State’s granting of child-care licenses
Re: “Granting of license intolerable,” Aug. 17 Jim Spencer column.
Jim Spencer’s column on child-care licensing issues raised in the Joseph Renander case revealed stunning ignorance of the laws governing this area.
I acknowledge that this case highlights flaws, gaps and lack of reasonable authority in our child-care licensing statutes. We continue to work with the General Assembly and State Human Services Board on strengthening statutes and rules to protect children.
Spencer’s column, however, proposes a breathtaking leap in regulatory authority, suggesting that an “investigation” should be grounds for the department to deny a child-care license. An arrest, even in the absence of conviction, already is.
There were no charges filed against Renander following an investigation in 2003.
In Spencer’s world, apparently, due process does not apply to those who care for children. In our heart of hearts, we might applaud such a concept, even as it goes up in flames before the first court that considers its legality.
Child-care professionals in this department did everything within current legal authority to put Renander out of business long before his arrest. In the absence of charges being filed, we had no legal grounds to deny his request for a license in Lakewood.
Finally, I take strong exception to Spencer’s characterization of dedicated child-care licensing staff as “pimps” for an alleged child molester. That’s pure bull – from someone hooked on sensational hyperbole.
Marva Livingston Hammons, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Human Services
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Evangelist’s remarks on killing Venezuelan leader
Re: “Televangelist favors hit on Venezuela chief,” Aug. 23 news brief.
Here goes the extreme hypocrisy of the Christian right again. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition of America, is calling for the government to whack Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
I am not a Christian, and I don’t even play one on TV. But what I don’t understand is why one form of killing a human being is a mortal sin while another is okey-dokey. It would seem to me that, unless God is an American Republican, killing is killing.
“Thou shalt not kill” was not a suggestion – it was a commandment of this God. Robertson’s statement is, therefore, proof positive that some religious leaders are not trying to get you to obey God; they are trying to get you to obey them.
Ralph W. Homan, Twin Lakes
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I realize it’s not civilized to advocate the assassination of a foreign leader – after all, they can turn around and do the same thing, and we view them as uncivilized for doing so. However, in the case of Hugo Chavez, it’s abundantly clear that the man has been ruthlessly and brutally accumulating power over the past several years, bringing the blessings of Marxism to yet another hapless nation, so maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
Would it have been a bad idea to get rid of Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Castro or Pol Pot or Saddam or Idi Amin or Robert Mugabe or Ayatollah Khomeini or Kim Il Sung or … (pick a rotten dictator)?
So although Pat Robertson’s comments are being viewed as uncivilized, they should also be viewed as correct – let’s take Chavez out before he and his henchmen do more harm and get more firmly entrenched. If we just wait around for things to improve, well, just look at Cuba and North Korea.
On the other hand, look at Chile, a success story, where we proactively aided in the overthrow of a Marxist regime, and for which we should never apologize to anyone.
Jeff Kocsis, Littleton
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The call by evangelist Pat Robertson for the assassination of democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez by our CIA is a clear- cut example of why there needs to be a very high wall between Christianity and the state, as well as between Pat Robertson and President Bush.
How Robertson can call himself a Christian, after publicly calling for the breaking of one of the Ten Commandments by murdering an elected leader the Venezuelan people chose, makes one wonder if his only excuse might be, “The devil made me do it.”
Ray Gabriel, Salida
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Proposed new fuel efficiency standards
Re: “Plan could put gas guzzlers on diet,” Aug. 24 business news story.
President Bush has proposed new vehicle fuel standards after refusing to sign several proposals in the past.
Starting in 2008, most new vehicles would have to average 24 miles per gallon. This excludes Hummer types, because they are in a class of their own and of course would pull down the average if they were included.
The recently passed federal energy bill was a list of corporate breaks with lots of pork, and now we have this charade.
Cars and trucks were getting considerably better mileage 17 years ago, and average fuel economy has dropped sharply in the past several years.
We are going backwards, people – as gas supply drops and price increases, vehicles use more fuel. Bush, with this move, has not only removed automakers’ incentives to make more efficient vehicles but has ensured our having even higher gas prices and the oil companies having record-breaking profits long into the future.
John Phillips, Salida
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Denver homelessness
Re: “Tough love needed with panhandlers,” Aug. 24 editorial.
Your editorial says the Denver police need to take a bigger role in the homeless problem, and I agree. One overlooked source of the problem is the Cherry Creek bike path, which passes just a few blocks from the 16th Street Mall and serves as a virtual motel for the homeless.
I bicycle this route every day to work and have to deal with the rubbish, broken glass and used syringes that litter the path. I also have to swerve to avoid intoxicated people, who stumble around on the path.
In my five years of using this bike path, I’ve seen the police there only a couple times. If the police were to increase their patrols and more strictly enforce the laws along the bike path, it would certainly contribute to solving the homeless problem.
Jeffrey Beall, Denver
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West’s wild horses
Re: “Roundup splits up desert herd,” Aug. 23 news story.
The wild horse is a symbol of our Western heritage, and how do we thank it? By rounding horses up with noisy helicopters into a small pen, breaking up their families for adoption, where many end up at slaughterhouses. It is an utter disgrace how our nation’s lawmakers, to whom we are entrusting our legacy and futures, are handling the entire situation.
If more than 4.5 million cattle and 100,000 sheep graze on publicly subsidized (taxpayer) land, how can a total of approximately 50,000 mustangs be a problem?
There is something very wrong with this picture.
Barbara Adams, Parker
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Toxic waste at Lowry
Re: “Tab for toxic waste: $82 million,” Aug. 23 news story.
Your article regarding an $82 million settlement for disposal of toxic waste at the Lowry landfill omitted an important and significant fact. The disposals by the Adolph Coors Co., Conoco, Shattuck Chemical and others were legal at the time those companies disposed of their waste products to the Lowry landfill. It was only later that the environmental Superfund law was enacted, making the disposal of these types of substances to an industrial landfill illegal.
Jim Muhm, Englewood
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