Ban fireworks now

I understand that there is now a “burn ban” in place for El Paso County. What I don’t understand is why there is no outright ban on fireworks, period, until further notice.

Obviously, that targets the Fourth of July, but we should ban them without exception. And severe penalties should be imposed on those that violate the ban.

Zenas Gurley

Colorado Springs

Decision to save lives

My son Travis was a light in this world from the day he entered it. Bright, funny, and kind, he loved the Colorado outdoors and had a gift for seeing beauty through his camera. He was our miracle child at birth, and when he became an organ donor after his death, that miracle continued. Three people are alive today because of him.

The months after Travis died were the hardest our family has ever been through. What got us through was knowing his generosity didn’t end with him. His decision to donate ended up saving three lives. Seeing that impact turned me into a passionate advocate for organ, eye and tissue donation. I’ve spent the last several years telling his story to inspire more people to say ‘yes’ to giving the gift of life.

This July, I’m asking Southern Colorado to come out and join me at Donor Alliance’s Donor Dash. On Sunday, July 19 at Wash Park in Denver, thousands of people from across the country come together: donors, recipients, families just like mine. It’s more than an annual 5K. It’s a gathering of people who understand or have seen the impact that one person saying ‘yes’ can have.

If you haven’t registered as a donor, you can learn more or sign up at DonorAlliance.org. It takes five minutes, but the impact lasts a lifetime. Travis said yes, and I’m grateful every day that he did.

Terri Reed

Colorado Springs

Land-use process should answer to residents

El Paso County’s land-use process is not broken. It’s working. That is the problem.

Residents see the same pattern: incompatible projects enter as if approval is only a matter of procedure. Even when staff findings identify conflicts, residents must argue for the county to enforce its own plans and codes.

The MA Infrastructure, LLC rezoning at Highway 83 and Walker Road is the latest example. It would convert rural land surrounded by five-acre lots to high-density multidwelling zoning. The county’s own staff report identified an isolated suburban pocket, no meaningful transition, densities far above the area and comparable zoning miles away.

The Planning Commission saw through it, voting 6-1 to recommend denial. It now goes to the County Commissioners at 9 a.m. July 23, a board The Monument Independent reports has not denied a subdivision, master-planned community, metropolitan district or developer rezoning in four and a half years.

Your El Paso Master Plan, adopted in 2021, uses placetypes to sort places by their unique identity and character. Yet the adopted map assigns pockets of higher-density placetype designations within rural and large-lot areas where the plan’s own criteria do not support them.

Craig Dossey led Planning and Community Development during the 2017 code amendment and 2021 master plan process. He later founded Vertex Consulting, which now represents developers moving projects through the system he helped shape. Vertex represents MA Infrastructure and Buc-ee’s.

This structure makes the implausible sound procedural. Buc-ee’s is the visible example: a 74,000-square-foot travel center seeking administrative classification as a neighborhood convenience store.

El Paso County is now rewriting its Land Development Code, with promised public input. The rewrite will show whether the county will close these loopholes or preserve them.

Public input in land-use decisions means little when residents document incompatibility, ask for denial and watch this Board reinterpret the record and approve anyway. El Paso County deserves a land-use process that answers to residents. Right now, too often, it answers to the people who built it.

Laurel Schow

Monument