Hard-working employees at county clerk’s office deserve more compassion

I was disappointed with a letter about our hard-working Garfield County Clerks: County Clerk’s Office should reconsider hours from Ms. Bowling (May 28 Post Independent). The author is critical that the motor vehicle clerks are closed from noon to 1:30 p.m.  

1. Please keep in mind that all these employees are hardworking public servants.  They are entitled to a lunch break.  
2. The period the clerks are closed is not just for their lunch. Many people mail in their car registration and other documents. There has to be time to process these applications by mail when they are not helping people in person.

Working in the courthouse, albeit not the clerk, I see how busy the motor vehicle clerks are every day. In my experience they are all kind, considerate, polite and industrious. There is truly no great challenge, nor a greater honor to serve the public.  People do so not for personal gain, but because it is the right thing to do. With government employees under attack at both the local and national level I would encourage Ms. Bowling to have a little more compassion and patience, and to schedule around the lunch hour, and thank these dedicated public employees next time she registers her car.

Tony Hershey, Glenwood Springs

Anti-environmental vote threatens future

My U.S. House representative just voted for the most anti-environmental bill in U.S. history. I’m furious, disgusted and horrified by their vote.

Passing this bill will mean higher gas and electricity prices for struggling families and businesses. It will also tank the U.S. manufacturing resurgence, giving China a lead in the race for who wins the clean energy economy. And it will lead to increased pollution for our kids and communities.

I’m deeply concerned about our economy and rising costs. We can’t afford to halt our clean energy progress or give handouts to Big Oil companies to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.

It’s time for Congress to deliver on their commitments to ensure an affordable, clean energy future, not do the bidding of corporate polluters. I urge my representative to protect investments that grow jobs and lower prices, not sell off our public lands and waters damaging our communities.

Our reps need to fight for us.

Ruth Trowbridge, Glenwood Springs

Cuts to research threaten public health

I am a family physician greatly concerned about recent dramatic cuts in medical research. The National Institutes of Health has been the world’s premier public funder of medical research. This has positioned the U.S. as a world leader in medical science, resulting in incredible relief of suffering and countless lives saved. Unfortunately, this changed in 2025. The New York Times calculated that almost 2,500 biomedical grants have been delayed, diminished or eliminated. Funding losses may top $4 billion.

These studies impact the health of Coloradans. Interrupted research prioritizes cures for neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 665 Coloradans died from Parkinson’s disease in 2022. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 91,000 Coloradans suffer from Alzheimer’s, with secondary impacts on 178,000 family caregivers. There have also been sweeping cuts to programs developing cures for brain and colorectal cancers and vaccines for HIV.

Cancellations target grants including words such as “female,” “racial” and “equity,” compromising the health of women and people of color. Programs addressing mental health have been decimated. MedPage Today reports the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is canceling $1 billion in school mental health grants, considering them to violate civil rights. According to the Colorado Health Institute, 16.5% of school-aged children in Colorado suffer from poor mental health and would benefit from these initiatives.

Preventive health has suffered extensive funding losses. A canceled study at Emory was developing drugs to treat viruses such as bird flu and measles. Bird flu has caused widespread outbreaks in poultry and dairy cows in Colorado and begun infecting agricultural workers. Colorado has reported 14 cases of measles so far this year. Massive funding losses for medical research threaten our health.

Contact Rep. Hurd, and Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper to urge them to support medical research.

Maria Yvonne Chansky, Glenwood Springs

No Kings or no clue?

You guys crack me up. Hypocrisy is great to watch when it is played out with such a lack of self-awareness. This No Kings movement is going to be great to see burn bright — and then burn out. They are giving us something so unbelievable you would think it was fiction. But it’s not!

They probably should be called No Clue. This movement, that couldn’t get their quote of the Pledge of Allegiance right in their June 11 PI letters, is here to tell you how President Trump is not Mr. Constitution. All of their AI-generated letters, Dem-fed talking points and hand-wringing will never cover the fact that they are living out the best example of hypocrisy in our lifetimes. These people will be pointed to as the example of collective herd-thinking hypocrites that got swept up and away by an un-stealth socialist movement.

These people, who clutch their pearls now, were perfectly fine with Biden “mandating” to private businesses that their workers take the COVID vaccine or be fired. They turned a blind eye to soldiers and nurses being thrown out of their careers for refusing the vaxx. These people were cool with churches being forced to close and businesses being told they were not essential. These people were unconcerned with you not being able to visit your loved ones in the hospital — some for a last time — because Biden or Fauci said so.

They also didn’t march on the park when Biden ignored the Supreme Court saying he had no authority to impose or extend an eviction moratorium, and then again with forgiving (passing to the taxpayers) student debt, but he did it anyway.

You see, those who are crying the loudest are the ones who walked all over the Constitution for the previous four years. They gave you the closest version of dictatorship that the U.S. has seen in our lifetimes.

So, party on — and thank you for being a living example to our kids and future generations of what hypocrisy looks like in the guise of socialism wearing outrage as a cloak.

Pedro Navaja, Glenwood Springs