On Sunday the Sentinel endorsed School District 51’s ballot initiative that will ask voters for an override on TABOR limitations for school finances for a period of six years.  The editorial pointed out the cuts already made, and described what the expected benefits could be. They even took the time to point out that this is not a run around TABOR, since TABOR specifically provided for voter approval of any tax increases.

But that didn’t stop the local Tea Party from demanding “accountability” and vouchers.

Accountability is a nice buzz word, but I wish these I-don’t-want-no-stinkin’-government GOTPers would explain what they mean. (GOTP is a contraction of GOP and Tea Party, which aptly describes the movement.) The school district publishes a budget every year, which is available to anyone who bothers to look. School Board meetings are open to the public. We know how each and every school is doing when measured by CSAP tests, as dutifully reported to the local press. The only thing I can make of this call for “accountability” is a desire to dictate to the school board all curriculum and financial decisions. If a small group of over the hill protestors can’t tell the school board what to do, there isn’t “accountability.”

Vouchers? For as long as I’ve been around politics the GOP, and now the GOTP has been advocating for vouchers. Vouchers do nothing to help public education. They would take money out of a system that is already bleeding profusely, and give it to those who least need it. Any voucher proposal that I’ve seen provides for a sum of money that falls way short of funding any private school. So, who is going to use vouchers? The wealthy will use vouchers to defray their already existing costs of sending their kids to private schools. The poor and middle class will get stuck in public schools that don’t have enough scientific equipment, or technology or access to teachers with the ability to teach things like Chinese. (I’ve been told that kids in the Cherry Creek school system can learn Chinese, but there is no similar option in School District 51.)

I’m voting for Referred Measure 3B. If you have any common sense, and want any kind of future for the kids of Mesa County, you’ll join me.

Homework

Sentinel Endorses School Override

I haven’t spent much time discussing the report recently issued by the University of Denver on the economic future for Colorado. I’ll get to it, but if you are curious about what the report had to say, go to the link below. Short version of my commentary: TABOR sucks.

University of Denver on the Future of Colorado

I am appalled by two things this morning: A post to this blog by my favorite Troll, and the results of a survey taken by School District 51.

Troll first. There is a member of the Tea Party who seems to believe that he is well informed on issues. I don’t know much about this individual, other than he is angry, doesn’t know how to string a coherent thought together into a sentence, is incapable of articulating a logical argument, and is misinformed about all manner of things. His post yesterday was about the new Western Colorado Congress of Mesa County website. He calls it a “victim” website. A website that posts the actual oil and gas regulations and all manner of news articles on topics involving human health is the opposite of a “victim” website—not that I’m sure what he means by “victim” website.

How can someone, who is informed about opportunities to express their opinion during agency open comment periods, be a victim? Federal agencies, by law, must hold public hearings on new regulations before implementing those rules. That is the essence of “for the people, by the people.” The people get to weigh in before any regulation is published or enforced. The Western Colorado Congress of Mesa County gives people the tools they need in order to be informed on issues before commenting on them. It empowers people rather than victimizing them.

Kevin King, you should have actually read the Udall article before you assumed that fracking is safe. What Udall said is that it is safe IF wells are encased from top to bottom. An industry CEO is featured in a commercial (currently running every news cycle) stating that their wells are safe because they enclose them from top to bottom in steel and cement and the production zone is deep underground, with layers of impermeable rock between the zone and surface water. That particular company MAY do that on all wells. I know for a fact that Colorado’s regulations only require only a portion of a well to be fully encased. I learned that from a Williams Petroleum representative when I toured some of their rigs and other facilities near Rifle.  It is expensive to encase a well top to bottom in cement and steel. With profit the prime motivator for all business, as it should be, how likely is it that exploration companies enclose wells top to bottom in Colorado when it is not required that they do so? The largest local company doesn’t. They told me so.

I want clean water. I don’t want to be a victim. I want regulations on how wells are completed along the Colorado River. I want a river teeming with fish, nourishing local foods and wildlife, and clean enough to swim or boat in. Kevin, your ignorance makes you the victim, not me.

Along the same lines of willful ignorance and victimhood, the Board of School District 51 was presented with the results of a survey of local residents. Because of all of the recent cuts to budgets, the school district is toying with the idea of asking for a mill levy override so that they could hire more teachers, or more accurately hire some of the teachers they’ve had to eliminate. A majority (52%) of the respondents said they would support a mill levy override. But the consulting company concluded that such a bill would not pass in Happy Valley, primarily because of local economic concerns. Their opinion was that unless 58% of the population would support such an issue when first presented with the idea, it would not pass after idiots like Kevin King spewed forth their uninformed bile.

In the Wild West the first sign of civilization was when five or six families got together to bring a school teacher to their emerging community. They valued education, prioritized education, and paid for it even as they were barely eking out a living. What happened to that frontier spirit? When did we become so afraid of our own ability to create a civilization out of the wilderness? When did we decide to forgo investment in the future of our kids?

The Democrats of Mesa County recently sponsored a gun safety class for local school kids. In order to get a gun safety card, the kids have to pass a written test. A little less than one fourth of those kids would not have passed the test if someone did not read the test questions to them. They were unable to read the questions for themselves. That’s the definition of victim, Kevin, a kid who is functionally illiterate because our schools are failing them, and parents like you are unwilling to invest in anything that informs kids or citizens.

Homework

Results of School District 51 Survey

Western Colorado Congress of Mesa County

Links to Federal and State Drilling Regulations