cowardly and as stupid as they are, or simply apathetic individuals.

Some church leaders are just as bad, if not worse, since out of one side of their mouth come words that condone criminal behavior at the top, and out of the other come a Godly jargon which creates cognitive dissonance among those of us capable of thinking critically.

The media is just as capable of brain washing their gullible viewers, listeners or readers, depending on the political affiliation.

Analyzing the above, why are the rest of us playing their game? Why can’t we activate all of our senses to be able to see what is going on politically before the US becomes a totalitarian country, hear the lies we are being told, smell the BS that is presented to us, and feel the agony suffered by those who are dominated by corrupted politicians?

Dysfunctional countries are all around us, but isn’t the United States of America supposed to represent the best country in the world? Not a perfect country, perhaps, but one also known throughout the world for being compassionate.

Another attribute this country seems to have lost is the ability to speak English properly. If you do nothing else after you read this article, please check the dictionary before using the terms “alien” instead of “immigrant.”

Marcela Gaumer

Colorado Springs