School facilities petition

Woodland Park Registered Voters — Help Us Support All Our Schools!

We’re inviting registered voters in Woodland Park to rally around our kids by signing the Support All Our Schools Reimbursement Fund petition.

The petition would place a 0.5% sales tax on the November ballot to help pay down the loan we already have on our buildings and to fund much-needed facility repairs and improvements at all Woodland Park School District facilities. Including: Woodland Park Jr/Sr High, Merit Academy, Columbine Elementary, Summit Elementary, and any WPSD facility. This measure includes stricter accountability requirements than the former 1.09% school sales tax.

Memorial Park — Big Pavilion

Wednesday, Aug. 19 | 3–6 p.m.

SupportAllOurSchools@gmail.com to arrange another time to sign.

Learn more at SupportAllOurSchools.com

Strong schools build strong communities. Thank you for supporting our kids and our schools!

Dana Kramer, Woodland Park

---

No to higher taxes

I am a local resident and no longer have children in school. Many of us are on a fixed income and are tired of people trying to raise our cost of living.

Woodland Park School District is trying to get a sales tax on November’s ballot. That tax would hit every single resident and every person who shops in our town.

WPSD’s books are a mess, the auditors said so in May. The district’s enrollment has declined for decades but the revenues have increased significantly. Instead of cleaning up those problems and addressing WPSD’s excess expenses, facilities, and overhead, they are asking for more of our money. That is not responsible management. That’s the same political runaround we’ve seen before.

People in this community oppose higher taxes. We cannot afford it and, especially now, we cannot trust how WPSD is managing our tax dollars. Yet, they and their pals in City Council, are ridiculously pushing for a tax on our citizens and have shown us no long-term evidence or proof that they’ve sufficiently cut overhead, liquidated assets, or relinquished liabilities in order to match declining enrollment.

Residents, including empty-nesters, should not be forced to bankroll a district that cannot keep its finances straight. If it were us, we’d have to sell precious items and tighten belts. The fact that WPSD wants us to hand them more money without sufficiently selling or tightening is ridiculous. Our purchases and bills are already high enough in this mountain town.

Joe Morin, Woodland Park

---

Data centers

I have been reading and hearing a lot about data centers lately. Specifically, the desire to continue to build more of them. Not a good idea in my opinion. I cannot understand why so many people are so willing to agree to more and more of them.

Much of the western and southwestern parts of the country are chronically short of water, and lately the drought that we currently face has made the water situation even more critical. Data centers consume vast amounts of water to feed their cooling plants, so can anyone explain why we need more at the expense of the people? It makes absolutely no sense. It is like sawing off a tree limb while you are sitting on it. The result will not be pretty.

I am 78 years old, and for the great majority of that time, I got along just fine without them. I think we can get by again without them. In the coming elections I will NOT be voting for any candidate, in any race, and regardless of party, who advocates for more data centers. Please join me and oppose all future data center construction and get your friends and family to do the same.

Jimmy Sims, Florissant

---