The squeaky wheel gets the grease

It is a wonderful mandate that Wal-Mart, Costco, Sam’s Club are instituting finally, after how long? Five months? So, the Wal-Marts in Rifle, and all of them in Grand Junction, and Delta will now enforce the mask rule. I have been to those Walmarts in the last 4 months and they are just terrified to enforce the rule because their customers have threatened their employees and no one is up to confronting these customers. I visited a Wal-Mart in Grand Junction last week and about 90% of the customers were not wearing masks! Seriously, what is it about these towns West of Glenwood Springs that makes them so unaware that we are in a pandemic? I have heard they are worried about their “constitutional rights”, the “overreach of local governments,” etc.

Time for those towns to mandate the wearing of masks for the simple reason of saving our lives; nothing else. The city councils in Rifle, Grand Junction and Delta need to wake up, quit kowtowing to the big mouthed ignorant citizens and do the right thing.  

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The squeaky wheel gets the grease apparently. Coming down from the Mesa this past weekend I went through Cedaredge and saw two large professionally done signs in two different yards declaring that mandating masks is unconstitutional and I am thinking “what?” Ignorance abounds folks. Rifle Westward.  

I will confine my shopping to every store East of New Castle.  

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Unbelieveable.

Steven Gluckman
Glenwood Springs

Let businesses personally decide their own regulations

The statewide order mandating all persons over the age of 10 years old in any public place to wear a face mask in Colorado started July 17.

Decided by Gov. Polis, Colorado was going to wear masks in public 24/7 indefinitely despite the fact the nation’s most trained and experienced leaders haven’t said it is necessary as a federal law.

The Patient Self-Determination Act gives all people the right to make choices and decisions about the types and extent of medical care they want to accept or refuse. We should all be able to make the personal choice on how we handle sickness individually. Based on the CDC and WHO’s recommendations we should be able to choose what we should do to protect ourselves.

If you are high risk it is recommended you stay home and use good hygiene. If you are not high risk, social distancing and facial masks may not be necessary for your immune system.

Taking away the right to choose whether we wear a mask or not is taking away our right to choose our own healthcare decisions. Another law the mask order infringes upon is the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Colorado law states you are allowed to open carry and concealed carry but as almost every law does, that law has regulations you have to follow — one being you cannot wear a facial covering of any kind. Being required to wear a facial covering takes away our right to bear arms in any public place.

For the high risk, our local grocery stores are doing curbside pickup for food and even doctors offices will come to you in your car so you are not exposed.

Let businesses personally decide their own regulations. There is absolutely no reason our rights should be taken away by the government of Colorado. We should have a right to choose what we do, if our businesses open, where we go, when we go, how many people are at our events and if we want to wear a facial covering or not.

Let us have rights again, open everything, let restaurants open at full capacity, open bars and movie theaters, open up weddings and events and take away all mandates so we can live our free lives.

S. Shelby,
New Castle

Children of immigrants!

Have you wondered what has happened to the children who were taken from their parents at the border in 2017, on Trump’s orders? I have, with a heavy heart! How could this have happened? There are 700 children who were separated from their parents and the Trump Administration has not kept track of where they are. This is torture of the worst kind for these children and their parents. This is a long time coming. Since 1994, it has been harder to get into the U.S. of America. This immigration problem didn’t start with Trump, but he has handled it so very cruelly and in an inhumane way.

Scott Lloyd kept a list of these children and there were ‘700 known’ separated children and some as young as three years old. This has never stopped happening. There is no plan to unite these children with their parents, as there was no plan when they were taken from the parents. Is this not typical of this administration? There was no plan to replace the ACA when they wanted to make it illegal, as there is no plan or strategy to fight the coronavirus. There is only confusion and chaos every day for the last four years.

I know folks are curious now to read Mary Trump’s book on Trump and why he is insane and cruel and without a conscience in dealing with these children, as well as the death of over 141,000 Americans thus far. However, if you have time to read Mary Trump’s book, perhaps you will have time to read Jacob Soboroff’s book titled “Separated.”

I’m still praying for some decency, integrity and honesty to come from the White House, but I know this will not happen until we get new leadership. I should say just “leadership,” as we have none at the moment. Please vote this November.

Linda Carr
Eagle

Taxpayers flip bill for Colorado’s energy production

The history of energy production in Western Colorado is filled with disaster and a money pit for taxpayers.

Let’s start at the beginning with coal mines, dozens of lives lost, fires burning deep below the ground releasing thousands of tons of toxic and greenhouse gases each year. Fires that when they surface have caused forest fires resulting in millions of dollars in property damages.

Fast forward to uranium with mills located adjacent to towns, contaminating soil and groundwater, the cost of cleanup to American taxpayers, billions of dollars. As it turns out, it would have been less expensive to relocate the entire town of Rifle. But hey it was good for the economy in western Colorado.

The Rulison project, an inept attempt at “nuclear fracking”, contaminated hundreds of sub-surface acres making the natural gas located there radioactive and unusable. Millions of taxpayer dollars spent in a failed attempt at extracting Western Colorado’s natural resources.

Oil shale — taxpayers dumped an estimated $6 billion into mining this before companies decided that it took more energy to extract it than it was worth. Another boom-bust cycle for the Western states, that left the slopes above the Colorado River scarred for decades to come.

Natural gas — it boomed, it busted, it overproduced. In the long term a handful of employees will continue to be employed maintaining the production and distribution infrastructure. Any new drilling will be based on the market and not by regulations.

The money that the Garfield County Board is using to defend the gas industry from regulations is money intended to clean up the inevitable mess that the gas industry will leave behind. Energy companies have a long history of giving executives bonuses then filing for bankruptcy.

Every industry is subject to regulations, it is a cost of doing business,
The oil and gas industry should pay their own legal bills, not Garfield County.

Marco Diaz,
Redstone

Real enemies are those who let this happen

The Grapes of Wrath recently broadcast on cable begs for comparison today. Those fleeing the Dust Bowl states moved to California in such numbers that the system was overwhelmed by encamped, harassed people looking for work. Fruit growers looking for cheap labor backed by the police took advantage of their numbers and intimidated any who wouldn’t comply. Government camps protected them.

Today people don’t trust the government. It’s thought that the government is like the fruit growers in California and all police are the enemy.
Rioters are committing crimes to goad the police and then complain. It’s irrational. This is upside down. Those who were living in poverty and hand to mouth in the 1930s were harassed for no fault of their own. Today rioters beg to be arrested. They have no end game other than chaos. Big George Floyd would condemn them.

The real enemies are those who let this happen. The rioters are simple opportunists without a parent. Hold those in charge responsible. These are the real enemy, spineless and/or bought off. List their names and list those who’ve died or been injured under their protection. That includes all people and property.

Fred Stewart,
Grand Junction