Reforming the judiciary
Re: “Facing a need for reform; More openness would aid courts,” Nov. 26 Perspective article.
I agree with former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis that judicial PR is important. However, PR will not solve cost, delay and fairness issues without more. Courts need to act more businesslike in other aspects, as well.
Judicial consumers should be able to choose a judge by agreement, based upon knowledge of judges’ work experiences, cases heard, etc. Choice gives consumers more control and places a premium on a judge’s competence and fairness in the choice process. Retention evaluations will be better when based upon statistics provided by consumer choice.
Judges should hear only the most important of cases, with the rest going to mandatory arbitration. This was tried in the 1980s and freed valuable time on the court’s calendar, even though it was in a small area of court filings – personal injury.
Finally, negotiation and compromise need to be taught in our schools. This would decrease demand for courts to solve problems that consumers should be able to solve without intervention. It would also teach consumers of judicial resources how best to use that resource.
Martin J. Linnet, Golden
Risks of private roads
Re: “The risks of privatized highways,” Nov. 26 Neal Peirce column.
Neal Peirce is right about the risks of privatized highways. I see one other risk, learned from passenger rail’s demise in the 1950s.
Suppose I own a toll road. The toll revenues come to me, and I invest them in maintenance of my road. Spending those revenues on maintenance yields a 2 percent return on investment. If I invested those revenues in downtown Denver real estate or a new shopping center instead, the return on my investment might be 10 to 20 percent. As a good capitalist, I should invest that money where it yields the highest return. Therefore, goodbye road maintenance. The road deteriorates, the public complains, and pressure builds for government to take over and maintain that road. After extensive negotiations, I sell the road to the government. This works out very well for me. I make a profit on selling the road. I make a profit on diverting toll revenues to higher-yielding investments. The taxpayers pick up the cost of the deferred maintenance and future costs of running the road.
Ann Harroun, Loveland
Front Range transit
Re: “Transit for a Front Range ‘megalopolis,”‘ Nov. 26 Perspective article.
Kudos to James van Hemert and Peter Pollack for their article outlining key strategies for Colorado and regional transportation, including the importance of developing Union Station as a true transit hub. Their thoughtful piece comes as Gov.-elect Bill Ritter establishes his priorities. He will have a chance to fulfill his commitment to sustainability by supporting directing his agencies to plan for a 21st century transportation system that accommodates growth while it mitigates traffic congestion and supports our environment.
Yet, even as the new southeast light-rail line opens and FasTracks is planned, the Colorado Department of Transportation seems determined to apply a 20th century solution to traffic congestion on the Interstate 70 mountain corridor: a huge, 15-year highway widening project.
We know the following:
I hope our new governor and CDOT will avert this disaster and change course for trains from DIA and Union Station to our valuable mountain communities.
Betsy Hand, Boulder
Federal minimum wage
Re: “Raise federal minimum wage,” Nov. 26 editorial.
Your editorial calling on Congress to raise the minimum wage points out that Congress has given itself many raises, so why not give the lowest-paid workers a raise too? This reasoning misses a crucial distinction: When Congress increases its own pay, it most certainly does not disemploy any of its members (although that might not be a bad idea). But when Congress increases the minimum wage in the private sector, it can’t prevent employers from firing workers, or hiring fewer workers than they would otherwise. Economic law makes this effect unavoidable, in the long run, if not immediately. Human will can no more override the laws of economics than the laws of gravity.
But you are right to point out that workers are falling behind. The key to helping them is to reduce business taxes and all forms of regulation, so there are more employers competing for workers, which raises wages, and also allows workers to more easily start their own businesses.
Rich Cantillon, Centennial
Preschool and education
Re: “More tests ahead for preschool effort,” Nov. 24 editorial.
Like The Denver Post, I am enthusiastic about Denver’s new preschool initiative, which was narrowly approved by voters Nov. 7. It should give a lift to some of Denver’s most at-risk kids while they are still in the critical stages of early childhood.
However, I do not share The Post’s editorial apprehensions about “church-and-state issues” that supposedly arise from this voucher-like program for preschoolers. I see nothing “ticklish” about the fact that religious preschool programs will be eligible to receive tuition funds under this measure.
Just like the K-12 voucher program I authored in 2003 for some of Colorado’s urban school districts, Denver’s program relies on parents rather than government agencies to choose where to spend these new public education dollars. That approach was upheld in a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case involving a Cleveland voucher program, and Denver’s own city attorney recently pointed to that landmark ruling in underscoring the Hickenlooper administration’s support for this new preschool program.
Regrettably, the voucher program I carried into law a few years ago was halted in court on an unrelated issue. My point here is to dispel the persistent myth that giving parents more choices in their children’s education is somehow incompatible with the separation of church and state. The aim of all such efforts isn’t to underwrite a religious education but to empower parents to pick the best program, religious or otherwise, for their kids.
Sen. Nancy Spence, Centennial
…
Twelve million dollars for 2,000 4-year-olds to attend preschool? While I’m sure there are hundreds of studies that show how beneficial preschool can be, and also how lower-income families could use the financial help instilling educational values early in a child’s life, how about we stick that $12 million where it could best be used: Colorado’s failing higher education system. What are we going to tell these 2,000 children with the opportunity to attend preschool when we can’t afford to provide the opportunity for a college education later in life? When will the state wake up and face the fact that we ought to be in crisis mode here? It is getting harder and harder for families to afford sending their children off to college in this great state. Why worry about test scores when a large chunk of Colorado’s students can’t afford college regardless?
And shouldn’t parents be taking more of a responsibility in educating their children? My parents took the initiative to start my education early at home. Education was a family activity, a way to bond with my parents and grow as a family. It was also a way for my parents to show me how committed they were to my education. Parents need to show their children that they are invested in their children’s education by being actively involved, not pawning the job off on someone else. Just another example of the government taking the responsibility of raising a child away from the parents while letting the state’s higher education system fade away into nothing.
Josh Franklin, Denver
…
The Post lauded passage of Denver’s Initiative 1A as essential for preparing kids for kindergarten. In the past, kindergarten was established to prepare kids for first grade. That is another indication that the current schooling system that passes for education is not working, if preschool becomes necessary to prepare them for kindergarten that prepares them for first grade.
The editorial states that Denver is “a city struggling with high drop-out rates and poor academic achievement.” This is despite increased spending over the last few years, including Amendment 23, to “improve education.” It also notes that “Without preschool, far too many children start kindergarten unprepared to learn, making it that much more difficult to catch up to their schoolmates.”
There have been articles in the past regarding parents unable to help their students with their homework, presumably because of their own poor academic achievement and/or their being dropouts. Perhaps the problem with kids unready for kindergarten, to the extent preschool is needed, is parents are dropouts, and the result of poor academic achievement as the basic reason they cannot read to their kids and teach them the fundamentals required to succeed in kindergarten.
Perhaps the real solution is a return to the education concept that existed prior to the late ’60s, when rigorous academics existed, until replaced by the current “schooling system” that passes for education. There was no such thing as high school remedial work for college freshmen or vocational students, because they were properly taught and prepared academically in the first place. The focus was on creating an educated populace, rather than pushing as many students as possible into college, though that option was not of interest to them. As a result, the required academic instruction lacks relevance so they get bored and drop out. Others may succumb to counselor and other pressures and attend college but join the many who drop out and never graduate because they belatedly realize college is not for them.
Richard Becker, Broomfield
TO THE POINT
I will not support any candidate for Congress or president who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign.
Jerome Hebert, Denver
Some words to remember for Michael Richards, Mel Gibson, and all the rest who use unkind words to and about other people: You can’t unring a bell.
Virginia L. Wielgot, Aurora
To all those who lament what unbridled growth is doing to Brighton, or anywhere, please remember: All growth starts in the bedroom.
Nancy Camp, Denver
Jay Cutler’s Doom: Not that he’s young, not that he’s relatively inexperienced in the Broncos’ system. It’s that he’s not No. 7. He’ll be made to pay for that, just as Jake Plummer paid the price.
Gary Cummings, Leadville
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