Amache reminds us of the past

I read with interest the recent well-written front page Gazette article about John Hopper teaching his students about Camp Amache. The Dean of Students of the Granada School District is to be commended, along with his students, for preserving the former Japanese-American internment camp and creating the Amache Preservation Society. This historic site is a reminder of a period that cannot be forgotten.

I was never taught the internment of Japanese-American citizens in my school history classes. Along with Americans stealing land from indigenous inhabitants, enslaving an entire race and denying the right to vote to one gender, this despicable action by President Franklin Roosevelt shows that this country has much to be ashamed of. The Camp Amache Historic Site reminds us of that.

Germany and Italy, as well as Japan, were enemies of the United States in World War II, but there was no internment of German-American citizens nor of Italian-American citizens.

Irrational fear and racism toward “Japs”, as they were called, explains why those Japanese-Americans were deemed security risks and forcibly removed from their homes. As it turned out, many Japanese-Americans fought honorably for the United States in the war.

The Amache National Historic Site reminds us of all that.

David J. Baker

Colorado Springs

City should fund community center

With all due respect to Darlene Roina in her March 27 letter regarding the Westside Community Center, she has missed the point. The city does owe the West Side a community center.

In 2009, the city, recognizing the need for continuing the community center in the Buena Vista School but lacking funding due to the economic downturn, sent out a request for help, which was answered by the good people of the Woodmen Valley Chapel Center for Strategic Ministry. They ran The Westside Center well and built it into a viable entity. But their 12 year contract is up and, though Woodmen Valley Chapel is willing to continue taking care of a community center that is not even in their neighborhood, they also wish to use more of the space for their programs, which is a fair request.

But a community center is for the entire community not just part of the community and should be funded by the city, which is made up of its citizens. There are three other community centers in Colorado Springs. All are run by The Parks and Recreation Department and funded by taxes. All citizens pay taxes including people who live on the Westside.

They should also be given access to a community center which is not beholden to a non-city entity, and especially not a religious group, however well-intentioned. (As Janie Knickerbocker pointed out in her letter March 23, the Constitution guarantees separation of church and state mostly to avoid such controversies.)

The city would not be caving “to the demands of the people“ but serving them by funding a community center with the citizens’ own tax money.

Eve Tilley-Chavez

Colorado Springs

A better Colorado Springs

Why do the taxpayers in Colorado suffer from the over building of Colorado Springs? Oh, as we were told by our mayor and one city council member, it’s for the best of our future.

Really? All I see from downtown to the north side of the city is a lot of apartments, homes and strip malls. But what does the public get for our future — higher utility bills and less rights of how our yard should look and how we take care of it.

The mayor and city council are supposed to side with the people who voted to put them in office, not the people who have money and want to build, even if the public has the water we were promised with the pipe line from Pueblo. Last year city council voted to limit the amount of water we use for our yards. Now it looks like they may have passed a bill on how much new homes can have in grass or lawns. But these same people let our utilities bills go through the roof for no good of a reason.

Looks like the future belongs to poor property owners and the richer builders and developers.

Let’s start bringing back our rights for a better Colorado Springs for the residents, not the rich developers and builders.

Doug D. Evans

Colorado Springs

Stop fentanyl at the border

The Gazette has been running both front page news and editorials this week about the scourge of fentanyl. Friday’s edition featured elected officials proposing new fentanyl legislation to reinforce existing drug laws. Why don’t the our legislators just stop the flow of fentanyl?

Fentanyl comes through the Southern border. If over two million undocumented people can illegally walk into our nation and be abetted by our government to the point of shuttling them to communities via secret midnight airlines, so can fentanyl.

Officials stating that they are going to make legislation to deal with fentanyl use is like demanding a better deck chair on the sinking Titanic. The simplest way to control fentanyl is to stop the supply chain at the border. The Biden administration is unwilling to secure the border and stop fentanyl from getting into places like Colorado.

Mike Menza

Colorado Springs