Letters: 8/2/18

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The Post is dead

The Denver Post died. Write the epitaph; send the obit (but not to the Post which will charge several $K!) Yes, it’s still convulsing a bit, but it’s gone, dead Jim. Why write this, here?

Because the Post stifles criticism: staffers are muzzled or eased out; only mildly critical letters are published. Same for the Post’s minions under Digital First Media — the Camera, Times-Call, etc. Only an independent (like the Weekly) can give voice to the community on the loss of our newspapers and what to do.

Why now and does it matter? Some folks say we should continue subscribing to keep the Post alive. That doesn’t work. The overlords only intend to milk the paper for as long as people pay; they’ll dump it as soon as it is no longer profitable. That’s how hedge funds work! (No conscience.) So as long as you subscribe to the Post, you’re keeping it on life support when it has no chance to survive. That’s cruel at best.

Understand it in environmental argot: The Post historically occupies an ecological niche, yet it no longer functions in that niche. Let it die out, and some other “species” will come along to fill in. The current Post hierarchy has neither understanding nor technology to evolve into a 21st-century equivalent of a newspaper. So let it go and be replaced, let us hope with some of the Post’s many good (current and recent-former) writers to join a new effort.

Dick Dunn/Hygiene

LWV supports more County Commissioners

Recently, there has been media coverage about a citizens’ initiative that would increase the number of Boulder County Commissioners from three to five. The ballot language would also offer two choices for how those five commissioners would be elected.

Option one is for each of the five commissioners to be a resident of a specific district and be elected only by the voters living in that district. Option two would be for three of the commissioners to be a resident of a specific district and to be elected only by the voters living in that district, and the other two commissioners to be elected at-large by all Boulder County voters. (Currently, the three commissioners are residents of a specific district, but are elected by all Boulder County voters, regardless of which district the voters live in.)

The League of Women Voters of Boulder County (LWVBC) supports increasing the number of County Commissioners from three to five, and the League would support option two.

Five commissioners would broaden the input into complex decisions by our County government and would allow for more voices to be part of the decision-making process when a commissioner is absent. In addition, expanded representation could help reflect the diversity of interests and opinions within the county. By having three commissioners elected by district, voters in each district can choose their own representative. The two commissioners elected at-large could provide a county-wide view on the commission as well.

Looking further into the future, LWVBC would like to see legislation to allow county elections to use a voting method that promotes proportional representation rather than only geographical representation. Meanwhile, LWVBC strongly endorses this issue for the 2018 ballot, whether through petition signatures or by the Boulder County Commissioners referring this to the ballot.

Peggy Leech/President, LWVCB