Give it back to Mother Nature

I’m all for ending the spring-forward, fall-back system of changing our clocks twice a year. Why not just leave it on standard time year-round? According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, “Standard time aligns best with human circadian biology and provides distinct benefits for public health and safety.” It would seem to me that it is less disruptive to students waiting for a school bus and some businesses and events.

Just give it back to Mother Nature.

Billy Greer

Colorado Springs

Oldest trick in Colorado politics

The campaign to take more than $1 billion in TABOR refunds is the oldest trick in Colorado politics: attach the word “education” to a massive transfer of taxpayer money and dare anyone to object.

TABOR refunds are not gifts from the government. They are dollars collected above the limit voters imposed. Money that belongs to Coloradans. At a time when groceries, insurance, rent, property taxes and utilities are punishing household budgets, politicians are asking families to surrender refunds because the state refuses to live within its means.

Even more revealing, the nonpartisan analysis cited in The Gazette found that roughly 75% of the lost refunds would not go to K–12 schools. The proposal is marketed using teachers and children, but much of the money would flow elsewhere. That is not a tightly targeted classroom investment. It is a permanent expansion of government spending authority wrapped in a schoolhouse banner.

Before demanding another dollar, Colorado should conduct a forensic audit of education spending, cut administrative bloat, consultants and duplicative programs, publish district-by-district classroom spending, and require measurable results. Teacher pay, special education and classroom needs should come before bureaucracy.

Education is essential. That is precisely why it should not be used as emotional camouflage for another raid on TABOR. “For the children” cannot remain the magic phrase that excuses every budgeting failure and silences every demand for accountability.

Mismanagement does not become responsible merely because politicians put a schoolhouse on the campaign literature. Vote no on Proposition NN. Demand competence before cash.

Jeffery Chandler

Colorado Springs

Give citizens equal time

As El Paso County commissioners have scheduled an executive session on Tuesday regarding Buc-ee’s, I respectfully ask that they establish fair and transparent procedures for the upcoming Buc-ee’s appeal hearing.

Specifically, I ask for an organized Tri-Lakes citizens’ group with presentation time equal to that of the applicant; allow the community to offer a closing statement after the applicant’s rebuttal; include in the record the relevant Palmer Lake proceedings and the County’s administrative determination; and establish reasonable, clearly disclosed time limits that apply equally to both the applicant and the community.

I also respectfully request that you hold this hearing in the Tri-Lakes area, during the evening, at a time and location that allows working residents and other community members to participate.

The citizens who will live with the consequences of this decision deserve a meaningful opportunity to present their case, respond to the applicant and be heard before this important decision is made.

Terre Christensen

Monument

Deport detainees first

The GEO Group recently announced an agreement with ICE to open a second ICE detention facility northeast of Denver that can hold up to 1,188 detainees. This deal could earn the GEO Group up to $529 million over five years. The GEO Group already operates the state’s only ICE processing center. It’s a 1,532-bed facility in Aurora where, recently, a GEO Group employee shot a protester.

If an independent grocery store was highly overstocked in all brands of cereals with no place for additional cereal displays, then they would not be increasing shipments of cereal and renting a warehouse for additional overstock. Instead, they would be running specials and canceling cereal orders, reducing costs.

Let’s apply this analogy to ICE. Instead of increasing quotas for new arrests and paying private for-profit contractors for more detention facilities including the added expense of running them, the head of ICE should be temporarily reallocating funds away from immigration sweeps and using the funds to add more immigration judges, more courtroom space etc.

If you can’t deport the current number of individuals in detention in a timely manner now, then continuing the effort to have ICE arrest as many new detainees as possible (holding them sometimes for years) makes the whole immigration operation more costly than it should be. It would be more cost-effective to not detain more people than you can deport in a reasonable time, so as not to need additional detention spaces like ICE is adding now.

Let’s focus on reducing the number of people held for long periods by temporarily reducing ICE sweeps and increasing the staff responsible for deporting those already detained. Perhaps even granting temporary asylum releases with a one-year green card to work legally and pay taxes (just for those without criminal records and who have US sponsors), lowering costs significantly while still deporting as many or more detainees than are being deported now.

Rock Goldberg

Colorado Springs