Special Valentines card

Friday morning, while reading the newspaper there was an article about The Colorado Springs School, making Valentines Day cards for patients in Abode Hospice.

What especially caught my eye was third grader Elizabeth Babeneaux’s Valentine. This little lady has beautiful handwriting especially for third grader. Keep up the gift you have. Great Job!

Pat Thomas

Colorado Springs

Article was cruel

This is in regards to the front page article by Mark Kiszla in the Saturday, February 14, 2026 copy of the Gazette.

Kiszla gives Illia Malinin credit for his stating that he was paralyzed by nerves and admitting that he blew it, but the rest of the article was cruel. This young man is 21 years old and has been touted by the press throughout the weeks prior to these Olympic Games as a sure thing for gold medals.

As in previous Olympic Games, the U.S. has had olympians who were put up on pedestals prior to competing only to have nerves and stress overtake them.
Kiszla should be ashamed for calling this extremely talented young man an
“ Olympic fraud”.

Harriet Tomlinson

Monument

Sonderman’s insights

Congratulations to Eric Sonderman for his “Trump’s critics are not the ‘deranged’ ones” column of February 10. As he noted, any criticism of the President is met with loud denunciations of “Trump Derangement Syndrome!” as opposed to any kind of reasoned counter argument or explanation.

It reminds one of a bully who by lack of any other intellectual tools, seeks to rule by threats, intimidation, and name calling. If being “deranged” equates to being concerned about the direction this country is heading both at home and abroad, then include me among the approximately 63% of like-minded Americans mentioned.

When looking at his absolute control of the Republican Party, Donald Trump’s bullying and name calling seem to be working. However, as Americans I hope we can do better.

I liked Sonderman’s statements about “responsible governance, a commitment to freedom and justice, a respect for America’s traditions”, and “putting a premium on character”. You know, the values American presidents used to aspire to.

Probably, one of Sonderman’s greatest challenges was trying to decide which examples of Trump’s “policies” to write about. Narrowing it down must have been difficult. In the last year there has been a daily list of possibilities. Between examples such as insulting American Olympic athletes, threatening allies, and calling Colorado’s elections “automatically corrupt”, how is one to choose? I suppose he went with a sort of “greatest hits”.

Certainly, Trump declaring himself a supreme and total leader constrained only by “my own morality”, and his calling for the “nationalization” of November’s elections must be two of the most absurd statements ever uttered by an American president. With Trump, by next week there will likely be a whole new list of absurdities to choose from. Sonderman could easily write another column of the same vein. However, I hope he doesn’t fall into that trap. I enjoy reading Sonderman’s insights about other topics as well.

Andrew Lewis

Colorado Springs

Transfering to clean energy

Back in 2020, Colorado Springs Utilities and City Council agreed to close the Ray D. Nixon coal-fired power plant by the end of 2029 to meet the power sector’s 80% reduction target.

Yet, Colorado Springs Utilities, in conjunction with local legislators’ introduction of bill SB26-022, has stated that it is re-examining its commitment to the plant’s retirement, distancing itself from the state’s long-agreed-upon clean energy reduction targets.

The decision of local legislators and Colorado Springs Utilities will produce lasting and significant economic and health impacts for Colorado Springs residents that could have easily been avoided. This decision must neither be ignored nor taken lightly.

Colorado Springs residents deserve affordable and predictable bills. They deserve to trust that their representatives will keep promises to their constituents. They deserve a future built on trust, transparency, and affordability.

As a student in Colorado Springs and as a constituent of Representative Amy Paschal, I call on her to reconsider her support of SB26-022 and consider cheaper, cleaner energy alternatives that would benefit not only her immediate constituents but the future of our state. I call on my fellow residents to urge their representatives to oppose Ray D. Nixon’s continued operations and to support our state’s planned transfer to clean energy.

Madeleine Louisell

Colorado Springs

A permanent parking lot

While proponents of the SAVE Act frame it as “common-sense security,” they are ignoring the reality of the paperwork mountain it creates. By mandating in-person document verification for every new voter, this bill would turn our already-strained Colorado Springs DMVs into a permanent parking lot.

We are currently in the final push for REAL ID compliance. Adding the requirement to inspect original birth certificates and marriage licenses for millions of citizens—without a dime of federal funding—is an unfunded mandate that will paralyze state services. With the 2026 midterms just months away, this isn’t a security measure; it’s an engineered collapse of our state’s administrative capacity. We shouldn’t sacrifice the functionality of our local government for a solution in search of a problem.

DuWayne Heupel

Colorado Springs

Definition of fascism

Fascism- a far-right authoritarian political ideology, marked by extreme nationalism, led by a dictator with the personality of a cult leader, forcible suppression of opposition, (Freedom of Speech and ICE raids) militarism, expansionism, (Venezuela, Greenland and now Iran) all done without congressional approval, subordination of the individual ( Women- Roe V Wade) rejecting Democracy, ( Who can just forget about Jan 6th? Certainly not an American patriot) Socialism and Communism.

Key characteristics-include aggressive promotion of one nation above others, (threatening our European NATO allies with tariffs if they don’t hand over Greenland) centralized government control, ( elimination of states rights, sending in federal troops without the request or consent of the Governor of Minnesota) and often racism, with regimes controlling the economy( trade war, tariffs, control over the fed chief and federal reserve board and the manipulation of the markets with tariff threats) and society through force, emphasizing a national re-birth (MAGA and Christian nationalism) under a powerful leader as seen in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany is today’s Republican party.

Karon McCormick

Monument