Closing Boulder Street

The City Council will revisit the question of permanently closing Boulder Street for the D11 campus at its May meeting. They should reject it again.

The biggest reason cited for closure is safety. Relevant questions that deserve detailed answers should include:

· Who was at fault in past incidents?

· Do the intersections eliminated have different safety records than other downtown intersections?

· What are the safety implications of diverting the vehicular traffic?

There are other solutions to these questions.

Institute crossing guards. If D11 has been really concerned, then they should have already done this. This works at the D11 school located at Institute and Boulder.

If the problem is not confined to the Boulder intersections in question, then the downtown needs more holistic solution(s). One is to install traffic cameras and supporting signage where needed, and to institute meaningful fines (multiplied during school hours). Driving is not a guaranteed right.

Increased physical policing during school hours. Why are downtown parking meter payments enforced better than traffic laws? Is revenue more important than safety? More changes needed? Rumble strips or speed bumps work in many situations.

The outer perimeter of the campus can be moved, but there will still be a street crossing required to enter it.

Closing Boulder creates other issues. Diverting traffic onto Platte and Willamette ignores that Platte is already overloaded (per past COS traffic planning comments) and the Willamette intersections into the downtown do not have traffic lights.

For safety reasons, there’s no reason not to use cameras on both Platte and Boulder starting before Institute and extending through Tejon – both for intersections and speeding. Speeding on Boulder and Platte is as bad as misbehavior at downtown intersections.

Compliment this by stopping and ticketing vehicles with anti-photo coverings over their plates that prevent enforcement. (If the police have the time to enforce expired registrations, they can do this too. Again, safety or revenue?)

D-11 wants a new athletic track? No existing funding and they already have one.

Jack Keaton

Colorado Springs

Ten Commandments in schools

Regarding no Ten Commandments In schools, one hears this argument frequently. Setting aside whether the understanding of the Establishment Clause is correct, how is it that this was allowed for almost 200 years and only relatively recently became unconstitutional? If the founders had no problem with it, but we now do, who is likely correct? What has changed, the law or the culture? Is it the source of the 10 commandments or the content that is the problem? It seems to me that it is hard to argue with the content. Anyway, there are certainly far more concerning issues in the schools than this.

Chuck Hansford

Colorado Springs

Scheming to take TABOR away

Well, liberal legislators are at it again trying to take our TABOR refunds.
Senate Bill 135 on the surface says the money would be used for K-12 education.

However, as stated in the 4-25-16 Gazette “An analysis of the proposal says about 75% of what would otherwise go to Colorado residents WOULDN’T go to K-12 schools.” Instead, those funds would go into a general fund pot, allowing lawmakers to use the money any way they want.

The proposal would also raise the TABOR cap, allowing lawmakers to increase fees.

Come on, Colorado! This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue. We, Colorado residents, have to live within a budget, so why don’t Colorado legislators have to work within a budget?

Send a message in November telling legislators that we want our TABOR refunds and to quit scheming to take our hard-earned money.

Sharon Ferguson

Woodland Park

Higher standard of human dignity

I write as a pastor of a theologically conservative church to champion the release of the El Gamal family (“Judge urges family’s release”), and to celebrate the work of many members of my congregation in advocating for their release.

Our church clings to bedrock, historic, biblical Christianity. That faith teaches the principle of human dignity, that every person is “made in the image of God” (Gen 1:27). This is why our church supports pro-life ministry to protect children in the womb: it’s also why we come alongside those displaced from their places of birth while they await clarity from our confusing and broken system. Every life matters because every life is made in the image of God.

Our faith also teaches the principle of personal responsibility: “the son shall not suffer for the sins of the father” (Ezek. 18:20). While the El Gamal’s asylum case works its way through the system, and their father awaits trial for his heinous act, it is manifestly unjust for the mother and five children – who the FBI admits knew nothing of the father’s intentions – to be detained in a jail-like atmosphere for over 300 days. The oldest of these children was named one of the Gazette’s “Best and Brightest” just last spring when she graduated from high school; now she must be forcibly separated from her family? The mother is unable to receive medical care for a potentially serious ailment: do we now punish wives for the sins of their ex-husbands?

I have been overwhelmed by the courage of so many of our congregants and other community members to speak these truths clearly and kindly: you can find out more about their work at faithfulneighbors.org. While the article called them “protests,” this is not what you’re picturing. This is moms showing up at Congressman Jeff Crank’s office for over two weeks straight with kids pulled in wagons. This is over $100,000 being raised to support the family, community structures being created to welcome and care for them upon release, letters from little kids being read at City Hall, families spending their own time and money to visit the El Gamals at the detention facility in Texas. A friend in Congressman Crank’s office told me: “We’ve never seen anything like this. These are not your normal political actors. They’re doing it right.”

May those with power to release the mother and five children “do it right” and secure their release. And may our moral imaginations be unshackled from these arbitrary red and blue boxes to a higher standard of human dignity and individual justice than our current system has yet achieved.

Pastor Ken Robertson

Colorado Springs