Dear Editors,

As I read Will Sands’ most recent article (or opinion) on Perins Peak State Wildlife Area, I had to admit I was amused. Sands must have had a few beers and a lot of fun taking tongue-in-cheek snipes at the Division of Wildlife.

Unfortunately, the article lacks facts, as entertaining as it might be. Hunters purchased Perins Peak State Wildlife Area and in return they might hunt it for a few weeks (Yes, WEEKS) each year. What nerve! Can you imagine anyone wanting to use what they paid for? After paying thousands of dollars to preserve wildlife habitat, a few hardy men and women actually walk into the woods expressing their natural and cultural inheritance. This isn’t just rhetoric. Petroglyphs and stone point are artifacts of this ancient and natural relationship with nature. A few people still hunt, taking the ultimate responsibility for bringing organic, grass-fed meat home to their families. (In the process, they contribute thousands of dollars and hundreds of jobs to La Plata County. Statewide, hunting adds as much to the economy as the ski industry … without high priced condos, increased demands on water and traffic jams).

Sands would have readers believe that Perins Peak is not a wildlife area at all. I guess that is why the short-sighted Division of Wildlife allows public access after baby birds can fly and summer brings an abundance of green plants, berries and insects for food. They only close the wildlife area to the public (including hunters) during the winter and when birds are nesting. The “poor” elk, deer, mountain lions, black bears, turkey, peregrine falcons and songbirds only have the wildlife area to themselves during critical times of the year.  

Bikers, hikers and others, who didn’t add to the ante, have been given a gift by hunters. Without a single taxpayer dollar, they get to use the west portion of the wildlife area for six months and the east portion for four. It’s not only selfish, but with an air of entitlement that

some trail advocates blame others in their community including trail users, wildlife watchers, hunters and the Division of Wildlife for a lack of interest in another few miles of trail.

– Lyle Willmarth, Bayfield

Up for the punishment

Dear Editors,

“You Must Be a Glutton For Punishment.”

These are the words I most often hear when I tell someone that I am running for a seat on the Durango 9R School Board. The job of school board member is a thankless (and payless) one. But it is vital to the health of a community. Schools can go into a rapid decline in a district that loses the enthusiasm of people about its schools. There is frequent mention in media about problem schools, problem districts and especially inner city school problems.4

So why bother? One thing kept me answering the bell for many years as a teacher in grades K-12. It also got me moving to a reformatory, an inner city public school, and a variety of schools around the Four Corners. That was the “Ahaa” moment. There is no better feeling, not just for a teacher, but for anyone than that moment. Think for a second about when you learned to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. Did your mother or father run along side you guiding the bike? Then the moment of truth! I still remember that I kept asking my dad if he was still holding on as we went down the sidewalk. When his answer was finally “No” I was ecstatic. It was an “Ahaa” moment for me and a teaching moment for him. Knowing that every day might bring another moment like that is what got me on the go in the morning.

Unfortunately, I think, there are not too many such moments for school board members. But it is our job to do the best we can so that the teachers and staff we guide experience them on a regular basis. We have to deal with the good and the bad, just like teachers and others do. But we are at arms’ length from both the triumphs and the failures. Maybe that’s what my friends meant by the expression “Glutton for Punishment.” Distancing yourself from the center of learning means, I think, you need more of those magic moments to compensate for the late night meetings. You need more magic to make up for community tension and problems that seem insoluble. Your distance from “where the rubber meets the road” means you are less likely to see that glow on a youngster’s face. But having been there before I can imagine a lot of good coming out of the punishment I will be a glutton for.

– Joe “Fly ” Goulet, candidate District E, Durango 9R School Board

Ready to move on

Letter to the editors:

Trails 2000 would like to thank the Division of Wildlife, La Plata County and the judicial system for resolving the Dry Gulch Road ownership issue, which has been disputed for numerous years. We believe it is great for the community to have this issue resolved. We honor the decision and respect the DOW’s management of the Perins Peak State Wildlife Area.

- Bill Manning and the Trails 2000 Board of Directors, via e-mail

Business as usual

Dear Editors,

In the last couple weeks, columnists in Denver’s two dailies were quick to counter the suggestion that big oil might be exploiting the Katrina disaster. Most contemptuous of these true believers in the efficacy of corporate rule was theDenver Post’s David Harsanyi. He assured us there is no conspiracy. Even the claim of price “gouging is a myth,” says he. “It’s called making a profit.”

I agree with David Harsanyi on one thing. I don’t think the sudden spike in oil prices is a conspiracy. I think it’s just what CEO-managed America does as its due. It flies the outsized flag of “free markets” as cover for exploitation and fantastic profit making, and woe to him who would dare call it treason.

Here are some facts Mr. Harsanyi might add to his parvenu’s guide to the Ayn Rand primer on economics.

Since George Bush was elected president in 2001, big five oil, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron-Texaco and Conoco-Phillips, has had record profits of $254 billion. This is according to Public Citizen. Since few of us deal in 12-digit, take-home salaries, some reality based comparisons might help us get a grip. These profits are roughly equal to the GDP of Saudi Arabia in 2003, the last year of record in the latest world almanac. They far exceed the annual GDP of most nations, including industrialized countries such as Greece, Norway, Switzerland and Portugal. Exxon-Mobil, the leader of the pack, can brag that their four-year profits of $89 billion equals the GDP of New Zealand in 2003. And this just in, Exxon-Mobil’s latest quarterly profits are reportedly in excess of $10 billion. So, in just one quarter of a year, their profits exceeded by over 150 percent what the state of Colorado collects from taxpayers annually.  

We also learn from Public Citizen’s report that the profits of big oil have risen 79 percent since 1999 when Exxon and Mobil wed. Nobody vetoed that marriage. These startling profit increases could be explained away as the gains in efficiency one gets when an administration that believes in free markets and deregulation is unleashed on a growingly shocked and awed public. The only evidence that it might not be big oil’s management acumen alone is the fact that big oil already has two of its own as president and vice president of this country, and the growing suspicion is that they ain’t the managers they told us they were.  

I think Mr. Harsanyi is also ignorant of the fact that world oil traders have been dumping oil on the U.S. all summer. This is especially true of China, the world’s second largest oil consumer. One could argue that this is being done as an act of friendship and cooperation because we buy so much from them. But such an explanation does not comport with the free-market model. Using that model, we must argue that those ever active and vigilant profit maximizers in China are doing it because dumping oil on the American market is more profitable than making vacuum cleaners with it.

None of the above rises to the level of price fixing Mr. Harsanyi would undoubtedly pipe. But it is reminiscent of the recent Enron situation in California, where we learned that Enron was manipulating the California energy market to increase profits. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush had his Justice Department look into the problem, and his conclusion was that price fixing had not occurred and that Californians were entitled to no refund from his friend “Ken Boy” Lay, the CEO of Enron. 

Indeed, I wonder if the army of free-market true believers, in which Mr. Harsanyi is a foot soldier, would find it unsettling to learn that the price of Halliburton stock has risen 100 percent over the last year. I guess the answer might be that war and devastation are always good business for somebody. “It’s called making a profit.”

– Phil Doe, Citizens Progressive Alliance