Dear Editor,

“Tens of thousands of Colorado cats, dogs, and other small animals are euthanized each year in Colorado due to overpopulation” notes the Colorado Pet Overpopulation Fund.

The Pet Overpopulation Fund is a charitable fund created by the state to aid shelters, veterinarians and local communities that are working together to curb pet overpopulation and improve pet care. The goal is to entirely eliminate euthanasia of dogs and cats that are a direct result of random breeding.

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So far this year, the Pet Overpopulation Fund has received and reviewed 35 grant applications. Of those, 25 grants have been awarded, totaling more than $200,000 given during the first grant cycle. These gifts have been awarded to undeserved communities statewide to subsidize spay/neuter services and support public education programs throughout Colorado.

Every year over 30,000 animals brought into Colorado shelters never find a home. You can help eliminate the need for animal euthanasia by preventing unwanted pet births by entering a donation to the Pet Overpopulation Fund on this year’s Colorado Income Tax form or by donating directly at any time to: The Pet Overpopulation Fund, 455 Sherman St., Suite 462, Denver, CO 80203.

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The Pet Overpopulation Fund provided the above information to Colorado Animal Rescue, Inc. If you would like more information, please contact the shelter at 970-947-9173.

Sincerely,

Pattye Lacy

and Leslie Rockey

Executive co-directors

and the Board of Directors

Colorado Animal Rescue, Inc.

Glenwood Springs

Dear Editor:

I would like to respond to the letter written by Judy Benham regarding mental health care available in Garfield County. I am a nurse practitioner who has 17 years of experience in the care of clients who experience any one of a broad spectrum of mental illnesses. I have also been employed by community mental health centers in three states, until recently at Colorado West Mental Health Center in Glenwood Springs. I do not know the specifics that Judy refers to in her letter. However, I would like to assure the community that Colorado West Mental Health Center employs a dedicated, caring group of professionals who promote the wellness of all clients who are experiencing emotional difficulties. Clearly, no one is employed there to attain great wealth or prestige. We are employed in mental health because we believe in the resiliency of those clients we work for.

As with many illnesses, those who have a mental illness can (and do) lead productive lives. Sometimes, there are exacerbations that require more intensive treatment, such as hospitalization. Currently, the law favors the rights of the individual client to remain out of the hospital, many times against the desires of the family and/or mental health professionals.

Funding has been so drastically cut that, when we are able to hospitalize someone in an acute crisis, they are often discharged back to our care in a matter of two to three days. I equate this with asking your primary care physician to provide care to you, in your home, on an outpatient basis, while you are having a heart attack.

If you don’t like the law, please get involved. Lobby for change. Ask your congressman/woman to stop the cuts in mental health and substance abuse care.

Garfield County is not isolated in this issue, and it needs to be addressed on a much broader level. Please learn what you can do to support your community mental health center and those who receive services there.

Dena White

Advanced practice nurse

Shawnee, Kan.

Dear Editor,

The problem is not whether we need a south bridge exit from Glenwood Springs. With approvals for increased housing around the airport, up Four Mile and the recent approval of Red Feather Ridge, such an exit is needed more than ever. It’s a matter of where. One possibility is the city could annex, triple the zoning and extend the Urban Growth Boundary to include the Prehm Ranch, cross the river and do the same with the old gravel pit property to return to Highway 82 from an extended Midland Avenue.

The problem is staff knows the city cannot afford to shell out $6 million to $20 million for such a bridge and connecting roads and cannot get state and/or federal funds if the extended Midland has to make the sharp turn around the existing airport, because it could not be used for a relocated Highway 82 or truck route with that sharp of a turn. That therefore creates the need for staff to bring up, every three to five years, an ad hoc committee and/or election to get rid of the airport.

Fortunately Councilmen Dave Merritt and Rick Davis seem to be seeing the agenda by staff, who are now trying to sell the idea that the Midland alternate route, built in the early ’90s, from the Sunlight Bridge to West Glenwood, was just phase one of the overall plan by those City Council approving that alternate route, which is false rhetoric.

All of City Council, who have lived here over 10 years, should understand that voting to close or change the use of the airport property (clearly against the wishes of the majority for the third time now) is a vote for staff to continue its agenda of designing a future bypass on the west side of the Roaring Fork River, through residential neighborhoods – for future councils (through the newly formed DDA and other staff-controlled committees) to approve – while spending $20 million (some city, state and federal) that could have been used on the rail corridor for a true bypass to improve our downtown without ruining another part of our town.

Sincerely,

Larry Beckwith

Glenwood Springs

P.S. Lest I be called biased because our home faces Midland, as a truck route (except for the manhole cover by our driveway) we would be impacted less (noise) on Midland than on the railroad corridor (visual) which we look at.

Dear Editor,

“School/Housing eyed for Airport Land,” (Post Independent Jan. 14). Let us not be fools: With the envelope of new developments, housing, and busing, building an alternative access and exit from Midland Avenue south is clearly indicated.

We need a new bridge and the obvious route is to the south, considering the amount of people, per household, that “commute” that way. Let us also think about what is easy to imagine. Playgrounds, swing sets, bicycles, joggers, strollers, and lots and lots of cars; oh yes, this is already in the works. You can see it from the highway if you don’t live up here. (It’s shocking how quickly Glenwood Park S. went up, isn’t it?)

OK, this is expansion, affordable housing, and real people living in real neighborhoods. But is it safe? As of now, there is only one way to and from home and that is with an elementary school and a special-needs school in-between. Let us also not forget the always difficult merge from Three Mile Road onto Midland Avenue. Plus of course, the big U-turn from Cardiff Glen. Oh yes, there are also the bus stops and a gas station that we can add to these obstacles. Is this really the only way we want to access what is clearly becoming the next “Blue Belt” of Glenwood?

The 27th Street bridge and the narrow 114 Road cannot bear the load as it is, let alone when we add more houses, a high school, more playgrounds, soccer fields, and of course more townhouses. What would we do without those townhouses, the ones that “people can afford” at 250K and up? Give up some water? No sweat.

I have lived here for seven years, and I do suffer from NIMBY. Within reason.

I am totally for development. Yet, I am for the kind of planning that makes sense. The kind of sense we talk about in the grocery store, the hardware store, the golf course, our homes. Preserve some historical value, preserve some space, buy some open space and think about our future. Keep it pretty.

Tourists and prospective land buyers alike are transfixed by our beautiful surroundings, our bounty and loveliness. So are we. Why aren’t we taking care of what we love for the simple reason that we do love it and that is why we are here in the first place? Slow down the F-Stop. Breathe the wonderful fresh air. Take in the absolute majesty. Decide.

Decide that there is the reality of migration. Real Deer. Real Elk. Foxes, coyotes, pocket gophers, cows, horses, our own sense of well-being and safety. We came here to protect, not to destroy. So if you are going to take down the trees, the rock-bearing hills, the open fields, do it with some dignity. Do it with the kind of planning that we, the people, trust.

Thus far, City Council, it seems as if you are only after the tax dollars. You represent indecisiveness, inconsistency and duplicity. Show us the reason we believed in you and voted for you in the first place. Show us that you are willing to listen, make decisions and above all stand up to the developers and big money outfits that want the quick return and fast buck.

Stop hiding behind those banks, the politically correct developers with their scrub-worn collars, good graces in court as well as behind the scenes. We do know who you are, we voted for you but can we trust you? You are putting us all between a rock and a ditch road.

Let us begin with some more truth and less pansy. The Four Mile area is the next development and the last in Glenwood Springs. Be mindful, dear citizens, for it will truly affect us all.

Sincerely,

Hilary Long

Glenwood Springs