Cut the crap, Durango

To the editor,

I love to hike the mountains and trails in and around Durango with my dog. In fact, don’t all of us? Isn’t that why we love living and recreating in our beautiful Durango? But hiking here has become “soiled” by irresponsible dog owners who hike and bike in our parks and on trails. It has become impossible to avoid the piles and piles of dog poop left behind by folks who don’t clean up after their dogs. The Dog Park, Animas Mountain, Colorado Trail, Dalla Park, to name but a few, are no longer pristine and beautifully scented of pine. They have become mountains of dog poop, caused by the very people who claim to be environmentalists, lovers of nature and sports enthusiasts.

C’mon people ... pick up after your dog and keep our lands, mountains and trails safe, healthy and clean for everyone. Dog feces not only spreads disease, but it pollutes our streams. “Keep it Clean!”

– Susan K. VanDenBerg, Durango

Caucusing for Hillary Clinton

To the editor,

Fellow registered Democrats: Politicians, insiders and outsiders are in full swing. Join the swing with your sensibilities at your March 1 caucus – your last chance to be formally counted for your presidential candidate on the November ballot, hopefully Hillary Clinton. Delight Durango High newspaper editor Seth Marvin-Vanderryn by proving him wrong. I applaud him for writing about our appallingly low voter turnout. (Herald, Feb. 21).

I will caucus for Clinton, an experienced pragmatist, to lead us in tenuous times. Sen. Sanders has been able to stir up his supporters for revolution, but he is not the best one to govern with respect, practiced diplomacy, compromise, and at the same time hold a firm stance in our tumultuous world. Secretary Clinton has decades of broad national and international experience and relationship building. She has a record of reaching across the aisle at home and defeating gridlock. Clinton’s decades of advocacy for children, health-care coverage, equal rights and urgent scientific attention to planetary concerns put her in good standing for a breadth of issues. She has been scrutinized and has stood strong, holding her ground.

Clinton is the candidate to move at an effective, schooled pace for transition as opposed to Sander’s unrealistic revolution, especially if working with a Republican majority in the House and Senate. We couldn’t ask for a more qualified candidate to implement vision, management and progress from the helm – ready to hit the ground running the day she takes office.

Exercise your precious right to caucus, check in at 6:30 p.m. Find your location at www.laplatadems.org. Volunteer to fill the caucus rooms, bring a friend, drive an elderly neighbor. Together we can make history. Let’s prove young Marvin-Vanderryn wrong!

– Kathleen Adams, Durango

Keeping highway funds rolling

To the editor,

Funding Colorado highways – maintaining existing highways and building new ones to satisfy the demand created by more people – and funding capital construction projects and maintaining state institutions like Fort Lewis College and Western State Colorado University have always been among the most important functions of state government. I am running a bill, House Bill 16-1138, which is very important to ensure that the Colorado Department of Transportation and capital projects receive General Fund money promised by Colorado law.

Here is a little background on recent highway and capital construction funding laws. In 2009 the State Legislature passed SB 09-228, which took the place of SB 97-01 and HB 02-1310. HB 1310 guaranteed that excess General Fund reserves be transferred to the Highway Users Tax Fund (HUTF) and the Capital Construction Fund (CCF), two-thirds to highways and one-third to capital construction. Excess General Fund reserve was any money left over after appropriations had been increased by 6 percent. A 4 percent reserve had to be fully funded. Also a payment of 10.355 percent of sales and use tax revenue required by SB 01 had to be made in full to the highway fund. Before 2009, hundreds of millions of dollars were transferred to highways and capital construction. Since the enactment of SB 228, not one dime of money has been transferred from the General Fund to highways and capital construction until this year.

SB 228 repealed the automatic HB 1310 transfer to the capital construction and highway funds and the SB 01 diversion to the highway fund. The bill also changed the year-over-year General Fund appropriation growth limit to equal 5 percent of Colorado personal income. SB 228 requires a five-year block of transfers from the General Fund to the highway and capital funds beginning in FY 2015-16 and continuing through FY 2019-20. The amount to be transferred annually is supposed to be $200 million to the highway fund and $50 million to the capital fund. However, if during any one of these years, there is a TABOR refund, the transfer will be reduced in that year by either half or all, depending on the amount of the refund. This is reasonable since a TABOR refund will reduce the money available in the General Fund.

What my bill, HB 1138, does is that for each state fiscal year that the required transfers are reduced or eliminated, another year of transfers to the capital or highway funds is added. Therefore, there will be five fiscal years with the full statutory transfers to the funds, regardless of the number of fiscal years that it takes to do so.

I believe my bill is reasonable. One would think that highway and construction funding is not a partisan issue, but HB 1138 has been sent to the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee which is known as the kill committee. Our highways and buildings are falling apart, and I will continue to fight for adequate funding.

– Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Ignacio

Sanders can navigate gridlock

To the editor,

Who can get more done in a divided Congress – Clinton or Sanders? Hillary has been part of Bill Clinton’s White House and Obama’s cabinet, and a four-year senator from New York. Half of Congress is already threatening to impeach her, on day one, for as yet undetermined crimes.

Sanders, as an Independent, has had to reach out for more than 20 years to both the conservative and progressive members of Congress to get stuff done. He’s known as the “Amendment King” because he can work as effectively with McCain and Inhofe as he can with Elizabeth Warren. His own conservative state re-elects him repeatedly, most recently with 71 percent of the vote. Who else in Congress has that kind of support, from people like you and me? Sanders has lofty goals, it’s true, and he realizes clearly that he won’t win all his legislative battles. But he will begin the conversation, and continue the hard work of re-establishing America’s middle class.

Democrats, please caucus for Sanders on Super Tuesday, March 1, right here in La Plata County.

– Anne Markward, Durango