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Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado

This letter is to inform you that you have been denied for the Grand River Hospital District sliding scale program. The denial is based on the calculation of income, assets and family size.

My income is $1,400 monthly, my assets are well, nothing, and my family size is my dog and me.

I am having a difficult time paying my truck payment, my rent and my credit card bills, and I plan on attending college this fall. I do not qualify for any financial assistance to pay $8,000 in hospital bills? How is this possible?



A good friend of mine’s husband was hospitalized a while back and received around $20,000 in hospital bills. She has a mortgage, two vehicle payments and three kids, and has already been sent to collections because she was unable to pay what “they” thought was a fair amount monthly. She was denied any financial help.

I can’t help but wonder, who is qualifying for help? Not a struggling college student? Not a struggling family?



More than 380,000 babies born in the United States were to parents who are illegal aliens. Those 380,000 babies are automatically U.S. citizens.

The American taxpayer paid for 97.2 percent of all costs incurred from those births. I don’t believe that’s fair.

My tax dollars go to illegal immigrants who are stealing jobs and not paying taxes themselves. Now I’ve joined the average American who owes more than what I make.

I can’t help but wonder when I started to hate the system. I used to have so much faith in it, but now I’m slowly realizing the biggest challenge in life is to attempt to have the least amount of debt possible, and just not worry you’re in debt. I’ve been trying to get ahead for a year, and within a day I’m more behind than ever.

So, I say screw you, America, I may live here, but I don’t believe in you helping out any average broke citizen.

Mariane Maynard

Glenwood Springs

Every day people go to work and do their best to carry out the mission of their company or organization. At the end of the week or month they receive a paycheck for their services.

Fortunately there are also unselfish people who make time to share their experience and talents to make our community and our nation a better place, without the hope or expectation of a paycheck. One such person is Mr. Tom Stuver.

Among his many quiet endeavors, Mr. Stuver is assisting in the all-volunteer project to restore the historic Cayton Ranger Station located along Divide Creek. This cabin was built in 1910 and is the oldest Forest Service ranger station in Colorado, and second oldest in the nation. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

It takes cash to purchase building materials and pay for some of the specialized restoration work required. Mr. Stuver has made time to tell the story of the restoration project and enroll people in making tax-deductible donations. This will become part of a rare and important opportunity to preserve history and create a unique educational, cultural and recreational facility for all to enjoy now and in perpetuity.

Hats off to Mr. Tom Stuver, and those like him in our community!

Alan Lambert, president

Cayton Ranger Station Foundation

Rifle

I read in the paper about the state ban on sugar soft drinks in schools, and Steamboat Springs schools implementing the ban early. I would like to commend the state’s and the school districts’ efforts to reduce the amount of sugar in children’s diets.

I was somewhat dismayed by the Steamboat Springs schools offering Izze carbonated beverages as an alternative. While it’s true Izze beverages do not contain refined sugar, if you look at their list of ingredients, the main ingredients (after carbonated water) is concentrated apple and white grape juices, even in flavors other than apple and grape.

This is a popular practice in food manufacturing. Apple, grape and pear juice are concentrated, then ionized to eliminate color and taste. This process also eliminates vitamins and minerals, and turns them into what is essentially sugar syrup, with no nutritional value and the same risks of obesity and tooth decay as sugar. However, the manufacturers can now tout their products as “100 percent juice” and “no sugar added.” If an item has a concentrated fruit juice listed as a main ingredient, but you cannot taste that fruit, what you’re getting is no better than a sugar-sweetened product. Although this practice is found most frequently in beverage manufacturing, many fruit spreads, baked goods and other sweets contain concentrated fruit juice as a sweetener.

To find the real sugar content in a food, look at the nutrition label. It lists the sugar content from all sources, naturally occurring and otherwise. Five grams of sugar is equivalent to a teaspoon of sugar. Izze beverages contain between 26 and 31 grams of sugar, not much better than a 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola at 39 grams. Compare that to 12 grams of sugar in an 8-ounce serving of skim milk or 24 grams in a serving of pure orange juice. Although the orange juice sugar content is still high, you’re getting the nutrition of an orange with it.

I hope when school districts look for beverages to replace sugary drinks, they will consider the total sugar content and nutritional value.

Ginny Gera

Glenwood Springs

I write this letter because I work hard, work is slow, and I want to keep my job. I work for a trucking company in the oil and gas fields in Colorado and make a good living doing it when the bleeding heart liberals and brain-dead, hypocritical environmentalists let me.

People in this country have forgotten that everything comes from the ground. What do environmentalists and liberals live in? Houses built from trees. What do they drive? Cars built from steel or even a bike built from aluminum. How do they heat their homes? Natural gas, propane or, heaven forbid, wood.

The left in this state, county and country have all gone insane. We are allowing a few individuals in government and people in a few small towns like Aspen and Boulder to ruin and run into the ground our way of life and living.

It’s time for those of us who think with our brains to bring our communities back to good common-sense principles. Not public opinion and definitely not political correctness, which are the greatest evils this country faces.

I know how people are attacked who have my political views. I don’t care. I don’t care about my lack of degrees or letters after my name. I will speak up!

I am grateful to live in a country where it’s the law I can say the things I think, and you can say the things you think even if you are wrong.

Let’s let the people we have elected know they work for us. Let’s let them know gas and oil is how we make our living, and if you are not for the gas and oil industry we will simply vote you out of office and that’s a promise. Let’s let those who are opposed to the gas and oil industry know we outnumber them. Let’s take back our country, communities and jobs!

Michael D. Nash

Rifle

This is in response to a recent letter by 13-year-old Mauricio Nunez Jr., who is opposed to the border fences between the U.S. and Mexico.

He claims we are against the rights of immigrants who want to make better lives for themselves and their families, by supporting this fence.

My question is, if you are an immigrant coming into the U.S. legally, what difference does the fence make?

People aren’t opposed to immigrants who come here legally and pay their taxes, therefore putting money back into an already weakened economy, but coming here illegally and skipping out on taxes and sending your money back to your families in Mexico does nothing to benefit those of us in the U.S. It just continues to weaken our economy.

The only reason to oppose such a fence would be in order to support people coming into this country illegally.

Alicia Peterson

New Castle

Also addressed: Dear Gov. Ritter,

I support what your administration is doing for the state of Colorado.

Be warned, however, you may lose the next election if you do not address some critical problems such as the removal of beetle-killed trees in the state. These trees represent a great resource for both construction timber and energy fuels.

The beetle-kill problem is also setting up a possible catastrophic wildfire, which may happen on your watch. In addition to the possible loss of human life and property, the aluminum power transmission lines which criss-cross the state’s forests will surely melt. This in turn will put the electrical grid system supplying parts of the entire country in grave danger.

I have seen no action from your administration on this issue. If you don’t move on this soon, you may lose to Scott McInnis, who already has a lot of support in Colorado.

Just giving you my perspective on the issue.

Joe Mollica

Glenwood Springs


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