Letters: 6/30/16

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No more fracking in Colorado
Let’s outlaw fracking in Colorado…as long as somebody else still has some oil. Let’s get enough signatures and get the anti-oil and gas initiatives (#s 40, 63, 75 and 78) on the November ballot. (But, let’s call them what they really are: proposed Amendments to the Colorado Constitution.)

No more oil and gas for Colorado. The fallout?

First, with the loss of oil and gas comes a profound loss of jobs. Hardworking men and women with families to support would no longer have a livelihood. Tens of thousands of jobs would be lost.

In addition, hundreds of millions in tax revenue losses would equate to higher taxes. This would, of course, translate into a less than welcoming business environment in the state.

Secondly, there are 248,000 cars in Boulder County. Additionally, Colorado ranks seventh in the country for electric vehicle sales per capita, with 0.02 vehicles sold per person. Ranking seventh is impressive, but at 0.02 vehicles sold per person, a giant shortfall is left between what electric vehicles are providing and what our fossil fuel needs are. What plan do the initiative supporters have for this shortfall?

So, if we turn our backs on an abundant natural resource and outlaw fracking everywhere in the United States — which is the intent of the initiative supporters, where do we go for oil and gas? Iran? Russia? Saudi Arabia? What an untenable position to put ourselves in, yet that is the future if we allow interest groups outside of Colorado to convince us to sign their petitions.

Think seriously if asked to sign a petition. Know what you’re signing and what it may lead to. These initiatives are presented as beneficial. In fact, their passage would be terribly harmful to the people of Colorado.
Jeanie Starr/Longmont

Now for the hard part
Thank you for contacting legislators and signing the petition against hastily written bills for a presidential primary election. Both the House bill (HB16-1454) and the Senate bill (SB16-216) were stopped when legislators realized that the public wanted input into how presidential primaries would be conducted.

To learn how citizens do want primary elections to be conducted, five Republican senators have formed the Colorado Elections Study Group. One reporter said, “The group has a decidedly Republican look now,” but the Senators urge the participation of everyone who is interested, including Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, ACNs, Unaffiliateds, etc.

The study group will have its first public meeting on Saturday, June 11, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Colorado State Capitol. (One must enter on the “garden level” on the 14th Street end of the Capitol and go through security.) The goal is to have at least five of these meetings this summer and fall around the state. The input will be compiled into a database that legislators can use as a basis for a primary bill in the next session.

Thank you again for helping with election integrity issues.
Mary C. Eberle/Boulder

Trump is a mirror
Donald Trump represents our greatest ever challenge as world citizens, as Americans and as individual human beings. We can, and many are, looking within ourselves and asking “What is Trump mirroring that I/we need to take a look at?”

We see the angry one, the fearful one and eventually the vulnerable “me.” Donald Trump is not in disguise. He is as real as we are in the privacy of our personal unmasking. Could he be our skewed thoughts revealed?

Donald Trump lays the sins of America at our feet.
David Krest/Marvel, CO