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Today's Opinions

  • A tax hike by any other name …

    I always make it a practice to ask my Metro State journalism students to explain what a mill levy is, because few things are more central to covering governments than understanding how taxing entities get money from the public.
    Usually, the students look at me as if I’m speaking in an obscure Klingon dialect: A mill? A levy? What are those, and what do they have to do with government funding? These are typically intelligent, well-informed students, and they have not the slightest idea what I’m going on about.

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  • Our Readers Write

    Procedures on prescribed burns, fire bans need to be overhauled
    Editor:
    Notices of prescribed burns are inadequate, with no phone calls and perhaps no online warnings to localities in jeopardy. Very few signs are posted, and not at all major travel routes or neighborhoods, causing many unnecessary calls to local fire departments.
    If residents are properly warned, they can be more attentive to smoke and or possible flare-ups.

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  • Reporter saw the best and worst of Jefferson County

    After a 12-hour day spent making bone grafts in October 2009, I was in a small locker room changing out of a pair of sweat-soaked long-sleeve scrubs. The day, exhausting, had been routine until I sat down on a stainless-steel bench to check the single message on my phone left by the man who is now my editor, Doug Bell.
    Since no one was around to enforce my self-congratulatory inhibitions, I jumped up and did a little dance, a moment to which I happily confess but remain glad no one else had to witness.

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  • Our Readers Write

    Pentagon budget shouldn’t be immune from federal cutbacks
    Editor:
    I noted that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been bragging about cutting the Pentagon budget by $1 billion over 10 years. This is much less than was agreed upon just recently when the president ordered a $1 trillion cut in the budget.

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  • Make your voice heard on wildfires

    Several years ago, when I was still a state legislator, I carried a bill to provide tax breaks for volunteer firefighters to offset the costs of their safety equipment. These volunteers, who are on the front lines of wildfire response in most mountain areas, must often buy their own boots, helmet, jackets and other personal protective equipment. A tax credit would allow more volunteers to serve their communities, helping all citizens in the process.

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  • Our Readers Write

    We need to nullify totalitarian provisions of act
    Dear county commissioners and state legislators:
    Can you please follow the lead of Fremont, El Paso and Weld counties and pass legislation protecting all Coloradans from the new totalitarian provisions of “secret federal arrest and indefinite detention,” which were codified in last year’s bipartisan National Defense Appropriation Act?

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  • I’ll always be a Tim Tebow fan

    Yes, I understand. Peyton Manning is a four-time MVP, a Super Bowl winner, and a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer. He commands a game like nobody else. Even when he’s just at 75 percent, he’s still better than everybody else. And by all accounts, he’s an even better man off the field than on it. It’s great to have him in Denver.
    But I’m still going to miss Tim Tebow.

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  • School board seeks input on budget issues

    While there are many opinions about how we should educate our children in Jefferson County, we can all agree on one underlying principle — we care about our children, and we want the best for them.
    Jeffco schools have struggled over the last three years to manage more than $60 million in state funding cuts without hurting kids. We have reduced costs, closed under-enrolled schools, trimmed staff, streamlined administration and cut compensation.

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