Denver mayor’s plan to plant 1 million trees
Re: “Planners hope to put Denver in the shade,” Oct. 20 news story.
I read with interest your story about Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s ambitious plan to plant 1 million trees in Denver. A million trees would have a cooling effect and cut down noise, to say nothing of beautifying our cityscape and neighborhoods.
The plan needs to include tree maintenance. Community forester Keith Wood pointed out that trees must be properly selected and planted. They also need water and pruning. But that doesn’t seem to be happening for many trees where presumably the city is responsible. All over downtown, you see what were once promising saplings, crammed into tiny holes in the sidewalk. Branches broken by passing buses, storms or vandals are left hanging. These trees never get watered and, since their “cage holes” provide only a few square feet from which to absorb rain water, they turn brown in August. Of course, this expensive investment is dead after just a few years.
If the city can’t maintain what we have now, will this well-intentioned plan merely waste money and leave us with a million sickly or dead trees?
Suzanne Wuerthele, Denver
The governor’s race and outdoors issues
Re: “Outdoors issues thicken governor’s race plot,” Oct. 18 Charlie Meyers column.
Congratulations to Charlie Meyers for presenting the issues of most concern to Colorado sportsmen. An objective evaluation of the present candidates for governor shows only Bill Ritter making a proactive commitment to Colorado residents to reasonably address these issues to protect our wildlife, wild lands, the environment and improve our opportunities to fish and hunt. Bob Beauprez has not done anything proactively in four years in Congress to protect our environment. He voted to open public lands to private development interests and open up 58.5 million acres of roadless forest lands to new road development. He opposed protecting important wildlife habitat in the Tongass National Forest. He co-sponsored and voted for rapid exploration/production of oil shale deposits. I do not see this man concerned about Colorado’s environment and outdoor heritage or willing to confront his administration’s agencies on Colorado issues affecting our environment.
Joseph R. Zbylski, Castle Rock
While I am genuinely amazed at the audacity of former Colorado legislator and failed gubernatorial candidate John Andrews, I am even more appalled over his latest quest: unseating an overwhelmingly respected and imminently qualified judge, Jose D.L. Marquez.
Andrews has chosen to viciously attack a man who has distinguished himself with rulings that have been both fair and thoughtful. The fact that Andrews has found fault with a single ruling by Judge Marquez, while overlooking a vast body of work, by focusing on a ruling that no doubt will be argued for many generations to come, is testament to the lengths he will go to achieve a misguided purpose that would serve only to hurt our state’s people and its constitution.
Let us pray that, like so many of Andrews’ poorly conceived ideas, his latest attempt to subvert our state constitution is soon relegated to the dustbin of history.
Angela Padilla, Denver
I was dismayed to read that John Andrews was pushing for Judge Jose D.L. Marquez’s removal from the Court of Appeals based upon the scant evidence cited in The Post. It appears that Andrews is willing to sacrifice the judge to win a secondary battle in the bigger war over Amendment 40.
As one of Judge Marquez’s former law clerks, I know him to be both a fine judge and one of the finest men I have known. Law is my second career. In my prior law enforcement career, my life depended on my ability to make quick and accurate credibility and character determinations. During my year working with Judge Marquez, I found him to be honest, compassionate, and committed to fairly applying the rule of law. Judge Marquez routinely put in long hours considering his decisions and ensuring that they were solidly grounded in state law. I could have had no better start to my law career than to work for Judge Marquez.
Dean Harris, Thornton
Education choices
Re: “Letting the market make school decisions,” Oct. 24 Open Forum.
Letter-writer Jim Muhm writes, “Why not end the government monopoly on primary and secondary education and allow private businesses to offer educational services to willing buyers … ?” Does he not understand that under his system, a few children of rich parents would receive a juicy prime steak, while the vast majority of children would end up receiving the equivalent of a Big Mac education? Is that the way to produce the widespread excellence America needs to compete? Or is it the road to nowhere? Would you like fries with that education?
Dave Schulze, Commerce City
Population growth
Re: “Milestone math adds up to trouble,” Oct. 17 Diane Carman column.
Retired University of Colorado physicist Albert Bartlett says the world’s only hope for sustainability is zero-population growth. It doesn’t take a math whiz to come to that conclusion. Bartlett was more informed than most of us with his elaborate mathematical population model, yet he apparently was uninterested in contributing to the solution: A quick look at his biography shows he had four kids – nowhere near zero population.
Any 12-year-old can tell you the solution to resource scarcity is population control. But personal sacrifice is where the rubber meets the road. It’s like Robert Redford – on one hand an environmental activist, on the other hand the owner of his own personal ski area. Heck, if everybody was that selectively eco-minded, we wouldn’t have any forestland at all.
Mike Taylor, Denver
In defense of Lila comic
Re: “Screening the comics,” Oct. 26 Open Forum.
Comics are for everyone to enjoy, including the adults who read the paper. The Meaning of Lila isn’t any racier then reading Cathy or Mallard Fillmore (and usually much funnier), and touches on topics that show up on radio or television every day. So I raise my Cosmo to free speech and the continued run of comics that start my day right!
Emily Bethke, Colorado Springs
More at stake than cleanliness on airplanes
Re: “Airlines slip up on wipe-down” Oct. 22 news story.
Your piece on the slipshod cleaning practices of major airlines is frightening for a much more important reason.
Our 2-year-old daughter is one of the millions of Americans with severe peanut allergies, and shoddy cleaning could seriously endanger her health. Even though most airlines don’t serve peanuts anymore (for a list of airlines that don’t, see the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network’s website), your article is correct in that passengers can bring their own food aboard.
When we fly, we always call the airline in advance and alert them to our daughter’s condition, but if someone traveling with a food allergy doesn’t take this precaution, or if they’re unaware they’re allergic, the airlines’ careless cleaning could be more than distasteful, it could be deadly.
Dan Clanton, Englewood
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