Attorney compensation in possible class action
Re: “Lawsuit over penis potions may become class action,” May 26 business news story.
I was intrigued that The Post reported only on the interests of the plaintiff’s attorney in this story. The Post wrote, “It’s also a win for attorneys, who would collect a portion of any class settlement or court award.”
Oddly, we learn nothing about the defendant’s attorneys fees.
More balanced reporting would have included something like the following: “The decision, while a setback for the defendants, is a win for the defendants’ attorneys who – unlike the plaintiffs’ attorneys – continue to be paid by the hour whether they win or lose.”
I hope, in the future, when attorneys fees are addressed, reporters will provide information on how both sides’ attorneys are compensated.
Amy F. Robertson, Denver
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Proposal to route metro beltway through Golden
Re: “Beltway link drives dissent; Hundreds put CDOT on the spot over all-Golden routing,” May 25 news story.
The Colorado Department of Transportation’s proposed tollway, which would pass through Golden, is a billion-dollar boondoggle that won’t solve Arvada’s traffic congestion problems. Every model, every study, and all the data reach the same conclusion: If we want to improve traffic congestion in Arvada and throughout the northwest metro area, we need to make improvements to Colorado 93 and to the other major north-south streets, like Wadsworth, Kipling and Indiana. A billion-dollar “super slab” will destroy open space, promote unmanaged growth, and devastate Golden and possibly Fairmont. And, for all that, it won’t even solve our transportation challenges.
And, with a tab of nearly $1 billion dollars, there is no way that tolls will cover the costs. In the end, the taxpayers will probably end up holding the bag.
Even worse, this proposed boondoggle will pull money away from other, critical transportation needs around the Denver metro area. Golden is more than willing to shoulder our share of the traffic burden, but let’s adopt a reasonable plan that actually solves our transportation challenges.
Jacob Smith, Golden
The writer is a member of the Golden City Council.
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The northwest quadrant of the Denver metro area has a traffic problem, but the solution proposed by the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration is a dead end. Their proposed plans for this area threaten to bring sprawling development and waste $1 billion in taxpayer money at a time where there is a desperate need to fund critical transportation projects and highway maintenance throughout the Denver metro area and the state.
CDOT Director Tom Norton is pushing plans for a superhighway that does not fit into the vision of improving transportation options in the Denver metro area. This superhighway would not help to solve the area’s transportation needs. It would create an unnecessary, 20-mile highway so developers can get rich building along its length, forever marring this section of the metro area that contains some great local natural areas and popular recreation spots.
Who is CDOT trying to help? Citizens or developers? Several studies done in the past show that the best solution is to make improvements to key north-south arterials, not to build a costly superhighway.
Gregg Cassarini, Golden
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Shooting of robbery suspect by police
Re: “Cops: Man killed as he turned with gun,” May 26 news story.
Why did The Denver Post’s story on Denver police responding with lethal force when chasing a fleeing, gun-wielding robbery and assault suspect devote more paragraphs to quoting friends and relatives of the suspect – who were not at the scene of the incident – than explaining why Harrison Owens was a suspect and the reasons officers reacted with lethal force?
Where are the details of the alleged robbery and assault?
Where is the mention of the hierarchy of use-of-force procedures, with “suspect with gun drawn” being the most deadly threat and most acceptable time for a police officer to fire his or her own gun?
A life was lost, and that is sad. And while police officers are people and make mistakes just like any other human beings, this does not appear to be a case of police misconduct.
Sarah E. Moss, Westminster
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Intelligent Design
Re: Creationism battle useless,” May 26 Pius Kamau column.
Pius Kamau makes a standard and popular mistake made by the uninformed. He confuses new- earth creationism with old-earth cosmology, and in so doing, paints the Intelligent Design movement with far too broad a brush.
Nearly all the adherents of Intelligent Design are old-earth cosmologists, perfectly happy with Big Bang, a 13.7 billion-year-old universe and all of the laws and processes that includes. They look at a complex universe, an even more complex biosphere, and the fact that the most complicated thing in the known universe is between your ears, recognizing that physics doesn’t allow randomness to play a meaningful role in the production of complexity.
Intelligent Design adherents do have two problems: They love to argue about evolution, and they have no mechanism of their own to explain the physics of complexity. Stephen Jay Gould, Stuart Kaufmann, Niles Eldridge, Paul Davies and many others who believe in evolution no longer believe that natural selection and random mutation have nearly the power needed to make evolution work, which means that evolutionists themselves also have no mechanism. The mechanism is very likely to be complexity theory, which allows for both evolution (but with specificity) and God (the orderer).
Andy Fletcher, Colorado Springs
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Criticism of Harry Reid
Re: “Reid’s now the Democrat whom Republicans love to hate,” May 25 Al Knight column.
Al Knight decries a statement by Senate minority leader Harry Reid, saying, “If seeking a vote on a judicial nominee is a quest for ‘absolute power,’ then the English language has lost its meaning.”
Now, I have no opinion about Reid, but what bothers me is that in his very next paragraph, Knight has the gall to proclaim that “the best protection for a political minority is the election process.” Perhaps it is Knight who ought to consult a dictionary, in order to find out the meaning of the words “minority” and “election.”
Some additional reading that Knight might find enlightening is John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” which introduced the concept of the “tyranny of the majority.”
David Wagner, Boulder
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Fuel efficiency and dependence on oil
Re: “Oil puts damper on market,” May 26 business news story.
Our dependency on oil has recently begun to have a noticeable impact on our economy. One of the most basic things we could do to lessen this impact is to require all trucks, SUVs and minivans to meet the same fuel-efficiency standards as cars.
Unfortunately, Sen. Ken Salazar voted against a measure recently in the Senate Energy Committee that would have helped make these vehicles meet the same standards as cars. This would save Coloradans thousands of dollars at the pump.
The reason he gave was that initial sticker price on the new fuel-efficient vehicles would hurt farmers.
This leaves me asking: Can farmers afford the gas to drive these gas hogs when the cost is already depressing the market for their goods?
Crystal Pilon, Denver
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