Pay As You Throw, half-baked cake

Glenwood Springs’ Pay As You Throw garbage program is not ready for rollout. Currently all housing units of seven and above are exempt from the program. There is a simple owners’ responsibility solution for that. The City can put out a directive the landfill will no longer accept recyclables as trash. Let the owners of the large units figure it out. The same procedure could happen with the downtown restaurants being informed that the landfill no longer accepts foodstuffs except in the composting program. As an example, Aspen is now 100% compliant with restaurants composting and extending the life of the landfill. Rotting food in our landfill is creating a disastrous methane problem that emits environmentally harmful greenhouse gasses, not to mention we are doing that within close proximity to a 1,000-degree coal seam fire. Methane is highly flammable.

The idea that we nodded to adding 90 units a year without any conversation, or valley collaboration about the landfill, the added stress on roads, sewer, schools, grocery, police and fire evacuation plans is what I deem lack of creativity. Nor in my wildest dreams do I imagine the cheap rollout fee will last more than one year, or that the City will keep open, and move the recycling center to where it makes sense by the huge apartment complexes who need it most. Although it can be a good idea, the Pay As You Throw garbage plan is a half-baked cake.

Jennifer Vanian, Glenwood springs

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Press keeps local informed

I would like to thank Ray K. Erku for his coverage (Aug. 28) of the the request for a permit variance by CPX Piceance Holdings LLC (Houston) to the GarCo commissioners and then the COGCC. The proposed drilling would be on the Teepee Park Ranch in the High Priority Wildlife Habitat near Beaver Creek. I did not know that either were scheduled.

I was able to watch the BOCC hearing only because I was notified by a friend.

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Knowing this is an issue of consequence for people living in the Rifle area and also knowing there are strongly held opinions on both sides, it was interesting to me that little public comments pro or con were submitted. The lack of public comment suggests that perhaps a one time notice in the classified of the weekly Rifle Citizen Telegram and signage posted on the road by the requesting oil and gas company may not be an adequate means of informing the public.

Without Mr Erku’s article, given that I am not well-versed in the permitting process, I would not have known about the COGCC hearing on Aug. 30. Apparently the BOCC hearing is an indication that the request is already on the COGCC docket. Furthermore an individual is only notified of COGCC hearings if they have signed up for notification on the COGCC website.

So, again, thank you, Mr. Erku for the article and shining a light on the importance of journalism in general, but especially in rural areas of this state.

Michele Brower, Rifle

Right to know

Thank you, Tony Hershey, for your letter on Sept. 6, 2023. Yes we have a right to know what the council is doing, be it behind closed doors or publicly. The wasted funds will not be given back and now the process will start all over again to find another city manager. This needs to be done correctly and Mr. Jonathan Godes should not try to hide what is going on. I thank any and all persons for their input on this matter. The council is supposed to work for us — not themselves and their own agendas. We do really need accountability here or secrets behind closed doors!

Melvin Gilliam, Glenwood Springs

Book restrictions

There is an easy solution to the problem of explicit material kept out of reach of children and still available to mature audiences, if we are willing to communicate like adults in the room, and compromise like people who care about their neighbor. We can put them on shelves in the back and place a new button on the computer for the shelf in the back.

Most of what I checkout I must order from another branch but mostly from the stacks of colleges or universities. Intellectuals are now an oppressed minority, in our declining empire. The system works well. The book in question is something the readers tend to know about and are seeking them specifically, they do not need to be displayed like the library is a bookstore.

A simple enough solution if we aren’t married to the political agendas the declining empire has festered within both parties to keep our thoughts in shackles, divided and conquered like any old prison yard.

Eric Olander, Carbondale

Standing our ground on books

I don’t like highly-caffeinated soft drinks, and I think they may be harmful to kids. But do I demand that City Market take them off the shelves so that no one has access to them? No, it is not my place. And Mr. Lepkowski and Ms. O’Grady, it is not your place to ban books from the library that you don’t like. You don’t have the right to decide what my grandkids can or cannot read. And Mr. Lepkowski, books about gays don’t “push” kids to be gay, any more than my book Awful Waffles pushes them to be a breakfast food. Thank you, Executive Director Jamie LaRue, for standing strong.

Deborah Williams, Glenwood Springs

Point of the series

My friends and I read the letter to the editor complaining about the Prison School graphic novel series. The writer was from the Rifle area, encouraging people to sign her protest letter and wanting to make it more difficult for teenagers to access these books. She thinks the series is pornographic; I think she hasn’t seen any pornography. But I do get her concern, one we all all share, to raise our children with healthy sexual, gender, social awareness and sensitivity. My friends and I decided to read the books, all of them. I’ve had the chance to read two and get the jist. I will read more.

I endorse the books — I doubt the letter writer read the books; in her letter, she expressed outrage at seeing the book jacket and imagining what was inside. Maybe she flipped through the pages, but she didn’t read the text. A book’s cover is meant to entice a reader to pick it up and try it out. What they find inside may be different than what they expected.

The cover art is of many pubescent males’ erotic fantasy. But the female student portrayed is also evil, she is mean, used by others to do the dirty work, not liked or admired. She is not a positive role model. I imagine there will be redemption, but I haven’t read all the books yet.

The story arc, and lessons learned, are important. The boys and girls learn they are all nervous, curious, embarrassed, similar, achieve better results when they trust each other and work together, and that many adults are not trustworthy. These are good things for teenagers to learn, and if a somewhat titillating graphic graphic novel gets them that education, I’m for it.

An important bit of background — Japanese women have little interest in Japanese men; women don’t want to be thought of as sexual objects, they don’t want a life of baby, child, house work, and filling the needs of an emotionally immature or arrogant man. This is also important information the writer in Rifle probably doesn’t know about.

Susan Rhea, Carbondale