County cuts need management
Editor:
The recent county order to department heads to make 10 percent cuts per year in response to the closing of the Henderson Mine, which will cause a loss of 70 percent of the county’s property-tax revenue, is a good start.
But 10 percent across-the-board cuts is not real management. It does not set overall priorities on spending or differentiate departments that perform well from those that do not.
It is easier and safer for the county leadership to do this than to dig into the entire county operations and personnel to see what and who should go.
For instance, I have heard that Road and Bridge has twice the people it needs, and cuts of 10 percent a year aren’t going to solve that effectively.
Plus, Road and Bridge also has the political advantage of fear that roads won’t get plowed and potholes won’t get filled, whether valid or not.
Right now I am sure that most people feel any action is better than no action. So the good news is that we have a start on cuts. The bad news is that management is still a problem.
Mike Caistor
Idaho Springs
Challenge to change gun ordinances
Editor:
Sitting quietly at a family gathering at our cabin in Georgetown on Sunday afternoon, the neighbor decides to do some shootin’, alternating between single shots and rapid-fire automatic rifle rounds shot off within 100 feet of us, 125 yards of Interstate 70, and 50 yards from a state highway and a cemetery.
After calling the police, we were informed that according to the local ordinance, as long as the bullets do not leave the property, all is legal.
But what happens when they do? Oops?
The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have guidelines and laws governing where one can shoot on public lands such as not within 150 yards of any road, 100 yards of an occupied dwelling, etc., and bullets can travel a mile or farther unobstructed with the capabilities of causing injury and death.
I am a believer in the right to bear arms, but I also believe in our rights to drive down I-70 without risk of getting shot by a stray bullet.
The solution seems rather simple to me: change the ordinance. Enforce the same rules the Forest Service and BLM use for not shooting within certain distances of public byways.
Yet when I presented this idea to the Clear Creek County commissioners, they didn’t recognize this as a problem. I was told our commissioners would not even consider such limitations and that my efforts will be unsuccessful.
Sounds like a challenge to me that begins with letting the public know.
Martha Herwehe
Georgetown