Springs’ brand took a hit

This past Saturday was a very sad day for our town of Colorado Springs. We made the media headlines on a national basis for all the wrong reasons. My heart goes out to those poor souls who lost their lives for no reason, and I thank God for our Police Department.

Out of this mess what can we do to bring this town back ASAP?

I cannot imagine what this is going to do to our brand especially those that use the brand to support their marketing efforts each and everyday. The Olympic committee, the Air Force Academy, the Broadmoor, Garden of the Gods and many others.

It is time that our elected officials sit down and figure this out. Saturday was the straw that broke the camel’s back due to the magnitude of the crime; however, this type of crime in general has been going on a consistent basis for a while in our town. Let’s start working to get our town back to the “brand” that attracts instead of where we are this morning.

Nicholas Longo

Colorado Springs

Indisputable message of rebellion

I, too, am outraged about the student in South Carolina that got her comeuppance from a law enforcement official. I am outraged that he got fired instead of a bonus and placed on a promotion list.

The antagonist was an uncooperative, disruptive troublemaker, more determined to defy authority than to tend her classroom lessons. Her teacher asked her to leave with her cellphone; when the kid refused, a school administrator asked her to leave. What was the alternative, beg her or request help from an enforcement official. And he did! She received her full measure of respect for authority. Neither her teacher nor the administrator felt her fate was undeserved. I hope her parents delivered a sound session over the knee with a board upon her arrival home.

She was clearly determined to be as disruptive as possible and she succeeded while sending an indisputable message of rebellion and arrogance for her classmates’ benefit. Were she in my school, she would be expelled for the rest of the year. I believe in an education for all, but at the point it becomes too much of a burden for the kid and they decide to rebel: out. Welcome to school, use it for your benefit but don’t make the mistake of rebelling against authority or you won’t be allowed back. Study hard, obey authority and benefit yourself. I don’t know who she thought she was or if she perceived special privileges, but she needs to learn her place in the realm of academia.

Jon Didleau

Black Forest

Response sends wrong message

I saw the article in the paper and the video on the news. A disruptive student defies her teacher, then continues defying the school administrator and the school resource officer is called in and does what he was put there to do. Tries to restore order by removing the disruptive student and everyone cries “foul!” How would you handle this situation? The student has already refuted two authority figures and decided that it is OK to continue disruptive behavior regardless. Would you have let the student continue on that path? What message does that send to the rest of the class. Firing the officer is another wrong message, telling these young people that defying authority has no consequences for them but may actually be harmful to those in authority. Great way to raise kids, that sure will help them be responsible adults. Think about it before crying racist or overreacting. Reason and conversation had already been tried and failed, the young person put herself in this position and expected to be accommodated. Where did that come from? Applaud the officer, suspend the student and get on with educating the rest of the class. Do not make a big deal out of nothing but bad behavior of one person.

Michael S. Welsh

Colorado Springs

Union arguments old, worn out

The guest opinion submitted recently by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees president and vice-president in Pueblo (“Unions Still a Good Way to Boost Middle Class”) contained arguments so old and worn-out that I could swear I saw the ghosts of Joe Hill and some miners from Ludlow dancing eerily up from the editorial page, accompanied by Woody Guthrie on his beat-up old guitar. Their screed had all the old cliches (“worked hard,” “played by the rules”) about their presumably downtrodden forebears, as well as all the old left-wing lines about “CEO’s and corporations” and “wealthy special interests.”

What they left out is that AFSCME, chief among the public-sector unions, has morphed into a money-laundering arm of the Democrat Party nationwide. AFSCME spends a major chunk of their members’ dues on political campaigns and contributions – but not to Republicans. They give Democrat politicians money because they run big-city governments; they make deals to raise the pay and benefits of municipal employees, at the expense of the taxpayers, which helps increase public employees’ pay and benefits, which in turn increases the power of the union. If you want to see where this leads, look no further than the economic basket cases of New Jersey, Illinois or California.

As if this wasn’t enough, they mentioned the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, as an example of “wealthy special interests” trying to “make it harder for ordinary working people” and degrade workplace safety and employee benefits. The truth is just the opposite. The case was brought by 10 California teachers who didn’t like being forced to join a union and didn’t want their dues to be used for political candidates and causes they disagreed with. The CTA spent over $211 million in political expenditures from 2001 to 2009 opposing ballot measures involving school vouchers, school funding requirements, and use of union dues for political purposes without consent. Given recent court cases in Wisconsin that eliminated mandatory deduction of union dues from teachers’ paychecks, AFSCME is worried about this case, and rightly so.

Ms. Aragon and Ms. Jaramillo make arguments that are worn out. No one should believe them.

John Lariviere

Colorado Springs