Soap Box

To the editor,

Understanding the truth can be difficult today. Winston Churchill said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” This got me thinking. Why are people who are against the ballot initiative to maintain our streets telling everyone the City has plenty of money and officials just need to budget better?

Many want to believe it, but I can’t. The City doesn’t have the funds to maintain our roads, it’s the simple truth.

Incredibly, some people don’t want to pay a minimal 1⁄2-cent on a dollar to ensure our streets and sidewalks are in good repair, even though it will have no affect on their standard of living.

Others may feel that voting against the ballot issue is a good way to “get back” at city hall. Maybe they don’t like a certain council member or had a parking ticket they didn’t like. Unfortunately, it’s not city hall that their vote hurts, it’s their neighbors and the community as a whole.

I change the oil in my car as a form of preventive maintenance that will save money in the long run. Funding our street maintenance is the same principle.

I will complain when the streets are crumbling with pot holes and sidewalks are decrepit. Only I won’t complain in clear conscience if I don’t first try to be a responsible citizen and be part of the solution. For that reason I support this ballot issue. The benefits are self-evident.

– Edward Horvat, Durango

To the editor,

The “hand of god” forced into women’s health care is not religious liberty nor is it constitutional. A question for protestors of women’s health care: Where are your $350,000 trust funds to guarantee bundles of joy access to food, clothing, shelter, health care and access to opportunity for the next 18 years? Our corruption is now teaching Covington boys and others to judge, humiliate, harass, bully and punish women and threaten people who help them. One does not have to die to go to hell, but one does have to be born.

The Republican policy of controlling women’s decisions gives Republicans access to insert the womb-to-prison pipeline for financial gain. Republican deadbeat policy not only creates a corral for human brood mares but programs children for failure as disposable humans after birth. Mick Mulvaney tells Congressional Republicans that school meals are not working and must be dropped. Politicians and ALEC privatize their profit from prisons, yet depend on your socialized tax payments to cover incarceration.

Along with the gag orders of Reagan, George W. Bush, and now the Donald, we have the Kavanaugh gag for women, hands crushing our mouths. Why are we programming failure in our future? Studies show denying women access to health care results in a rise of violence years later. How much more violence, suicide and homelessness will we usher in? We need checks and balances on lust, arrogance and greed. Unless you require it, women’s health care is not your decision.

– Stephanie Johnson, Durango

To the editor,

My family has resided in Durango since the early 1930s. Durango has gone through many changes over the years, but none more important than what we are facing right now. I will be the first to say I wince at the sound of someone saying “raising taxes is a good thing.” As a business owner for 15 years in Durango, I have come to realize that the cost of doing business is NOT cheap, and if you choose not to plan ahead, you will lose.

The reason I am in full support of Ballot Initiative 1A is that our city government, in this particular situation, is planning ahead. (Unlike the wastewater sewer plant replacement project.) They realize if we don’t forecast our preferred future and plan for specific projects and future growth, Durango as we know it, will become one of many small communities around our country that is falling apart due to poor maintenance and policing of its businesses and neighborhoods.

The passage of initiative 1A will amount to only half a penny on each dollar spent and will help fund our streets, which are in need of maintenance and repair. It costs nearly eight times more to rebuild a street versus a fraction of the cost to maintain them, and each year that this is deferred will cost us $2 million - $4 million annually. Durango is a unique and beautiful place to live, and we have an obligation to do our part to help take care of all the resources and amenities that Durango currently offers its amazing citizens and the tens of thousands of people who visit this small mountain town every year. Please vote yes on 1A, the investment is worth it.

– Joe Lloyd, Durango