Published 9-28-08
in Longmont Times-Call

DEMOCRATS IGNORE
OWN ETHICS LAPSES

When the Democrats took over the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised ethical purity. Well, Tom Delay (R-Texas) was sacked when he was indicted (not convicted) on charges of violating campaign finance laws, but still sitting is William Jefferson (D-Louisiana), who is under indictment on charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire-fraud, obstruction of justice and money-laundering. He is the chap whose freezer yielded a cool $90,000 in cash.

And now, according to The New York Times, Charles Rangel (D-New York), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee which writes the income tax code, “has earned rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns.” The Times headline read, “Rangel Failed to Report $75,000 in Income.” Pelosi says the Democratic controlled House Ethics Committee “will look into it”--much like they’re looking into Jefferson’s activities, no doubt.

Closer to home, Democratic 4th Congressional District candidate Betsy Markey is having big trouble explaining her involvement in a company that depends heavily on contracts with federal agencies, while at the same time she was serving as an aide to U.S. Senator Ken Salazar. The Denver Post reported, “Markey’s signed financial disclosures list the Maryland-based Syscom among her assets and say she held a director’s position between Jan. 1, 2006 and May 15, 2008. For part of that time she also served as Salazar’s regional director.” The headline over the Rocky Mountain News report read: “Public filings contradict Markey’s words.” To which her campaign staff replied, in effect, that if anything is wrong, it was just an “oversight.” But that’s precisely the excuse Rangel’s high-profile lawyer Lanny Davis is already using.

It makes no sense to me to add another “insider” to Washington. I’m voting for Marilyn Musgrave.
P.

MY FELLOW CITIZENS
BEWARE OF REFERENDUM O

They can’t take that away from us, but they’re trying.

In this context, the “they” refers mostly to public officials whose ox has been gored via the initiative process (as in TABOR), and the “that” identifies our right to petition our state government for whatever reason we see fit, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, securing the winning result in the state Constitution to keep the politicians at bay. Occasionally, the judiciary steps in afterwards and decides what’s “fit,” but mostly keeps its hands off.

Denouncing Colorado as a stomping ground for citizen initiatives, they have floated Referendum O seeking, for one thing, to sharply increase the number of signatures required to put initiated laws on the ballot. They want to fix it so that only the special interest groups (think tanks, unions, 501s) will be able to file initiatives because they will have the money and power to organize petition drives to collect signatures, no matter the number. If the news media want to promote participatory democracy, then disempowering the grassroots is not the way to go.

So they throw us a bone called “initiated statutes” which are good for five years. What a sham. They must be kidding.

Long ballot? County officials can speed up voting by setting up more polling places. People who intend to continue governing themselves must take the time to do so.
P.

Letter published in
the Rocky Mountain News
August 27, 2008

MUSGRAVE IS RIGHT

ABOUT DRILLING
      Judging from the initial flood of letters to the editor aimed at unseating 4th District Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, maybe the attacks by her adversaries will rise above the sewer this time around proving they are indeed intelligent enough to engage in rhetoric without using dog excrement for emphasis. Let’s hope so.
      Musgrave is on the right side of the oil-drilling issue and a separate poll shows 67 percent of Coloradans agree. But that probably won’t stop Colorado’s liberal cabal of the two Salazars, Udall, DeGette and Ritter from trying to stifle all of our state’s fossil fuel development to please their special-interest groups who have taken over the government, while we ordinary citizens and the state’s economy are second thoughts.
      As for Musgrave’s new opponent, she may or may not be qualified. What is relevant is that it makes no sense to seat more Democrats in a Congress whose crowning achievement during its two-year term was proposing over 1,900 resolutions. That shows you how much they care about the price of gasoline.
      No wonder Musgrave and her fellow Republicans were unable to summon Speaker Pelosi back from her vacation so the House could consider relaxing oil-drilling restrictions to smooth the transition between oil and yet-to-be developed energy.

      Acting on all of those resolutions had simply worn her out.
      I’m voting for Musgrave.
P.

Letter published in

The Denver Post

8-02-08

BEWARE OF THE EFFECTS

OF A FEDERAL SHIELD LAW

     Your 7-26-08 editorial “Federal shield law necessary” wrongly promotes the idea that all newspapers deserve special protection when choosing which government secrets to keep or print. Too many indulge in biased politics to be trusted, e.g., The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

     As a longtime newsperson I say, beware of a Beltway shield law -- for whatever privilege Congress bestows, it can license, regulate, tweak, or use as a weapon. Requesting a federal shield law to protect a reportorial practice that the watchdogs themselves are no longer willing to defend on principle (by going to jail if necessary) does not speak well of a fearless free press, and it sends the wrong message to the public.
     The First Amendment specifically protects the press from government interference. The legal profession received no similar mention in the Constitution, yet lawyers are free to enjoy attorney-client secrecy as they go about their work — but not reporters?
     Colorado has a fairly good shield law, but unlike the First Amendment, it must include caveats, one of which is that a newsperson does not have to disclose a source “unless the information cannot reasonably be obtained by any other means.” New York Times reporter Judith Miller of Libby-trial fame arguably could not have been saved from jail under Colorado’s shield law either.

P.

Letter published in

Longmont Times-Call, 8-1-08

MALL NEEDS GROCER,

GROCER NEEDS MALL

        With all due respect to those in the public and private sectors who deal closely with Longmont’s planning and economic development, it seems to me that two headlines on the front page of the 7-24-08 Times-Call reflect a possibly missed opportunity. One announced the “complicated” mall plan being put on hold; the other, “Natural grocer eyeing Hover.” Why can’t they get together?
       From a planning standpoint, the mall needs a natural foods outlet to attract shoppers, and the grocer needs the mall traffic. It looks like a winner—for the grocer, the mall owner, and the city treasury.
      Of course, the grocer is free to settle on the announced Hover site. But a far-better accommodation of vehicular traffic than what is currently available along there will have to be made because of the poor access to and from Hover Street. Mitigate traffic, join the mall lineup.
       Also, I wish whoever is riding the TIF horse around town would dismount and send that critter out to pasture because Tax Increment Financing—although legal—is unfair to the taxpayers. A legacy of LBJ’s “Great Society,” TIF allows public money (taxes) to be diverted to help pay for privately owned urban renewal projects.
      Talk of using TIF to help pay for renovating the mall has calmed a bit, but I see where the Longmont Downtown Development Authority is now toying with the idea of using Tax Increment Financing to start a façade improvement program. Naturally, the same question regarding TIF arises: who makes up for the tax money that will be diverted from the city of Longmont into this program until it is finished? In times of budget shortfall, the city may have trouble replacing diverted TIF revenues and the choices are limited: increase other fees and-or taxes, cut programs, or both.

P.

Letter to Longmont Times-Call
Published 7-15-08

MEDIA BIASED, GULLIBLE

     “Woman ticketed outside McCain event.” (T-C p. A5, 7-9-08). So went the blazing headline over another non-news story carried by most of the gullible media describing the “terrible abuse” political activists may be subjected to when their disruptive acts are noticed, they refuse to cooperate, and are turned away or arrested—as they should be. This time it was liberal activist Carol Kreck, an ex-newspaper reporter, who got caught trying to bring a “McCain=Bush” sign into a McCain meeting, where all signs had been declared off-limits beforehand. (Try taking an Obama=Carter sign into the Pepsi Center during the Democratic National Convention and see how far your First Amendment rights go.)

     This latest act is almost a carbon copy of a put-up job carried out against President Bush in 2005 by three Denver-area liberal activists who attempted to disrupt one of his rare meetings in Colorado and got caught on their way in. Some in the media sympathized with them for weeks afterward, and their lawsuit as far as I know still drags on, clogging-up an already overloaded judicial system.
     Talk about a biased media, Bob Schaffer who is running for the U.S. Senate certainly has his work cut out for him, as attempts are being made in news reports to envision him as some sort of a criminal for having been employed in the oil industry. We all cannot make a living arranging pack trips into the wilderness, tramping over the tundra. Some of us have to work at real jobs.
P.

SOME FLIP-FLOPPING IN LONGMONT
     In national politics it’s called flip-flopping. I don’t know how else to describe Longmont mayor pro-tem Karen Benker’s change of attitude toward the tax issues that surrounded the proposed LifeBridge Church annexation, and now her eagerness to divert city tax revenues into renovating a shopping mall—of all things. On one hand, she used to worry that the church-area’s proposed retail businesses might escape from paying their fair share of taxes into the city treasury (an unfounded fear), but now she apparently has no problem with supporting the Tax Increment Financing gimmick that would allow the mall owner to tap into the city’s tax revenue stream to help pay for renovating his property. Are we Longmont taxpayers to believe that this TIF money which won’t be flowing into the city treasury will never be missed?
     The questions seem endless and the investment of public money brings them into sharper focus. Under TIF, will the mall feature a new anchor store and if so, who will it be? Why did perfectly good stores such as Penney’s and Woodley’s leave Twin Peaks? They moved into other commercial areas (created without TIF subsidies, by the way) and are still generating tax revenues for our city.   How fair is it to these stores and all the other non-TIF businesses around town, to see a TIF-subsidized shopping mall bringing in competing stores?
     Leave the TIF subsidy out of the equation. Encourage the mall owner to bring in whatever mix of boutiques, major and minor outlets, cinema rooms, food stations and whatever else that is appropriate and he can afford, on his own terms.
     That’s the fair way.
P.

FIRE THE CRITIC!

     One would think that, if a newspaper were serious about self-examining its content and performance, it would look to someone with hard newspaper experience to serve as ombudsman--the longer and more diversified background in that field, the better. Just because someone writes well and calls himself or herself a journalist, or is knowledgeable in other subjects such as legal matters or public relations, that does not automatically qualify one to be an authority on newspapers.
     But that’s what we readers of the press are presently stuck with in the current version of the ombudsman column published weekly in the Rocky Mountain News. Titled On the Media, an expert on legal issues represents the conservative side of the political spectrum on one Saturday; an expert in public relations champions the liberal side the next Saturday. As far as I know, neither has had any on-the-job experience in the newspaper field.
     To its credit, after the Joint Operating Agreement with The Denver Post went into effect in 2002, the Rocky has tried to maintain a weekly ombudsman-type column. Carried over from the Post and devoted not only to critique its own news content but that of the Post and occasionally Denver’s electronic media as well, the column was fairly interesting for a while. But it wasn’t long until journalism professor Michael Tracey of the University of Colorado got hold of it and turned it into a liberal festival.
    The Rocky let Tracey go and brought in public relations whiz Jason Salzman to represent the liberal side. Salzman’s lack of newspaper experience is telling. He suggests in his latest column (7/5/08) that, since a potty-mouth word or two has slipped through, the Rocky should relax its moral standards and start printing more of the late George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.
    Like Lenny Bruce's vulgarisms, there’s a time and place for the regular use of these “fringe words.” But it’s not in a family newspaper that’s welcomed into one’s home.
P.