Weld county commissioners are having a new hearing on the proposed Ridgeview Farms subdivision tomorrow (3/29). Resident of neighboring subdivision, Danny Hart, is encouraging people to attend the meeting, as long as they are against the new subdivision. Appearantly Mr. Hart, a 14 year resident of the Pinnacle subdivision, doesn’t think anyone else should be allowed to build houses in the neighborhood.

The funniest statement in the article was a quote by Mr. Hart

“We keep losing open space, and that’s hard to get back,”

Open space is NOT hard to get back. Heck, the old K-Mart building in the middle of Greeley is currently open space once again. Of course it will soon be a new police station, but it didn’t take long for the bulldozers to get rid of the existing construction. Open space is expensive to get back, which is the point of this whole discussion. If Hart and the other 95% of Pinnacle Park residents who are against the new subdivision would like to buy the property propsed for Ridgeway Farms from developer, Rob Casseday, I’m sure a deal could be reached. Unfortunately, it appears that Hart just wants the county to not let anyone build on that property, inflatying Pinnacle Park property values and keeping their lovely view.

ColoradoPols has a list of election dates
that I will republish here for local readers.

2006 Election: Key Dates

• Jan. 23: Last day to affiliate
  with a political party in order to vote in the precinct caucus.
• March 21: Precinct Caucus Day.
• March 27: First day to begin circulating candidate petitions for Primary Election.
• April 1-20: County Assemblies (click for Democrat or Republican)
• Mid-May: Congressional District Assemblies.
• May 20: State Assembly (both parties).
• May 25: Last day to file candidate petitions for Primary Election.
• July 10: Last day to register to vote for the primary election.
• July 28: Last day to apply for an absentee ballot for the primary election if the ballot is to be mailed.
• July 29: Early voting begins for the primary election.
• Aug. 4: Last day for early voting; last day to apply for an absentee ballot for the primary election if the ballot is not to be mailed.
• Aug. 8: Primary Election Day.
• Oct. 10: Last day to register to vote for the General Election.
• Oct. 23: Early voting begins
• Oct. 27: Last day to apply for an absentee ballot for the General Election if mailed.
• Nov. 3: Last day to apply for an absentee ballot for the General Election if not mailed.
• Nov. 3: Last day for early voting.
• Nov. 7: Election Day.

Two southern Colorado Democrats are attempting to pass a new law. This law will restrict protests at funerals. This appears to be in direct response to an incident here in Greeley at the funeral of a local soldier, Pfc Tyler MacKenzie. There is a ‘Christian’ faction, followers of a man named Fred Phelps (I won’t like directly to his site - I don’t want to send him any more traffic. If you want to see his rhetoric, Google it.) who are adamantly anti-gay and believe the war in Iraq is somehow related to the current tolerance of homosexuality in the United States. Representatives of these people attempted to stage a protest at the funeral of Private MacKenzie back in Februray.

While I find any protest at a funeral morally reprehensible and extremely discourteous to any family, passing a law further eroding 1st Amendment rights is NOT the answer. It boggles the mind how both sides of the political spectrum (Republicans and Democrats) are both supporting the continued limiting of our civil rights. It makes me wonder what kind of laws would be on the books if the current political oppression was in place during the Vietnam war. It’s sad that some Americans have so little respect for the men and women that would stand up for their rights and protect their country that they would choose to protest during a funeral. It is even sadder that our political climate would let these men and women die in vain by removing the very rights they fight for. The sad fact is that to protect our freedoms we have to embrace the rights of protesters like these, not silence them.

The whole issue is best summed up in this quote by Tyler’s grandfather Emmett MacKenzie when he learned protesters would be at the funeral: “You know, they have that right. That’s why Tyler gave his life.”

I’ve already posted about this once, but our local paper has run another article and I wanted to add some excerpts and comments

Evans hired Houston-based Waste Management in 2004 to handle garbage and recycling. Residents in Evans pay $9 per month, which includes fees the city charges for its citywide spring and fall cleanup. The cost is wrapped into residents’ monthly utility bill. The city can shut off residents’ water service if they don’t pay any part of the bill, ensuring they don’t opt out of trash service by refusing to pay. Greeley is considering a similar enforcement strategy.

So the city of Evans hired a nationwide trash hauler, based in Houston, to take care of the local trash. They are sending local dollars to Texas, and Greeley city council wants to follow suit. I thought part of the city council’s job was to promote local economic growth…

Gordon Smith lives in central Greeley and said he’s tired of seeing trash cans in his neighborhood five days a week because everyone has a different hauler.

“I can’t imagine that not bothering people, having trash out on their street all week,” he said.

I can’t imagine Mr. Smith has nothing better to do with his time than notice when his neighbors have trash out at the curb. Maybe he should watch more TV or get a job. If a resident really has issues with this, why doesn’t he go to his neighbors and see if they can all arrange to use the same hauler. That would make more sense to me than the city trying to change the laws.

Fort Collins considered a district system in the 1990s. Susie Gordon, senior environmental planner for Fort Collins, said the city worked on the plan from 1996-98, but ultimately shelved it because it couldn’t guarantee privately owned haulers wouldn’t be forced out of business.

Am I the only one who sees this as a red flag. If the City of Fort Collins couldn’t come up with a plan after two years of wasted effort why does the City of Greeley think they can?

Even a Waste Management official is against the plan and admits they would underbid to get the contract.

Finally, if you would like to support some of the local businesses that collect trash these three companies were interviewed for the Tribune article.

Bunting Disposal Inc.
Gallegos Sanitation, Inc.
Northern Colorado Disposal, Inc

Last Friday, the Colorado legislature passed a ban on smoking in most buildings open to the public. While this isn’t really a local issue anymore, I wanted to make a few comments.

While I personally feel that smoking is an unhealthy, smelly habit, and admit that I prefer a non-smoking environment to a smoking environment, I’m not sure how I feel about this law. On one hand it makes for a nicer environment, on the other it tells business owners how to run their business and interferes with the free market. Tobacco has been on the government and public hit lists for some time, with good reason. I anticipate in the next 5 - 10 years it will become completely illegal. Although this is probably a good thing for the health of american citizens, where will it stop? How long before fried foods are outlawed? How long before riding a motorcycle is too dangerous? How long before we have legislation forcing us to get 8 hours of sleep a night?

The most interesting thing I find about the smoking ban issue is that it’s so non-partisan. This bill was actually introduced by a republican. I would think that the democrats would fight it just to cause problems, perhaps standing up for individual rights. All of the news reports I’ve read and seen don’t list any dissenting voices. Even the ACLU is quiet. They will stand up for gay marriage because it’s popular, but not a peep is heard to defend business owner’s rights when states start passing restrictive legislation. Hypocrites.

Recently starting a political blog has been an education. I have learned several things so far. One of the things I have learned is that there are things called caucuses and the major political parties are holding them very soon, next week in fact.

The reason I found about about these caucus things actually had little to do with this blog. One of the local Republican party members called my sister and asked her to call 20 other people. She agreed, but there was a problem. The Republican party script did not leave a provision for a message. Now my sister is a good person, but she does not have time to call 20 people multiple times in attempts to get them to pick up the phone. In fact, many people I know don’t answer their phone any more unless they recognize the caller ID. They assume, as I do personally, that anyone that actually has something important to say will leave a message. I’m sure there are 15 or so people that my sister was asked to call that won’t know about the caucus because the party didn’t think it was a good idea to leave a message.

Now, I am also a member of the Republican party. I mention this somewhat hesitantly because my intention with this blog is to have a non-partisan/bi-partisan discussion about local politics. I will not take sides drawn up around party lines. I will post based on my personal ideas, but I also welcome points of view and comments from Democrats, Libertarians, Greens or any other party out there.

As a member of a major party I believe I am also eligible to attend a caucus on March 21, but no one called me (or at least didn’t leave a message, if they did) so I have no idea where this caucus thing is. I checked the Colorado Republican Party website. They have a convenient caucus locator tool. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. Then I tried the Weld County Republicans site. They have a link to find your caucus location as well, but it didn’t work in my browser. I had to open it up in the highly unsecure IE to find my caucus location (note: This isn’t really a big deal, but completely unnecessary and poor web design. There are many people who use Firefox as a security measure these days, why make your links unaccessible?). Finally I get to my page and it lists everything by precinct. I have no idea what my precinct is (whaddya think this is, Hill Street Blues) so I go to the County’s site, get my precinct information and finally find my caucus. I hope you democrats out there have an easier time figuring out where you’re supposed to go.

Now (finally) I know I’m having a caucus and I know where it is, but the real question is what do I do there? I’m not really sure, there doesn’t appear to be any kind of agenda or anything published on the website. Are we selecting candidates? Is there a list of the candidates we are going to pick? Does anyone really know?

This caucus situation is a prime example of my concern with local politics. The parties don’t appear to be able to communicate with their members. The average Joe has little idea what’s gong on. Both parties have websites that don’t communicate much information and make assumptions about your level of expertise.

I for one am going to attend my local caucus on March 21 at 7:00pm, if only to see what it’s all about. I encourage everyone else that is a member of one of the two major parties to do the same. Have a voice, make a difference!!

Appearantly there is a local law firm putting together a challenge to the recent noise ordinance

The firm, and members of a new group dubbed “The Committee to Save Downtown,” want to get enough signatures — 1,600 are required — to force city council into a decision: repeal the laws, or let the voters decide in a special election.

You do have to appreciate the attitude in this town’s citizens.

The Greeley city council has initiated yet another plan to infringe on your rights. Some of them want to dictate who picks up your trash. Appearantly some residents have problems with multiple trash pickups on their street during the week and think the city should handle the problem for them. They also THINK the city will provide a cheaper better service.

This is wrong thinking on several counts. I cannot think of one single incident where government involvement has resulted in a cheaper, better service. We live in an (allegedly) free market economy, and there is a reason. Free markets provide competition which result in better customer service and lower prices on goods and services. Greeley trash pickup has benefited from this free market outlook.

I used to live in Loveland and they have had a city trash pickup for many years. Sometime in the early 90’s they instituted a recycling program. The result of this program that citizens not only had to pay for trash pickup along with their monthly water bill, but they also had to buy 25 cent stickers for each trash bag containing products that wouldn’t recycle. The end result was every Loveland resident has to pay for their trash TWICE. Explain to me how that is more efficient.

It appears that the city council and staff are bored and just looking for new areas to dabble in. If that’s the case, let’s trim down the staff size and lower the budget. If it’s not, let’s focus on some areas where the city government could use some improvement. Things like economics, traffic, crime and social activities. Fortunately one city council member, Ed Phillipsen, has already come out against this plan. Ultimately this is just another exercise in futility. The city will spend valuable tax dollars and resources coming up with a plan. If they do end up passing this plan I’m sure our enterprising local attorneys will put together a petition and make it a citywide ballot issue, which will most likely be defeated. Thousands of hours and millions of dollars later we will be right back where we are now.

Saw this on the ncbr site yesterday

LOVELAND – A road-building trade group has chosen the streets that funnel traffic into the Promenade Shops at Centerra, the new open-air retail center in Loveland, as the best in Colorado among the state’s newly constructed roadways.

Anyone who has actually been out to Centerra will know why they won an award from the Colorado Asphalt Paving Association. There is like 5 miles of road before you actually get to the mall. You turn of the highway and it takes 20 minutes and three roundabouts to get to the movie theater. If I was building roads, I’d give them awards too…

One of our local state representatives, Jim Riesberg, who represents District 50 will have a community forum on Retirement and Aging issues on Saturday, March 18 2006

Community Forum on Retirement and Aging Issues

Saturday, March 18, 2006

9-10:30 am

Location: Garden Square at Westlake, 3151 20th Street, Greeley

Topics discussed at this forum will include PERA and the Senior Homestead Exemption, in addition to other retirement and aging issues.

Unfortunately, being a Saturday morning when the weather may actually be nice, I probably won’t attend.

For those of you (who may be like me) that aren’t in the know here is some background on the issues.

From the Boulder County Website

Colorado’s Senior Homestead Exemption Program is designed to provide property tax relief for seniors who have owned and lived in their homes for ten years. Due to the current State budget crisis, funding for this program has been suspended for 2003 through 2006. Qualifying seniors will not receive property tax relief from this program in those years. We do encourage eligible seniors to apply for the program.

PERA is the Public Employees Retirement Association

PERA provides retirement and other benefits to the employees of more than 390 government agencies and public entities in the state of Colorado. PERA is the 23rd largest public pension plan in the United States. (Ranking provided by Pension and Investments Magazine, reported in January 2003.)

Unfortunately I had to Google this information up for myself. Would seem like representative Riesberg’s site could offer more information about some of the issues… we’ll get back to that later.