We must address violence at our schools
Re: “Urgent response needed for youth gun violence,” Feb. 15 editorial
The Denver Post Editorial Board articulated what Denver Public School (DPS) parents have been thinking for years – our students are in danger. The district’s underwhelming response to this year’s second near-fatal shooting steps from East High School has done nothing to calm our worst fears. And the lack of meaningful action by the City of Denver and its police department leaves families just as hopeless.
We don’t trust the people charged with protecting our children at school or around campus. Administrators proclaim that safety is their top priority, but the repetitive rhetoric is as tired as it is empty. Recently, DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero “broke his silence” about the rise in teen gun violence in Denver. But his words are not enough. DPS acknowledges that students carry weapons in school. But their acknowledgment is not enough. The police department responds when our school communities are already in crisis. But their response is not enough. Our students deserve more.
The time for leaders to act is now. We urge DPS parents to contact their school board members and other elected officials to demand change. Without further intervention, the violence at 1600 City Park Esplanade and other DPS schools will only continue to affect our children. As Luis Garcia fights for his life, we ask how many more kids need to take a bullet for Denver families to see real change.
Karen Einisman, Penny Ashley-Lawrence and Dina Bleecker, Denver
Editor’s note: All three authors of the letter are parents of students attending East High School.
In reading your editorial, I was astonished that you did not demand more gun control. The fact that you didn’t is a tacit admission that Colorado’s decade of “common-sense” gun control — supported by you at every step — has been an abject failure.
Those of us who testified in the state legislature against this gun control repeatedly pointed out that nothing in these policies addressed the root causes of violent crime and homicide — gangs, the drug trade, and youth violence — and our concerns were summarily dismissed.
For me, this is no academic debate because when my son was a football coach at East High School, one of the players on his freshman roster was murdered. Now here we are, counting the lives lost as the heartache only deepens.
You asked for data-led interventions, forgetting the commentary you published last year from District Attorney Beth McCann: “Data should drive crime reduction efforts in Colo.” Why not take her to task about what happened, or rather what didn’t happen?
However, the person you really let slide is Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. Since he took office in 2011, Denver’s number of homicides doubled, with 44 in 2011 and 88 last year. His 2022 Public Safety Action Plan addressed many of the initiatives you now advocate and yet public safety remains a disaster. Again, what happened? Why is no one held accountable?
Mario Acevedo, Denver
As my son was leaving for school this morning, I wanted to hug him just in case it was the last time I saw him alive.
This is how we live after the second random shooting of a student at East High School this school year. The first student was shot a block away in September; the second was shot near the school Monday, Feb. 13.
On Wednesday, a gun was confiscated from a student inside the school. On Thursday, my son notified us that he was in a lockdown before lunch because the police were in the student parking lot, aiming their firearms across the street.
I’m not an anxious person, but these events have me rattled. We have not heard from the DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero, the Denver Chief of Police Ron Thomas, Mayor Michael Hancock, or anyone else who should oversee safety in Denver schools. Kids are armed and being shot in the middle of the day, and nobody is saying what they are going to do about it. It is as if they are telling us that this is just how it is going to be.
I didn’t hug my son this morning because I knew I would start crying, and I didn’t want to send him off thinking he should be more anxious than he already might be. He is months away from graduating, and changing schools isn’t an option now. Is this just how it is going to be?
Julie Selsberg, Denver
We can’t afford delays, roadblocks in housing crisis
Re: “Lawsuit filed against Park Hill Golf Course,” Feb. 19 news story
How long will they keep denying affordable housing? The anti-housing crusaders determined to keep the closed Park Hill Golf Course closed have filed yet another frivolous lawsuit to prevent the city-wide vote that they themselves forced with the passage of Initiated Ordinance 301 over a year ago.
With the April vote upon us, and in the midst of the most crippling housing crisis Denver has ever seen, this small band of equity-enriched homeowners is suing the city and the private landowner of the site to prevent that same vote from taking place.
Unlike the plaintiffs, the people who would live in affordable housing at Park Hill aren’t millionaires. They’re working families, seniors on fixed incomes, and essential workers. For example, a four-person household earning under $70,320 would be eligible at 60% AMI for permanently affordable for-sale and rental housing at Park Hill.
If you think that Denver’s affordable housing crisis is made worse by all the delays and roadblocks that small groups of neighbors can implement, then the April 4 vote is your big chance to help solve it.
Muriel Williams-Thompson, Denver
Editor’s note: Williams is the president of the Denver National Association of Real Estate Brokers.
Talk of property tax cap relies on propaganda
Re: “Colorado must cap how much assessed values can increase by in a given year,” Feb. 19 commentary
Like any good propagandist, everything the president of “Advance Colorado Institute” writes about property taxes is true and, at the same time, is a complete distortion of reality.
He tells us that Colorado’s state budget has “ballooned by 24% over the last five years” from $34.5 billion to $42.7 billion. Pretty stunning and eye-catching. But please use your browser to access a Consumer Price Index (CPI) calculator. In doing so you will find that $34.5 billion from five years ago is equivalent to $41.7 billion today. This means that by adjusting for inflation, the out-of-control growth in the state’s spending over the past five years has increased from $41.7 billion to $42.7 billion (a compound rate of 0.475% per year). Not quite so scary.
He continues to attempt to frighten your readers by writing that “residential assessed property values are set to increase by a whopping 26.5% in 2024.” What he doesn’t tell you is that your tax bill is made up of two parts — assessment multiplied by mill levy. If you are concerned about a potentially higher property tax bill, then organize at a local level because property tax mill rates are set locally.
In his attempt to rile up the crowd, he also neglected to mention that Colorado has some of the lowest property tax rates in the nation. But then propagandists have a habit of concealing facts that do not fit their argument.
Guy Wroble, Denver
TV show puts spotlight on missing and murdered Indigenous crisis
Re: “Office of Liaison for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives: ‘I was kind of left in the dark’,” Feb. 19 news story
What an interesting and informative article. I recommend the network television program “Alaska Daily” starring Hillary Swank. It deals with this very real subject, is well-written, and closes each episode with a way to reach out and help.
Ellen Derrick, Denver
Are we ready for our own rail disaster?
Re: “We shouldn’t need body bags to learn from this disaster,” Feb. 18 commentary
The disaster and enormous impact of the East Palestine, Ohio, railroad derailment had better wake up our Colorado government officials to an even worse railroad disaster facing Colorado.
The Rio Grande Pacific Corp. wants to build the 85-mile Uinta Basin Railway from the Uinta shale oil Basin in Utah to allow tanker car rail transport of low-grade heavy waxy crude oil in heated cars through Colorado. Up to 10 two-mile-long trains per day would head east right along the Colorado River and then through Denver.
All this oil would travel through Grand Junction and then along the Colorado River through Glenwood Canyon and the gorgeous Gore Canyon. It is just a railroad spill disaster waiting to happen. Just imagine melted wax getting into things in your home like carpet, etc. And when, not if, a train derailment spills loads of this stuff into the Colorado, it is not a pretty thought about how you would ever get this congealed muck out of the river bottom, off rocks, etc. And not only that, they want to ram this railroad connection through the Ashley National Forest Roadless Area.
Utah officials are pushing the project, and more frightening still is that federal agencies are green-lighting it.
You would think our Colorado government and our elected officials would be pulling out the stops to halt this insane proposal. So far, though, nothing. So, get ready for our own coming railroad derailment and spill into the Colorado River unless we do something about it.
Ed Talbot, Arvada
Restaurateur knows his business
Re: “Don’t kick Colorado restaurants while they are still down,” Feb. 19 commentary
I sincerely hope that our legislators read and seriously consider the cogent arguments that Bobby Stuckey makes in this commentary. One only needs to look at the walls at Frasca Food and Wine to see the many prestigious awards he, his partners, and his company have won over the years. You don’t succeed at this level without doing something right; actually, many things right. It’s clear he knows the issues. House Bill 1118 just doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Calvin Switzer, Castle Rock
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