A $950 million leap of faith

Re: “Johnston’s early bond issue is a gamble,” August 10 commentary

The Denver Post editorial board, while calling Mayor Mike Johnston’s $950 million bond for about 60 projects plan a “gamble,” nonetheless endorsed it — praising the Denver City Council for doing the “best they could” without offering detailed, line-item examples of why the board does not “love everything on the list,” or where the money will go.

The board admits Denver’s infrastructure is struggling, from undefined external and internal causes, and even suggests the general fund might be a “more prudent” fix. Yet it still backs adding nearly a billion in new debt because it “could bring work and development.”

Only the cost of five of the projects were mentioned: $139 million for repairs to the 6th and 8th Avenue bridges, $2 million for a bike park to be located “somewhere,” $20 million for a “someday” skate park, and $20 million to “begin planning” an American Indian cultural embassy that currently has “few details.” Together, these account for less than 20% of the total. Where is the remaining $769 million going, and is it justified? What specifically does the board not “love,” and why?

Rather than publish these questions — and the answers — the board leans on the mayor’s warning that property taxes will rise if the bond fails, and that older debt will be paid off faster, without explaining why that is a problem.

If the Post truly did its due diligence, it should disclose, along with the Johnston administration and the Denver City Council, the good, the bad, and the questionable impacts of borrowing $950 million. Without that, asking voters to approve it is a leap of faith Denver should not take.

John R. Benitez, Denver

Boomers clap back: It would be a financial burden to give up homes

Re: “Dear Boomers,” Aug. 10 letter to the editor

I read the commentary on the author telling us boomers to move on and give up our houses. I did not get a house until I was 53 years old. It seems like the 30- to 40-year-olds think they are entitled to a house. If they are 30 to 40 years old, their parents are boomers. Move into your parents’ house when you move them to a retirement community, where the rent can be around $5,000 to $7,000 a month.

Melissa Davis, Denver

Am I even reading this right?! You are asking me to sell my beloved home ( below market value, no less! ) because you have decided I don’t need that much space and you want it? The audacity is astonishing! I don’t know how blaming boomers for every challenge in life became a thing, but I am sick and tired of it.

I have had plenty of hardships in my life, including saving enough money to purchase my first home when mortgage rates exceeded 12%. It was a neglected fixer-upper in a sketchy neighborhood. Not my ideal home, and certainly not my ideal neighborhood, but a path to just get into the market and start building equity. A ton of sweat equity was necessary, which consumed most of my weekends.

Condos can still be very affordable, even in tight markets like Denver. There is also no shortage of affordable housing to be found in cities and states that are not trendy or cool. Since you are comfortable asking me to move, I suggest that perhaps you can move to one of those places. You start where you can. Accept the fact that your first home will not be your dream home.

Almost every problem has a solution if you look hard enough. For your own sake, learn how to deal with and navigate adversity. Blaming boomers, while asking for their charity, will not help you achieve your goals.

Maribeth Gruenloh, Littleton

I hear you and I am taking action. As a young woman, I never married and also never made a high salary while working in government (not corporations). I was lucky, however, because buying a home was possible for me due to realistic home prices. Then, the overarching mantra that “no amount of money is ever enough” took over, and home prices soared due in large part to developers building only for the rich, and everyone wanting “extra income” by renting out their second (and third) homes as short-term rentals.

I have acknowledged my extraordinary good fortune in life. It was not my hard work, not brilliant investment decisions; it was good luck based on when I was born. It is with this acknowledgment that I have conveyed my home to our local Community Land Trust (CLT), which provides affordable home ownership to lower-income households. My lovely home in Buena Vista will forever be sold to first-time homeowners at the price I paid for it 10 years ago.

Boomers do not need to leave 100% of their estate to their already grown and successful children; I found my way without a large inheritance from my parents. A portion of any estate is enough.

I believe we boomers are obligated to acknowledge our good fortune in life, and should try to put ourselves in the shoes of young adults today, who have no possibility of ever owning a home of their own, unless their millionaire parents provide for them.

Wendy Hall, Buena Vista

While surely heartfelt and not totally incorrect, the frustrated writer of this letter seems unaware of the bind the current housing situation is putting seniors in. I would love to move out of my home to a smaller place and have a family move into my house. But contrary to what the writer thinks, I still have a mortgage. Many of us do.

It would make zero financial sense for me to trade my home, financed years ago, for a smaller dwelling that would cost more to purchase and much more to finance. There are “senior communities” sprouting up, but they are not necessarily affordable. I have looked; odds are the letter-writer has not. There is nowhere I can go to have the same quality of life that is cheaper than where I am now. If the author finds it, they should go there.

Jennifer Askey, Boulder

Speaking out for the wild horses

Re: “State tries new solution for wild horse problem,” Aug. 10 news story

The article neglected to mention the elephant in the room, i.e., Big Ag’s influence and regulatory capture of the BLM.

This neglect perpetuates the big lie of wild horse overpopulation as justification for the cruelty inflicted during roundups of the horses and their subsequent detention in filthy off-range holding. The story failed to mention the destruction of America’s public lands, again by Big Ag, by their taxpayer-subsidized grazing of livestock, and the scapegoating of wild horses for such destruction.

Big Ag and the BLM depend on our silence and your neglect to sustain the violence they have inflicted on wild horses for decades. Big Ag and the BLM continue to inflict violence on wild horses with the firm intention of driving them to functional extinction, which, by the way, is what darting is meant to achieve!

The history of wild horse advocacy is replete with petitions, legislative attempts, phone calls, legal cases, and neglectful journalism, yet the gathers continue, the shipping to slaughter continues, and the populations are dwindling to unsustainable levels.

I sincerely hope you would consider a follow-up to your article in order to provide more balanced perspective.

Rick Karcich, Centennial

Mainstream media can’t claim principle of “objectivity”

Re: “DoBetterDNVR: anonymous troll or citizen journalist?” Aug. 10 commentary

The irony and hypocrisy of Krista Kafer’s scolding of a social media account’s lack of journalistic integrity is farcical.

She lists the “principles real journalists strive for: transparency, accuracy, and objectivity.” More than 30% of Americans don’t trust mainstream media today. This dreadful number didn’t occur in a vacuum but rather is the logical consequence of the media’s abject failure in all three departments. One needn’t have taken that high school journalism class she references to understand that adherence to those principles would have been counterproductive to its covert agenda: impeding a Trump presidency, something Ms. Kafer is keenly familiar with.

Overlook “transparency” and “accuracy” and still you’re stuck with “objectivity,” and here the media is dumbstruck. It simply can’t claim it with a straight face. It’s hard to hide the hate.

Jon Pitt, Golden

“No parking” adds another cost to Denver residents

Re: “Parking no longer required for new developments,” Aug. 6 news story

All but three of the Denver City Council members once again show they are out of touch with reality. They have now taken away the requirement that builders have to allow for parking spots to go with their projects.

Why do people move to Denver or Colorado? Not to walk around their neighborhoods or take a bus or a train, but to get in their cars and drive to where they can hike, hunt, fish, ski, or even mountain climb.

Now, because of the quest for “affordable” housing, they will be parking their cars in the neighborhoods because the Denver City Council decided there did not need to be adequate parking for the cars these people bring with them. Next, the people in the neighborhoods will be complaining that they have no place to park their cars, so up go the signs, which cost tax money. Then they will have to have someone patrol to make sure that there is no illegal parking, another tax.

With the city about to fall off a cliff financially, one would think they would stop spending money. I suppose many of them agree with the mayor who has a dream that he wants us to pay for. Now they have agreed to put the Big Ugly Bond issue on the ballot. That is another tax. They say it won’t raise our property taxes, but time will tell. It is high time that these tax-and-spend people are voted out and replaced with people who are not always looking to social engineer the population of Denver.

Dennis Lubbers, Littleton

Celebrating another avid book reader

Re: “He read (at least) 3,599 books. Now you can see his list,” Aug. 10 feature story

Your upbeat article caught my eye. My father, William Allen, read 5,811 books over 76 years and passed away at 94. He recorded his first book in January 1933 at 18 years old, a senior in high school. He used three log books over the years to record the title, author, and date completed, and made a note if he read a book a second time.

It is fascinating to watch the evolution of his handwriting and the vast number of subjects he was interested in over the years! Following a brief article for a local California paper, his doctor told him that it had inspired his son to start recording the books he read. That thrilled my dad!

Julie Page, Centennial

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