Westside being weakened and hushed

Westsiders already feel like we don’t get our fair share of city resources. Two things happening right now show the pattern continues, and the details matter more than they first appear.

City Council is moving to dissolve the Old Colorado City Downtown Development Authority less than two years after voters created it, and before it has finished a single development plan.

The original vote was artificially rushed by the City Council that endorsed it, proponents weren’t given real room to inform Westside voters. Voters had to sort through four separate, confusing ballot measures just to approve it while supporters were actively guided not to provide information to voters. Our own council representative, Brandy Williams, sits on the DDA board, yet Westsiders’ impression is that she claims ignorance of it, having reportedly told Old Colorado City business owners she never reviewed the research and findings that identified the DDA as the best structure for our community. Today, Old Colorado City’s only other funding mechanism is a Special Improvement and Maintenance District that covers landscaping, snow removal and light upkeep. Nothing more.

Meanwhile, the city just approved a $758,000 security contract for South Nevada Avenue, with $458,000 coming from marijuana sales tax revenue, the rest from tax tools that are now being denied to the Westside. Further, this isn’t a trial. It’s an annual commitment, and it is approved without any defined outcomes or performance metrics.

Downtown fares even better. The Downtown Partnership’s Clean and Safe program has already received $700,000 in city marijuana-tax funding this year alone, part of a 1.8-million-dollar program that tracks and reports real results: thousands of incidents resolved, hundreds of business contacts, real connections made for people experiencing homelessness. Old Colorado City gets none of that. No security contract, no comparable investment and soon, no development authority either.

Homelessness and safety pressures don’t respect neighborhood lines, and that’s exactly the problem. When downtown and South Nevada fund security to move people along, those folks move to the next neighborhood without guards, drones or outreach teams waiting for them and that neighborhood is the Westside. The marijuana tax fund has generated six million dollars for this city, and the Westside’s independent, locally owned businesses are being asked to compete for scraps after better-funded districts get theirs first, funded by a corporate and chain-heavy tax base that can better absorb its own security costs, while our neighborhood absorbs the fallout of their solutions.

Our business owners see a pattern, and so do we: the Westside weakened and hushed while other districts secure new, ongoing funding for the same problems pushed into our neighborhood. Our City Council is failing to level the field and appears to be actively working against us.

We’re asking the city to apply the same standard everywhere. Let Old Colorado City businesses organize, use the same tax tools and marijuana tax revenue funds that have provided security and allowed South Nevada and Downtown to thrive. Stop invalidating our work and start investing in this important neighborhood.

Justin Trudeau

Colorado Springs

The parable of socialism

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have a chance to begin overwhelming the Old Guard of the Democratic Party across the nation this November. Given the chance, can the DSA finally make real socialism work?

This parable of socialism has been retold countless times since 2009: A college economics professor stated he never failed a single student before, but recently failed an entire class. It started when one class insisted that socialism works, that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer they insisted.

The professor indulged the class with “We will have an experiment in this class. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade. No one will fail, but no one will receive an A either.”

After the first test the grades were averaged with everyone getting a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. The second test resulted in everyone getting a D. The students who studied hard wanted a free ride too and studied less. The students who studied little studied even less. Scores from the third test went even further downhill. The resulting average score became an F. What followed was bickering, name-calling and blame all around for dragging down the average scores. No one was willing to study for the benefit of another.

Socialism will operate like that in the real world. Try turning a profit that way.

Daniel Pryor

Peyton

What could possibly go wrong?

$20 million of our tax payer dollars to purchase electric gloves for ICE agents to shock suspected illegal immigrants? What could go wrong with this plan?  I wish it was a joke, but sadly no, it’s a serious proposal to inflict even more cruelty, pain and racism on other human beings, so typical of the Trump administration.  

Trump is a cruel and racist individual, and the DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin not far behind.

Remember the old days when Congress used to appropriate money for the public interest?  When a deliberative process was used to allocate funds reflective of our nation’s priorities? 

 Those bygone days have been replaced with the President  making all financial decisions, spending money left and right on his priorities with little oversight.  Of course Republicans did give him the money to fund his brown shirts ICE without any Democratic support, as the Dems did try to hold out for reforms. 

At any rate, wasting taxpayer dollars on instruments of cruelty and torture should never be permitted.

 Until voters give Democrats some power to hold this administration accountable, it will not change.  So get ready to vote in the midterms and choose wisely if you don’t want more of this.  

Let’s  put an end to his “shock glove cruelty”.

Cynthia Kulp

Colorado Springs