Should CU move president’s office to Denver?
Re: “CU office move meets resistance,” April 28 news story; and “Boulder needs Brown attention,” April 28 editorial.
Moving the physical location of the office of University of Colorado president from Boulder to Denver may be a good idea, as it would make the CU system less Boulder-centric, as noted in the editorial. It would strongly emphasize the president’s primary role as fundraiser and representative to the legislature. The CU president has numerous other roles, also, including being a strong academic leader for the four-campus system. These roles, too, can be appropriately undertaken from Denver.
However, the Boulder campus needs a strong leader in Boulder. Moving the office of CU system president to Denver militates strongly against combining the offices of system president and Boulder campus chancellor, as has been proposed. Combining the two offices is a poor idea, anyway, placing as it does additional work on the president and making it appear that the Boulder campus is so special that it should be run by the system president rather than a chancellor as the other three campuses are. The Boulder campus will get more individual attention having its own administrator, wherever the office of the system president is located.
Bill Moore, Denver
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Failure to override emergency contraception veto
Re: “Contraception veto stands,” May 3 news story.
If anything ever showed the need for a third party, it is the Colorado legislature’s failure to override the governor’s veto of House Bill 1042, the emergency contraception bill. This was a compassionate proposal to help women who are raped avoid an unwanted pregnancy by telling them about emergency contraception.
The House originally passed this with the help of 11 Republicans. On the override vote, however, those Republicans gave in to party pressure and deserted these helpless women. Gov. Bill Owens put it succinctly: “They vote their conscience on the first vote; they vote the process on the second.”
What is this “process”? A single branch of government where the governor becomes dictator? Legislators who dare cross the governor can forget any future in politics? Whatever it is, it negates the will of the people who want representatives with consciences they can trust.
Roughly one-third of Colorado voters are registered as independents, including myself. About 10 years ago, some big names in politics were exploring the possibility of putting together a national coalition of independent candidacies. We need those people now!
Janet Brazill, Colorado Springs
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Gov. Bill Owens and Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput are less than candid about the Catholic Church’s past stand on contraception and abortion. As a teenager, going to Mass in war-ravaged Hungary in 1945, I remember the priests reading an absolution to all Hungarian women who sought abortion after being gang-raped by the Soviet soldiers. The absolution originated from the heroic and imprisoned Cardinal Mindszenty.
Chaput should also know the stand on abortion of great Christian thinkers, St. Agustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Council of Trent, etc. People like Owens and Chaput should search their conscience before further traumatizing victims of rape, and imposing their religious values on the public.
Ted Kramer, Fort Collins
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Municipal wireless Internet access
Re: “Whose Wi-Fi is it?” May 4 business news story.
The real issue regarding municipal Wi-Fi networks is achieving universal Internet access for the public good (economic development, public safety, etc.). We use public roads and sidewalks to access our homes and businesses; why not use a public wireless network to access the Internet for work, shopping, etc.?
President Eisenhower initiated the National Defense Highway system (our interstate highways), which brought untold fortunes in economic development to our nation.
I am saddened by the short-sightedness of our state legislature in passing the so-called “Qwest Bill,” which essentially outlaws public financing for a future, wireless economic equivalents of the interstate highway system.
Frank Ohrtman, Denver
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Political speech in the Sunday funny pages
Re: May 1 “B.C.” comic strip.
I protest! The “B.C.” cartoon this past Sunday once again wasn’t funny. It included a poem that mocked the theory of evolution. That’s fine. We have free speech here in the U.S. However, such blatantly political portrayals belong on the op-ed page with “Mallard Fillmore,” not in the comics section.
I enjoy “B.C.” when cartoonist Johnny Hart keeps it funny and non-political, and have for years. But when he uses the comics pages to push his own personal beliefs and political ideology, I get disturbed. Your comics editors should check Hart’s cartoons, especially the Sunday ones, to see if they contain blatant partisan political messages. If so, then the cartoon should be placed in the op-ed section, and your readers notified.
Erik R. Hauge, Evergreen
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The right to access birth, adoption records
The Colorado legislature is considering allowing limited access to the original birth certificates of adopted persons. These are not “adoption records,” but are vital records of birth.
Adopted people and their biological mothers have a shared history, the most private of life experiences, that of pregnancy and birth. They should be allowed to have access to the official documents which record this medical and personal event, and vital natural connection.
Heritage cannot be erased or exchanged. By sealing the original birth certificates from the persons whose records they are, the government has taken personal papers without a warrant, and violated a private relationship.
Adoption should add relatives, not subtract them. Adopted persons should be able to access their own vital records in the same way as other citizens. This is a civil and human right.
In 2004, the legislature passed a “stillborn” birth certificate law. This law allows a parent whose child is born dead to have a birth certificate honoring that child and the parents who gave it life, however brief.
Adopted persons and their original mothers (and fathers if named on the certificate) should have the same right to a document which honors life.
House Bill 1287 would give this access to them.
Karen Kottmeier, Parker
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Passage of workplace discrimination bills
Re: “Gays achieve 2 legislative wins,” May 4 news story.
I was sorry to see the headline on your story regarding legislation that would make it illegal for employers to discriminate.
I am not gay, but I supported both of these pieces of legislation, and they would not have passed without broad support.
Human rights issues are bigger than any particular group, and when I advocate for human rights I advocate for all human beings, not for any particular subgroup. All of us deserve enough legal protection to be able to keep our jobs, feed ourselves and our families and make public our loving commitments to one another.
In a country that fights for freedom around the world, we need to be doing the hard work of living freely with our diverse population in our own country as well. To me, this is not a win for “gays,” but for freedom and democracy.
Elizabeth Rogers, Castle Rock
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