Fire mop up?

It’s insane that these homeless are allowed to reside in a wildfire area. This is not the first time there has been a fire up there. I guess the city is going to wait until hundreds of acres are burned and property destroyed.

Ken Fry, Glenwood Springs

Which is it?

I really do love seeing prominent local business owners upset over local rent costs because it’s making it hard for them to keep or hire employees. 

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One of these prominent business owners wrote a short letter to the editor in April concerning this subject. So, I must ask, which is it? 

Do local property owners and managers lower costs or do you, the business owner, increase wages to match? Or is it a meet-in-the-middle kind of thing? 

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Wages at this unnamed prominent business owner’s establishments are low and offer zero benefits to most employees such as sick pay, insurance, and/or vacation time. I know it’s never going to change, but I thought I’d throw that out there.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t pay people minimum wage, and state in your mission statement that you “want to be the employer of choice.” 

If only top-level employees can afford to live in Glenwood and work in Glenwood, then you get what you get as far as other employees go.

Steve Poly, Rifle

More desalination plants

Colorado is facing a decades-long drought that has decimated the Colorado River. Millions depend on our river for water. I would urge the building of more desalination plants in California. 

California’s reliance on the Colorado River has become unsustainable. It’s just not feasible to expect Colorado to continue to supply their water. Cutbacks can only go so far. 

California needs to take more responsibility for their water needs. I hear people calling for cutbacks, yet desert communities aren’t draining their private pools, nor are they stopping the water use for unnecessary uses like golf courses. 

I don’t get the luxury of a personal pool because I refuse to waste that water. If people in Colorado have to tell farmers they have to cut back, then California better start to actually cut back. No more pools, no more golf courses, no more water parks. If they want those things, then they can build desalination to provide the water. Our river has been bled dry by their overuse of our resources, and it must stop.

Megan Jewell, Rifle

Slow down on Pitkin

School will be starting soon. Pitkin Avenue in Glenwood Springs is a School Zone from Eighth Street, past Glenwood Elementary School, to the high school at 14th Street. 

Besides school children, many other pedestrians, dog walkers and bicyclists use Pitkin Avenue. The speed limit is 20 miles per hour. Many property owners have placed “Slow Down in Town” signs in their yards. There are mid-crosswalk signs in some (but not all) of the intersections. There are some school zone signs, speed limit signs and a few flashing yellow lights. 

Still, most cars ignore the speed limit, especially in the three-block stretch between 11th and 14th where there are no stop signs. There is also a lot of commercial truck traffic. Large tractor-trailers block intersections trying to make turns to and from the side streets off Pitkin. 

The U.S. Postal Service’s contractor, MTC Logistics, has its noisy trucks running up and down Pitkin many times a day, instead of using Grand Avenue. 

The Washington Post recently quoted a Washington, D.C., council member: “It’s clear that just hoping that drivers will slow down near schools does not work. We need more traffic safety infrastructure like raised crosswalks, curb extensions and speed bumps that actually improve safety.” 

We urge the city to implement more robust traffic calming on Pitkin Avenue. Stop signs and mid-crosswalk flags at intersections would help. Requiring commercial trucks to use Grand Avenue would help. Speed bumps, raised sidewalks and curb extensions would help. More police traffic enforcement would help. Electronic speed signs would help. 

As the new school year begins, and the school buses start rolling, let’s all make an effort to make the school zone safer.

Glenn and Kris Chadwick, Glenwood Springs