Mary Wilson for the Music Modernization Act
I remember performing at the old Mile High Stadium in 1997. I sang hits from the days with my group, The Supremes. Although more than 40 years have passed since we recorded āBaby Love,ā āWhere Did Our Love Goā or any of our other nine Billboard No. 1s, fans still sing along.
Today, however, legacy artists like me are fighting for fair compensation when our songs are played on SiriusXM and digital radio stations. A major flaw in U.S. copyright law leaves music recorded before February 15, 1972, unprotected.
Fortunately, thereās justice on the horizon: a bill in Congress called the Music Modernization Act that guarantees equal compensation to artists on digital and satellite radio. I urge U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner to join his colleague U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in supporting this legislation. Let¶¶Ņõap give hard-working artists what they are due.
Mary Wilson, Washington
A call for community building
RTD delayed the opening of the N-line, but that doesnāt mean we should wait to plan for the future of Commerce City.
I grew up in this town and know resources arenāt distributed equally if you live on the wrong side of the tracks. That¶¶Ņõap changing with two important developments. Urban Land Conservancy is working to convert a vacant Adams County government building near the rail station into affordable office space for our community. And the Adams 14 school district just received a BEST grant to rebuild and possibly relocate Alsup Elementary.
This is a game changer. We have an affordable housing crisis. The ample land around the light rail station is a unique opportunity to build an inclusive, affordable and connected community. We need all government agencies to work together to create a comprehensive neighborhood plan and resist operating in silos. Let¶¶Ņõap create a community where everyone can thrive.
Dominick Moreno, Commerce City
Editorās note: Moreno is a Colorado state senator
The problem with incentives and tax breaks
Re: āStop the incentives arms race,ā Aug. 19 editorial
The editorial points out traffic congestion, lack of school funding, and the cost of housing as critical issues, made worse when āgrowth isnāt paying its own way.ā Absolutely correct, but the problem isnāt just the tax breaks that companies are given to move here. The real issue is the lack of development impact fees to pay for the roadway and transit expansions, the additional school buildings, and the permanently affordable housing units needed because of new development.
The editorial accurately points out that new development uses state funded roads and schools. And the costs of growth are well known ā weāre running about a $1 billion shortfall each year in state roads, and nearly $1 billion more for local ones. But we have no impact fees to help pay these costs. New schools cost about $12,000/new household, yet Coloradoās laws forbid school impact fees. And almost no cities impose impact fees to pay for worker housing.
Impact fees do not raise the prices of job space or housing. Prices are set by the market ā the interaction of supply and demand. Fundamentally, impact fees take excess profit developers gain by selling access to roads, schools, and affordable housing that they havenāt paid for, and uses it to actually pay for these facilities.
Impact fees donāt require TABOR votes because they are fees, and pay into āenterprise funds,ā so governments can issue bonds so that the infrastructure can be in place when needed. Rather than tax breaks, we need impact fees!
Steve Pomerance, Boulder
Pomerance is a former Boulder city council member
You nailed it. When I chaired the House Finance Committee, the best defense of these pernicious subsidies came from then director of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.Tom Clark. He said that this is how companies pay their relocation advisers. If Colorado doesnāt kick in, the advisers wonāt put us on the short list.
A comment on two of your guest commentaries: Mike Johnston (āThe college attainment paradoxā) and Tom Farrey (āStates should embrace sports betting for public goodā) propose other ways to spend Coloradoās money.
Johnston suggests our education successes are due to standards, assessment and evaluation reforms, coupled with school choice. He attributes failures to inadequate funding. Just as likely, our failures are due to reforms and choice, and weāve succeeded only because we havenāt totally defunded education. Good data is hard to find. But Iām 100 percent with Mike on improving funding and strongly support Novemberās Initiative 93.
Somehow Farrey manages to write a whole column on Norwegian finances without mentioning the elephant in the room. Norway has vastly more oil wealth per capita than any other western industrialized country. Yes, Colorado will jump on the sports betting bandwagon. Yes, weāll get a few dollars additional revenue. Yes, outdoor recreation is good. So is education. So is mental health. So are roads. Donāt pigeon-hole the revenue. Put it where it will do the most good (maybe a couple dollars toward gambling addiction).
Joel Judd, Denver
Judd is a former state representative
Attempting to set history straight
Re: āGood luck to Colo.ās new state historians …,ā Aug. 19 commentary
As the Colorado State Historian at History Colorado from 2008 until 2015, I read the two recent editorials by my successor, Patty Limerick, with great interest. I agree with much of what Dr. Limerick has said and observed about the current leadership of History Colorado. In 2015, Gov. John Hickenlooper dissolved the organizationās standing board of directors and replaced it with nine new directors responsible to the Governorās Office of Boards and Commissions.
At the time, Gov. Hickenlooper pledged to create a board that represented Coloradoās cultural and geographic diversity. Instead, the board in general lacked the promised diversity, and it contained no educators, archaeologists, public historians, community organizers, or others capable of supporting the organizationās educational mission along with the bottom line. Rather than serving under compromised leadership, I chose to resign in the fall of 2015.
Dr. Limerickās frustrations, consequently, mirror my own. Her solution could go farther. I would ask the governor to consider recruiting new board members who fulfill his initial promise of geographic and cultural diversity, and it should include members who advocate for History Coloradoās educational, scholarly, and community service objectives alongside its business goals. At its best, it could be the very forum for applying the lessons of history to todayās civic issues that Dr. Limerick calls for. Such a diverse board might be better positioned to support an intellectually independent State Historian (or historians) who creatively communicates Colorado history to a broad public.
William J. Convery, St. Paul, Minn.
Patty Limerick is certainly adept at drawing attention to the slings and arrows she has suffered at the hands of an uncaring bureaucracy. Perhaps if she were slightly less condescending, she would be more persuasive.
Travis White, Denver
Lock whom up?
Re: āCohen implicates Trump in court,ā Aug. 22 news story
Thereās so much evidence in the public domain that points to the shadiness of the current occupant. But now that Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to, among other crimes, violations of campaign finance law, and implicates the current occupant as a co-conspirator, what are we going to do? My recommendation comes from paraphrasing the current occupant himself (chant with me now): āLock him up!ā Payback is a dog, isnāt it?
Michael Domenick, Wheat Ridge
In view of recent pleas and convictions, I think if I were the Democratic candidate for president in 2020 I think my slogan would be āMake America Great Againā, and I would promise my supporters that I would ādrain the swampā as they chanted āLock him up.ā
Ardel Brink, Centennial
Remember the Fairness Doctrine?
Re: āPresident Trump, we are telling the truth,ā Aug. 16 editorial
While I agree with The Post that Trumpās tone toward journalism and journalists is unacceptable and an embarrassment, as a lifelong journalist, I wonder where is the voice of my profession (journalism) to fix a once-noble enterprise. Where is a voice demanding return of the Fairness Doctrine, revoked in 1987, for broadcast media? If it still existed, many networks would face the loss of their broadcast licenses for their lack of balance, fairness, inclusiveness and for their blatant bias and advocacy (one-sided) journalism.
Where is the voice demanding scrutiny of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which removed restrictions on who could own media and abolished restrictions that were meant to prevent conflicts of interest? Who can be comfortable knowing that just six major corporations now own 90 percent of our media? Who can be comfortable knowing that those who make weapons and war machinery now also control much of our media AND possible discussions on going to war? Who can be comfortable that we no longer have broadbased, diverse, OBJECTIVE information on critical issues like immigration?
Kathleene Parker, Los Alamos, N.M.
