Local Politics are the most important. Below are today’s email newsletter thoughts from Laura and Rebecca. Links are embedded if you want more information.
Jay
City Council to Limit Citizen Input on Development, City Wants PPRTA Renewed, “Affordable Housing” Initiative on the November Ballot, and More!
Here are some of the stories we are following this week. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for up-to-the-minute news.
In the never-ending effort to get people to abandon their automobiles, cities in Colorado and elsewhere are offering credits, rebates, and low interest loans to people for purchasing electric bicycles. Much of this is subsidized by you.
The Colorado Measures of Academic Success reports that students around Colorado are still not meeting basic educational standards. The government response to COVID is a big reason for this. Will students ever recover from a lost year of learning?
An initiative to set aside state tax revenue for “affordable housing” will be on the November ballot. Initiative 108 received enough signatures to qualify for a vote in November. This sounds like a disaster, as government doesn’t even succeed at its basic mission, but is just appealing enough to the “do something” voter to potentially pass.
A new, developer-friendly zoning proposal is being discussed in Colorado Springs. This proposal also severely limits those who can object to a new development. This is pretty shady, as you can be impacted by a development, yet the city will not hear your complaint because of their arbitrary new rules. Sounds like an attack on your right to petition your government for redress of grievances to us.
Panorama Park has been renovated, and taxpayers paid $8.5 million for it. Let’s hope people enjoy it.
Reminder: Governor Polis and the other democrats in the legislature purposely moved the date for TABOR refunds to buy favoritism prior to the coming election. You would have had this taxpayer over-collection returned to you, by law, next April. They simply moved the time window to better serve their desire to be re-elected.
As developers continue to be granted zoning changes to build, build, build, the risk of more people being impacted by a wildfire, flood, or other emergencies, increases. The city’s answer is to ask you to sign up for their alert software they bought with your money.
The city of Denver, also known as Toilet City, should be repairing sidewalks as part of its core mission. However, they don’t, so a special sidewalk tax is being put on the ballot. This tax will cost some homeowners $1,000 or more if it passes. Imagine being elderly and on a fixed income, and getting a $1,000 bill for sidewalks.
Also this week in Toilet City news, Denver’s Union Station is still a lawless hellscape of drugs, crime, and debauchery. The folks responsible for containing such things are talking about how to solve the problem. Our crystal ball says they’ll shovel more money into solutions that don’t work.
We are told “green energy” is all about saving us from the imminent doom of a burning planet, set alight by the use of fossil fuels. A new Colorado Energy Office report on electric vehicles mentions the word “equity” over 500 times. “Green energy” has nothing to do with saving the planet from a climate crisis, and everything to do with dominating every aspect of your life.
For the record, the notion of a radical legislature forcing their version of “equity” down your throat by force appears zero times in the Colorado Constitution. It seems somewhere they’ve overstepped their boundaries.
Colorado Springs Utilities is asking customers to help pay the overdue bills of other customers. We do feel for these customers who are behind in paying their ever-increasing utility bills, and encourage you to help if you can. The fake concept of “environmental justice”, being forced down our throats by government at all levels, promises to create more and more people who can’t pay their bills. Perhaps the CSU employees, who received millions in salary increases earlier this year, can demonstrate some leadership on this.
Also, if you folks need assistance paying their heating bills, the LEAP program is a federal taxpayer funded option.
Colorado Springs City Council has approved $2.7 million for the Keep It Clean COS program. Expect to see more street sweepers on the road and people picking up trash shortly.
Also in Colorado Springs government news, the city wants to renew the PPRTA tax for another ten years. We’ve made our position clear. We keep giving them money, and don’t see the results we’d expect. Also, why not use the never-ending stream of COVID relief money for some of these projects?
Thanks to President Joe Biden’s complete disregard for the limited powers of his office, and his strong desire to buy votes in the coming election, you are now on the hook for the student debts of other people, including doctors and lawyers. Nearly one-third of Coloradans who should be paying back their own loans, like adults, will have their debts paid for by someone other than them now. Ask yourself what monkey business they’ll pull next.
Governor Jared Polis will also disregard the limited power of the office he holds, and force you to use more expensive, reformulated gasoline. The smog in Denver, and elsewhere along the front range, is the stated reason for this.
Speaking of Governor Polis, and “climate justice”, California has just announced a plan to ban the sale of gasoline cars by 2035. Since Governor Polis wants to emulate California in every way, can this be far behind for us?
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