March 2010

Whenever you hear a politician calling for more "affordable housing," grab for your wallet, because the way most affordable housing schemes work is driving up costs for someone else (builders, landlords or taxpayers, usually) in order to lower the burden on the intended beneficiary. The "affordability" is rarely achieved by actually reducing the cost of housing, but most often comes from shifting the costs onto someone else -- the homebuyer who pays a hidden premium, for instance, in order to cover losses the home's builder incurs trying to meet local affordable housing mandates. It's a cost-shifting scheme, plain and simple, which may actually drive up the overall cost of housing for the majority, while lowering costs for a privileged minority.

So next time you hear a politico prattling on about affordable housing, don't forget to ask the question: "Affordable" for whom? Who will pay more so someone else can pay less?

I'm glad The Gazette finally got around to doing the profile of Mike Miles he so richly deserves. The Harrison School District superintendent has done remarkable work in the past 3 years, turning a once-troubled system around, and the list of his accomplishments keeps growing. The Gazette ticked-off some of the most obvious:

The district cites these achievements during Miles’ three years as CEO:

• District removed from state academic probation

• Improved test scores

• Increased teacher contact days

• More professional development for teachers

• More after-school learning activities

• Expanded programs for diverse learners

• Early recruitment program with UCCS for teacher candidates

• Creation of the only public year-round school in the area

• Creation of a Year 2020 curriculum in information literacy, economics, critical thinking, Chinese, math and science reasoning

The only problem with Mike Miles is that there's only one of him to go around. I wish we could clone the man and put the clones in charge of other area school districts, starting with D-11. But then you would also need school boards that have the political courage to support real reform and demand real improvement. That's also been a key to Miles' success.

Talk is cheap, as they say -- and that's particularly true when the talk is about school reform. But Miles has demonstrated that he's the real deal. He deserves every drop of ink The Gazette spent on him.

Is anyone else alarmed by the Obama administration's insane new policy of treating bicycles and cars equally, in terms of funding priorities? "“This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized,” Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood recently announced. Read the rest of the story in The New York Times.

But hey, wait a minute -- look a what riding bikes and pulling rickshaws did for the Chinese economy! Maybe the Obamatons are onto something.

It's interesting to note that while the underdeveloped world is moving toward the American model, in its search for opportunity and prosperity, Americans seem to be embracing a Third World model. While Chinese and Indians are trading in their bikes for cars, Americans are urged to trade in their cars for bikes. While the Third World's teeming masses are striving to free themselves from overcrowded cities, served by sardine-style transportation systems, America's social engineers are dead set on pushing suburbanites back into the urban core, and cram them, cheek to jowl, on sardine-style transit systems. They hunger for what we Americans have, while we take it so much for granted that we seem willing to throw it away.

These are strange and scary times in which to be an American.

Americans take reliable and affordable energy so much for granted that they've developed a sort of stupid contempt for the companies and people who provide it to them. They must think their homes are electrified and heated by magic, given the disdain they show for coal mines, drilling rigs, power plants, nuclear reactors, transmission towers and pipelines, and judging from the vilification they heap on the evil energy companies, which are portrayed as the murderers of Mother Nature.

One demonstration of that contempt comes Saturday, with the annual celebration of "Earth Hour," when "millions of people around the world" will turn off their lights for one hour in order "to make their stand against climate change." Energy use = global catastrophe: that's the dangerously simplistic equation touted by the dim bulbs who thought up Earth Hour. The only way we can "save the planet" is by turning out the lights, parking our cars and crawling back to the dank caves from whence we came, much to the planet's misfortune.

Light has always been synonymous with civilization. It was long believed to be a friend to humankind (thank you, Prometheus). Earth Hour turns it into the enemy of the planet.

Energy providers take this abuse in stride: they've been so badgered into submission by the eco-Luddites that they can barely rise to their own defense. They seem apologetic and ashamed -- some probably even sponsor Earth Hour events and distribute pro-Earth Hour propaganda, in an effort to placate their implacable critics. But I have a proposal that might help them turn public perceptions around.

I propose a counter-event called "Energy Hour," which would also occur once a year, but at a randomly-selected time. All at once, on cue, all the world's energy providers would suspend operations for an hour (maybe longer if you really want to make things interesting), plunging the planet into darkness, cold and immobility. The lights would go off. The computers would stop. Electric appliances would not work. Gas tanks would run dry. Streets would be gridlocked. Apprehension and uncertainly would grip most of the industrialized world, as the people waited anxiously for the light to return.

Maybe the worldwide standstill that would result -- maybe the disruptions, the danger, the discomfort and the desperation that would occur, if civilization were for even an hour "off the grid" -- would remind disconnected moderns of the debt they owe to energy providers. Maybe they'll understand, once again, that electricity doesn't come from light switches, and that without drilling rigs, their cars become inanimate object. It probably won't take more than one or two Energy Hours before the Earth Hour movement loses its mojo, and before people take a more rational, balanced and appreciative view of the energy industry. Maybe we'll see a halt to the regulatory warfare waged against energy providers. Maybe we'll get a national energy policy based on realism, not pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams.

Happy "Energy Hour," everyone! Take a moment this weekend to savor all the comforts, conveniences and benefits that come from living in our gloriously energy-dependent society.

If you think Americans are angry now about being force-fed ObamaCare, just wait until all the hidden provisions in the phone book-sized bill begin tumbling out into the light. The tanning tax at least was known about. Some Americans may have heard rumors about the federal takeover of student loan programs which was also tucked away in the bill. But with so much that can be hidden in so much fine print, there undoubtedly will be many, many more revelations to come.

In the first of those, The Los Angeles Times today explains how ObamaCare menu display mandates will go national, trumping local and state laws.

We're told that all this is supposed to be good for us -- like taking a double dose of castor oil. But it's already leading to erratic spikes in my blood pressure.

Kudos to Colorado Attorney General John Suthers for announcing that he'll join with a number of other states in suing to block ObamaCare health coverage mandates. But where's that fighting spirit when it comes to defending Colorado's right to go its own way on medical marijuana legalization?

The voters of Colorado ten years ago approved partial legalization, for medical purposes, but the federal Drug Enforcement Administration is still raiding dispensaries and grow operations in the state, superimposing federal drug control laws on Coloradans, without a peep of protest from Suthers. It appears the AG's stance on states' rights is selective and situational -- "political" instead of principled. If it's a federal encroachment he personally or politically opposes, he'll fight it. But when it comes to the medicinal use of marijuana, a state-sanctioned activity Suthers personally opposes, the feds are free to run roughshod over Colorado.

Republicans could be on the vanguard of the neo-federalist revival taking place in some parts of the country, as the revulsion to what's happening in Washington grows. But in order to have any credibility on the issue, party leaders will have to show more consistency and determination than they have been, in applying these principles. The true test of credibility isn't in evoking states' rights selectively, when it's the politically popular thing to do, as with ObamaCare. Credibility comes from taking such stands when the issue at hand is politically controversial, even within one's own party, as with Cannabis-Care.

How about a little more consistency, Mr. Attorney General?

Investigative reporting has come a long way -- a long way down -- since the Watergate era. But today’s ink-stained sleuths have found one sure way to generate a scandalous scoop -- sending an undercover reporter out to score some medical marijuana.

I thought just about every paper in Colorado had done this story by now. It's become a cliche. But last week it was The Pueblo Chieftain’s turn. The reporter was dispatched to Colorado Springs in search of the story, since the Steel City has a temporary ban on dispensaries and the writer supposedly feared that her cover would be blown if she tried to infiltrate those operating in Pueblo West.

So what did the reporter find? She found what most other reporters have: that it’s not hard to get a medical marijuana “red card” if one follows the path of least resistance and searches out a less scrupulous provider. The reporter could have sought a referral from doctors who won’t see younger patients and weren’t available to make on-the-spot assessments. But what kind of story would that make? She instead struck “pay dirt” (in her own words) by chancing upon a dispensary that seems, from her description, to operate in a less above-board fashion.

The full account of her medical marijuana hunting “expedition” can be read here. It’s a decent piece of reporting, which ought to make many in the industry cringe. But I’m not sure any of it is “news.”

Reporters (and would-be MMJ patients) searching out fly-by-night dispensaries can find them. But the reverse is also true: bona fide patients can go to more credible doctors, and better caregivers, if they choose to. The existence of less-reputable dispensaries isn’t a reason to discredit all dispensaries, any more than the existence of prescription drug abuse and medical malpractice should discredit all prescription drugs, or the doctors who prescribe them. A sidebar piece profiles several doctors who make MMJ referrals. Both acknowledge that some of the people they see might be pulling a fast one. But that's not unheard of in the medical field at large. I have a good friend who is doing prison time, stemming from an addiction to prescription pain killers that spun out of control. He received most of his supply from legitimate doctors, responding, in good faith, to his seemingly endless variety of maladies and complaints.

It’s a little Wild West out there at the moment, no doubt. Good dispensary owners are vying with not-so-good ones for patients, some of which may be less-than-honest. But that’s why we need to hurry-up and get some standards in place at the state and local level. I don’t support the “just say no” approach some cities (including Pueblo) have taken, because medical marijuana use has been legal in the state for 10 years and I think it’s time we dealt with it. The sooner we deal with it -- the sooner we bring the industry out of the shadows and into the light -- the sooner we’ll be able to curb any abuses of the law that are taking place.

That's why Tom Gallagher and I have repeatedly asked for expedited action on the draft medical marijuana ordinance now before the city. Delaying action, or refusing to act, will only prolong the Wild West situation and allow the number of bad actors to grow.

You know you're getting old, and out of shape, when you're sore the day after a few dozen trips into a dunk tank.

I want to thank all those who came out to the WestSide Center yesterday for the Sunflower Festival and dunk tank fundraiser. I was sort of dreading it -- squeezing into my 20-year-old wet suit reminded me that I might be getting a little long in the tooth for such antics. But after the initial plunge -- which delivered enough force to knock off my Elvis wig and sunglasses -- it really was fun. Fellow dunkee Tom Gallagher was a really good sport about the whole thing, seeing as how the tank was full of Elvis debris, and many of the news cameras had vanished, by the time he took the plunge. It was also about that time that the dunk tank mysteriously began malfunctioning, with just about every ball dropping Gallagher in the water.

Barry Noreen showed he still has a pretty good arm . . . . for an old guy. Dave Hughes does too, even though his accuracy could use some work. If Hughes could throw as fast as he can talk I would have been in really big trouble. Bensberg can still bring the heat. Dave Gardner's style was a little unconventional, even when he threw overhand. And who the heck was that kid in camouflage? Sign him up, Rockies.

Not sure how much money we raised, but the larger purpose was drawing attention to the partnership efforts that will be evaluated by City Council next week, as the April 1 deadline looms. I think we'll hear of some success stories, despite a short, 3-month window in which to change the operating model and do things differently. I've been amazed and encouraged by the creativity and initiative that we've seen from both city staff and grassroots organizers. It's part of what makes this city tick -- the willingness of average citizens to step up and take the initiative when circumstances demand it.

Thanks again, everyone, for being part of the Sunflower Festival. I hope it becomes an annual event. I might still have a few good years of dunking left in me, after all.

Gazette columnist Barry Noreen returned to one of his favorite topics today, the long-awaited opening of the South Slope of Pikes Peak to hiking and recreation, and to one of his favorite themes -- that Colorado Springs Utilities hasn't been fast enough in flinging open the watershed gates. But I think his sniping in this case missed the mark.

My impression is that CSU isn't moving forward with the Ring the Peak trail not because it is obstinate or obstructionist, but because the landlord next door, the U.S. Forest Service, refuses to cooperate, due to the supposed environmental "sensitivity" of the area through which it would run. This fact is completely missing from Barry's piece. The omission is glaring, since it's been noted several times in the paper's news coverage:

"Despite pleas from Ring the Peak advocates and the Trails and Open Space Coalition, Utilities does not plan a route to connect the two new trails, because the terrain is rugged and there is concern about impacts to a bighorn sheep herd in the area. The U.S. Forest Service shares the concern, and has denied a request to build a connecting trail to the west of the watershed because of the sheep."

If Barry wants to take his frustrations out on someone, why not on the Forest Service, an agency that has a strong obstructionist streak of its own, as folks in Crested Butte just learned? Why not direct a little of the wrath toward Brent Botts, district ranger for the Pike National Forest, who arrogantly refuses to even conduct an environmental assessment of the proposal, or to consider the possibility of seasonal closures on the trail, based on his slam-dunk assessment that bighorn sheep would be impacted? Botts seems to be the obstructionist in this case (as a quick read of this Gazette story makes clear), not CSU. Why should the utility build a trail in the watershed that dead-ends at the national forest boundary?

I'm as enthusiastic as Barry is about the opening of the South Slope, and as disappointed as many are that Ring the Peak won't be a part of that plan (at least for now), but I won't be supporting any use of ratepayer dollars to add infrastructure and operate what will soon become, in essence, a park. I don't think CSU should be in the recreation business, or that this would be an appropriate use of ratepayer dollars. I support initial CSU funding for design work, since its first responsibility is designing something that safeguards the watershed, but beyond that, I believe the construction, maintenance, monitoring and policing should be privately funded, or supported by the collection of fees. I suggested Wednesday that a private concessionaire be used to do all this, in order to minimize the headaches for CSU executives and staff.

The South Slope is at long last going to be open. But that's only half the battle. Those who make use of the new amenity, and those who fought so hard to open it to the public, now have to step up and ensure that it doesn't become a huge headache for CSU or a drain on CSU resources. They can now enjoy the property, but they aren't entitled to have their activities or enjoyment subsidized by ratepayers. I expect that they'll get their first donation check from Barry Noreen.

By now it's become an annual winter ritual, as predictable as the bears going into hibernation -- I'm talking, of course, about the never-ending battle over snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park. The forces of recreational-correctness want the machines incrementally banned, claiming they disturb the serenity, while the gateway towns that rely on winter tourists argue that capping the number of machines is capricious, unsupported by science and bad for the bottom line. So the arguments go, year after year, with snowmobile limits rising or falling (mostly the latter) depending on the most recent Park Service mandate or judge's ruling.

But perhaps there's a common sense solution that's been out there all along -- one that should have been considered years ago. Why not just plow the most popular routes during winter, allowing motorized access? It's an option many locals want the Park Service to seriously consider, as it begins drafting a new winter travel plan. Cars and SUVs are cleaner-burning than snowmobiles. They don't seem to disturb wildlife, judging from the roadside animal-watching that goes on in summer months. And the Park Service already plows an access road from the park’s north entrance.

Sounds like a sensible solution, all in all -- which is why it will probably be rejected by the public lands exclusionists, who will use any rationalization, no matter how flimsy, to limit public access to "public land." Just because they can say "no" they will say "no." And they'll probably say "no" to this idea too. It's what separates the zealots from the reasonable people.

Mike Rosen has an interesting column in today's Denver Post, which shines a welcome light on the economic underpinnings of the environmental movement.

Perhaps those who still believe it's all about bunnies and butterflies will see things differently when they come to recognize the strong anti-capitalist, anti-free market, anti-property rights, anti-consumer choice strains that infuse the ideology. Eco-economics isn't often talked about, explicitly (for fear, no doubt, of making skeptics of those who still laugh-off environmentalists as harmless granola-crunchers), so it's useful to see a few of the proponents lay their cards on the table and make the agenda explicit.

Anti-capitalism can be found in almost every strand of the movement's DNA (think of Edward Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang), but the shift toward eco-socialism became more pronounced after the fall of the Soviet Union, when hard-core collectivists, left out in the cold, so to speak, began searching for a new, more politically-fashionable home to inhabit. They were warmly received by the movement, which already saw prosperity, consumer choice, development, property rights and the market economy as threats to the planet.

Thus appeared the so-called "watermelon" -- snide shorthand for someone who is green on the outside and red on the inside. It's good to see the watermelons come tumbling out of the closet, so average Americans can see that there's much more to this movement than cleaning waterways and saving trees.

Defeatism seems to have become the consensus strategy for dealing with the beetle blight sweeping across Colorado -- a slow-motion economic and environmental catastrophe that will haunt the state for decades to come. But mounting a defense isn't as hopeless as some would have us believe, as the battle of save Aspen's Smuggler Mountain shows.

The methods used to slow the blight there -- a combination of removing diseased stands and inoculating healthy stands against the scourge, using spray treatments -- wouldn't be easy or cheap to employ on a scale large enough to save every healthy forest in Colorado. But the experiment at Smuggler Mountain is a rebuke to all who argue that there's no way to mount a defense and that we shouldn't even try. (The Do-Nothing School of forest management is typified by CSU Professor Barry Noon, who counsels against fighting the beetle blight in so-called roadless areas, so that these supposedly pristine areas can become moonscapes in peace, undisturbed by the dreaded chainsaw).

It shows that the biggest obstacle to a counter-offensive isn't a lack of technology or know-how, but the red tape that binds federal land agencies and the controversies that inevitably erupt whenever the felling of trees is involved. What's holding back the counter-attack isn't science, or even money -- since Washington seems willing to spend at record rates on almost any activity linked to economic development. The biggest hurdle is bureaucracy and environmental politics -- and the unwillingness of eco-crats and politicians to take on the zero-cut crowd, which would rather see forests die and burn than see a sawmill or logger operating in the United States.

Two potential solutions have sprung-up in response to the city bureaucracy's decision to pull trash cans out of parks in a cost-cutting move. Both show admirable out-of-the-box thinking. But one may be slightly too out-of-the-box for my tastes.

Before we turn our parks into a battleground for political propaganda, as per Wayne Laugesen's proposal, I would like to see Steve Immel's "Proud of our Parks" effort taken as far as it can go. While I would support private companies and entities adopting trash cans, and getting credit for this with subtle logo display or signage, I'm not as comfortable turning park trash cans into political billboards, for PETA or any other group. If we can get the job done through citizen initiative, that's the better way to go.

Steve Immel's initiative is emblematic of a citizens-take-charge attitude that sets Colorado Springs apart from so many other cities, where it's The Government Way or no way at all. If the government can't do something in Colorado Springs, the city doesn't stop functioning, because the non-governmental sector, consisting of average citizens and non-profit groups, steps in to fill the void. I was again reminded of this Saturday evening, at a fundraising gala for Catholic Charities.

The Antlers Hilton ballroom was packed -- I think there must have been 600 people there. The bidding was generous. And even when all the auction items were gone, people were still raising their paddles, just to donate, without the need for a tangible reward. Maybe if times were good, fewer tickets would have been sold. But times aren't good -- so donors turned out in force. That's just the way we roll in Colorado Springs.

So many people confuse a city with city government, when a city is so much more than the bureaucracy at the core. Contraction of the bureaucracy, and the elimination of some services it provides, can result in hardship and challenges, at the margins. But it's far from the end of the world -- or end of the city -- when you have do-it-themselves citizens (ala Steve Immel) and strong non-governmental groups ready to fill the void. In many cities, finding shelter for homeless camp displacees would primarily have been the responsibility of local government. We're doing it here with private groups and private funding.

Locals seem to understand that keeping the size of government in check means that the non-governmental sector has to be active, strong and well-funded: perhaps that's why Colorado Springs has such high rates of volunteerism and philanthropic giving. We don't look first to the public sector for solutions to every problem, if private sector solutions are available. It's what we at LLA call the "Colorado Springs model." And it's part of what will help the city survive this financial crunch and come out stronger on the other end.

Learn more about the "Proud of our Parks" effort by following this link.

Some people say I'm all wet.

Others tell me to go soak my head.

And now my many critics (along with my malicious friends) have the opportunity they've been waiting for to make it all come true, and have me right where they want me -- sitting on a board, suspended over a tank of icy water, at the mercy of an accurately-thrown softball. It might be worth the price of participation -- $1 dollar for three tosses -- just to see me get my hair messed-up, according to the Indy's J. Adrian Stanley, who wrote it up as follows:

"Very soon, Springs residents will get the opportunity to punish city leaders without going to the polls.

Councilors Tom Gallagher and Sean Paige are putting themselves at your mercy in the "Dunk your Councilman" contest. Tickets: $1 for three tries. Messing up Paige's perfectly coifed hair: priceless.

The event is being held at Westside Community Center, at 1628 W. Bijou St., and is a part of the "Spring Sunflower Festival," which is being held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 20.

The festival was organized to celebrate spring while also bringing attention to the plight of community centers, which are scheduled to be closed by the city March 31 due to budget woes. All the money raised at the festival will go to the Save Our Community Centers Fund and the West Agricultural Learning Center garden (Westside's recently approved new community garden).

In addition to the dunking, spectators will also likely enjoy the "Hair Battle!" event. Stylists and barbers are being encouraged to pay the $25 admission fee to compete in this cutting-edge contest, and possibly win a trophy. The entry fees will be donated to American Charities, Inc."

I see huge fundraising potential here, if even half my enemies show up to take advantage of the situation. Gallagher could also be a big draw -- a prime target for firefighters, police officers and other city employees wanting a little payback for his statements on city compensation issues. I'm not sure we'll raise enough to keep the center going at a measly $1 for 3 balls -- for me, I think you could easily charge a buck a ball. But I'll do my best to antagonize everyone I can in the meantime, just to pump-up the proceeds.

Mayor Lionel Rivera already paid organizers $20 in advance -- I guess that means my City Council honeymoon is over.

So come one, come all -- limber up that creaky pitching arm and take your best shot. You can just sit back and wait for me to take a fall, or you can take matters in hand and help make that happen. But don't expect me to just sit there and take it. I'll be running my mouth off as always -- when I'm not spitting out goldfish.

I'll be on the hot seat -- or is it the "cold seat"? -- starting at high noon on March 20.

Wayne Laugesen has an excellent editorial in today's Gazette, which would make worthwhile reading for all who think the medical marijuana issue is just about marijuana.

It's also a battle over personal freedom, as I've pointed out here before -- in this case, the freedom to medicate oneself with marijuana if one chooses to, without government interference -- and about the rights of states to set their own policy on the issue, free from federal meddling. Laugesen focuses on the second issue today, laying out the case for why the Obama Justice Department should make good on its pledge to call a halt to DEA raids and allow Coloradans to work our medical marijuana issues through for ourselves.

Of course, it would help if we had an attorney general in Colorado who sincerely wanted to work these issues through, and wanted to uphold the partial legalization now written into the state Constitution. Ours apparently wants to turn the clock back to pre-Amendment 20 days, when everyone who used pot was a criminal. But Colorado should be allowed to make its own policy, free from the threat of DEA raids, even if we are saddled with an AG who can't adapt to the new situation.

I know it's heresy among conservatives and Republicans to speak anything but ill of the Obama administration. But if these folks sincerely believe in the federalist model, and so-called States' rights, this is one Obama policy change they should welcome, and be getting behind, irrespective of their personal feelings about the medical efficacy of cannabis.

Dan May brought his anti-medical marijuana dog-and-pony show to City Council again Monday. I can only hope his underlings make more convincing cases when they're trying to put criminals behind bars.

May cherry-picked a few quotes, flashed a few inflammatory photos and rattled-off some misleading statistics, all taken out of context, in order to make the case that medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations are illegal, despite Colorado voters having legalized medical marijuana ten years ago. May and a guest brought in from Denver painted these facilities as the perpetrators of a massive fraud, and as an imminent threat to public health and safety, though they offered nothing but anecdotes to support that.

Such a case would have been laughed out of criminal court. May was free to bend and twist the "facts" to suit his fancy, without a defense attorney there to correct the record or blow holes in his arguments. Only a jury of rutabagas would have been won over. That the DA thought this was good enough to woo City Council suggests a low opinion of our intelligence.

The Gazette reported that May told City Council to go slow on writing its ordinance -- but that's not really what he told us. He told us -- and I'm paraphrasing -- that doing anything to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in the city would make us complicit in criminal activity, since they are, in May's opinion, illegal. I asked why, if they're illegal, we aren't raiding them and shutting them down? I never got a coherent explanation for this glaring inconsistency.

These allegedly-illegal facilities are operating in plain view across the city (and the state); they advertise their locations in the alternative weekly. It would seem like shooting fish in a barrel for the Police Department and Dan May to swoop-in and make the bust. Yet the DA and his mentor, John Suthers, won't do it -- which suggests to me that they know they're on thin ice in both the court of law and court of public opinion. Rather than put their legal theories to the test, by closing dispensaries, they are using their positions, and public resources, to wage a propaganda war against them, using scare tactics and distortions of fact. They want to re-fight a battle they lost ten years ago. But almost everyone else is moving on.

Many other cities in Colorado already are regulating these allegedly-illegal dispensaries. El Paso County has put temporary regulations in place, which tacitly acknowledge the right of dispensaries to exist. The legislature is considering bills that make provision for these allegedly-illegal dispensaries (although they may be called something else). Local governments are collecting taxes from these allegedly-illegal operations. All of Colorado seems willing to legitimize these activities, by regulating and taxing them, except for an isolated band of well-placed reactionaries, who are relying on the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to keep Colorado patients and care-givers living in a state of fear.

Dan May's dogs jumped through rings and his ponies danced in circles on their hind legs, but the audience wasn't dazzled; a majority on council seems determined to move forward on refinements to a draft ordinance, despite May's advice. Rather than doing nothing, or waiting for the state to solve our local problems for us -- and rather than going backward -- we're going to move ahead with a public process, using the draft ordinance as a template on which refinements can be written, with all opinions considered.

This council, like much of the rest of Colorado, seems to want to move forward and deal constructively with the new reality. Dan May will be relevant again when he catches up.

Some legislators seem to wake up every morning during the session, asking themselves, "What can I do today to make Colorado a less appealing place to do business?" Pueblo's Sal Pace is certainly doing his part, by offering a bill that, even in its watered-down version, would make it harder for companies to make the case against employees who are running workman's compensation scams.

Early renditions of the bill would have limited the ability of companies to conduct certain types of surveillance on employees claiming injuries. Some of those provisions were eliminated, as a result of one very obvious objection -- that this would green light more worker's compensation fraud. But the bill isn't dead yet, unfortunately, leaving Colorado's business community to wonder why, in the midst of an economic calamity, legislators seem to be looking for new ways to drive companies over the brink.

The Denver Post has an interesting piece today on a topic I blogged about several days back, indicating that the jury is still out on whether Robocop-style policing actually improves public safety (Colorado Springs' looming experiment with red light cameras gets a brief mention). Although automated ticket-writing is a proven way to fatten municipal coffers, at low- or no-cost to the city, conclusive evidence is hard to come by about whether the cameras prevent accidents and deter scofflaws, according to the Post:

"The Federal Highway Administration reviewed all studies of red-light cameras in 2005 and offered a lukewarm endorsement. While avoiding estimates of injury reductions, the agency said sites with cameras produced an average of $39,000 in annual economic benefits from crashes avoided. But, the agency added, wide variances in methodology and reliability "render useless any conclusions" from most of the studies.

Researchers in Oxnard, Calif., in the late 1990s compared results at that city's red-light cameras with three other cities. They found that overall accidents in Oxnard fell 5.4 percent; yet crashes in the control city of Santa Barbara, without red-light cameras, dropped more than 10 percent.

A Texas study showed a 43 percent reduction in broadside collisions and a 5 percent increase in rear-end accidents — but noted that the cameras' role in those numbers was inconclusive."

Aurora's experience with red light cameras has been equally inconclusive, even though the city is expanding their use, according to the Post:

"Aurora is negotiating a contract to add cameras at 10 intersections to the four cameras operating since 2006. Police say they are convinced the cameras improve safety, but the statistics are less clear.

Intersections with two of the older cameras showed a decline in accidents, from 17 to 11. One intersection had no accidents, before or after the camera was put in, while a fourth intersection actually saw an increase, from zero accidents to five.

"What we're finding is that the numbers are not real, real significant in seeing a decrease in accidents, because there were not a huge number of accidents to start with," said Cloyd, of the Aurora police.

Police officials often point to reduced violations at red-light cameras, separate from accidents, as proof the devices educate drivers and change behavior. Yet Aurora's cameras issued 9,918 tickets in 2007, 8,717 in 2008 and 9,855 in 2009."

Critics of the cameras claim that equivalent intersection safety improvements can be gained, and red light-running can be curtailed, by simply fine-tuning the signal light sequence -- by prolonging the yellow light for just a few seconds, for instance. I've not studied the issue enough to reach my own conclusions. But one thing seems clear enough to me; that something other than hard data is driving the expansion of Robocop technology.

Traffic enforcement should be aimed at improving roadway safety, not generating revenue or creating automated speed traps. One sure way to undermine public support for law enforcement, and erode respect for the law, is to create the impression that police officers are just revenue collectors in blue uniforms. And I don't want to see that happen in Colorado Springs.

The outfitters' lobby at one point seemed to have smooth sailing on a bill (HB-1188) that would grant river rafters the "right" to come ashore on private property, without the owner's permission. But the measure is hitting Class 4 whitewater in the senate, thanks to the compelling counter-arguments of property owners and property rights advocates.

The Denver Post has a good write-up on the issue today, for those who have been following it. An extensive debate on the subject can also be found at Seth Richardson's Broadside Blog, for those who want to wade in even deeper.

I've written before of my admiration for Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat with a strong independent streak who did the Cowboy State proud by bucking Washington when it was in the state's best interests. I'm disappointed, therefore, to learn that he won't be seeking a third term. A non-conformist to the end, Freudenthal shrugged off any talk of a "legacy" at the announcement. "We don't do that legacy stuff," he said. "This legacy stuff is incredibly dangerous."

He does leave a legacy, though, which was probably best summed-up by State Sen. Eli Bebout, a former political rival who narrowly lost to Freudenthal in the 2002 governors race. "I think he really tried to represent Wyoming against the intrusiveness of the federal government, and he did that," Bebout said. That led to clashes with Washington over energy policy, reintroduced wolves, the sage grouse (which was granted some new federal protections this week, but not "threatened or "endangered" status, thank goodness) and, most famously, the Preble's meadow jumping mouse.

The mouse is listed as a protected federal species in Colorado, but not in Wyoming, not coincidently, thanks to Freudenthal's persistent efforts to fight the listing and expose the fraudulent science behind it. Maybe this absurd split decision never would have occurred if Colorado had a governor who was more protective of the state's interests, vis-a-vis the federal government.

And unlike Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, who has waged regulatory war on the traditional energy sector, while touting "new energy economy" fantasies, Freudenthal managed to strike a sensible balance between environmental protection and economic development in Wyoming, leaving the state on a sound financial footing. "When we had huge energy development, he did the balancing act," said Sen. Kathryn Sessions, a Democrat from Cheyenne. "He tried to preserve those things that we hold most dear in this state -- our water, our air, our mountains, our open space," she told the Casper Star-Tribune, while serving as a "balancer between all of that and industry and money and all the stuff on the other side."

Freudenthal does leave quite a legacy, even if he characteristically would never brag on it. I hope for the Cowboy State that it finds a worthy successor.

Colorado Springs is at this point only dabbling with Robocop ticket-writing -- a contract still in the works will soon have a private entity operating red light cameras at certain intersections in the city, automatically issuing tickets to drivers caught in the act. This may reduce red light-running -- a good thing -- but it can also, if expanded, become a major revenue-generator for the city, at relatively low cost, which can incentivize the further expansion of such technologies city-wide.

This is one area where the slippery slope definitely beckons, as this story in the Boulder Daily Camera indicates. Once you embrace automated law enforcement, the logic of it (and the economics of it) tend to drive you toward greater and greater use of it -- and abuse of it, almost inevitably. That may fit in well with the Boulder model, which tends toward command and control, but I'm not sure it fits comfortably in Colorado Springs, where people are a little more wary of Big Brother-like technologies and attitudes.

I wasn't on Council when the red light cameras were approved, so I didn't have an opportunity to raise these concerns and objections. But count me as a strong skeptic of more Robocoping, as we move forward.

Colorado Springs probably should brace itself for another round of ridicule, once word gets out about our Cabs on Patrol program. Left-wingers, looking to score political points, will point to this as another example of the calamities that await all who live in low-tax towns. But let the critics snicker. While they’re prisoners of an old paradigm, in which there’s only one way to run a city, with government acting as the hub, around which everything else turns, Colorado Springs is finding innovative, interesting, out-of-the-box ways to respond to fiscal adversity.

That’s the silver lining in budget crises – they force you to try things you might not under normal circumstances. In adversity there’s also opportunity – a chance to do things differently. We’re providing a model of how that’s done in Colorado Springs, from the Cabs on Patrol Program to community center partnership efforts. That’s something we should take pride in, not apologize for.

Our Police Department and its partner, Yellow Cab, deserve praise for this innovative approach to keeping more eyes on the streets. And who better to provide those eyes than street-savvy cabbies? Does anyone ridicule Neighborhood Watch programs? This is Neighborhood Watch on wheels. There’s only so much territory professional police can cover, even when the city’s coffers are fat. And when they’re lean, there’s even more reason to deputize private citizens to take a more active role in fighting crime. Citizen-centered crime fighting is part of long American tradition. This is a continuation of that tradition.

We won’t have Colorado Springs cabbies making street arrests, negotiating with hostage-takers, responding to domestic disputes or chasing down bad guys, ala Starsky and Hutch. We’re simply asking them to provide an extra set of eyes and ears for the police department, when going about their normal business.

It makes a lot of sense.

Why didn’t we think of it sooner?

We didn’t think of it sooner because we didn’t have to.

Renewable energy mandate mania is again sweeping our Democrat-controlled Statehouse: not a year goes by, it seems, that "green energy" production quotas aren't jacked-up even higher, with no cost-benefit analysis, no understanding of what they'll eventually cost ratepayers, no sense of realism whatsoever. Renewable energy advocates simply pull a new number out of their hats, arbitrarily, and demand that it be met, putting Colorado on the path blazed by that regulatory wonderland called California.

Here's a write-up on the bill by ColoradoSenateNews.com:

Renewable energy mandate advances, moves CO towards higher energy costs

Democrat Sens. Gail Schwartz, of Snowmass Village, and Bruce Whitehead, of Hesperus, argued for a state mandate this afternoon that Republicans say would put Colorado on the road to higher energy prices and a possible energy shortage.

“Renewable energy is not the problem, but the approach of this proposal is,” said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, whose house is run by entirely renewable energy.

House Bill 1001, sponsored by Schwartz and Whitehead, would mandate large utilities to get 30 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. That's triple the standard before Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter took office and made renewable energy his pet issue.

Republicans say the proposed mandate is too aggressive and could go the way of the failed renewable energy initiatives of California. In July of 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that “California's utilities are barrelling ahead to try to meet a state mandate to garner 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020, and some officials are concerned the effort might push up electricity prices and crimp supplies.”

California utilities also complain ambitious renewable energy mandates, combined with tough environmental regulations on conventional plants, are compromising their ability to deliver adequate power.

“Thankfully California has once again shown us the road not to travel,” Lundberg said. “Let’s not mimic their failed policies that have lead to high taxation and high unemployment. We cannot spend and mandate our way to prosperity.”

Proponents of HB 1001 claim it will create thousands of jobs. Republicans counter by calling the bill a union pay-back because it requires union labor to be used for many of the renewable energy installation projects. “Apparently Washington doesn’t have a monopoly on special interests and vote trading,” Lundberg said, referring to U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska who carved out a huge earmark for his state in the healthcare bill.

Lundberg went on to explain that HB 1001 is going to raise energy bills because wind and solar still need to be backfilled by more traditional energy, like coal and natural gas. The new Comanche unit 3 coal plant in Pueblo, for example, was built to backfill wind energy. It would take three wind farms spread out around the state to increase the likelihood of continuous energy production of wind. To match Comanche 3’s output, the consortium behind the farm would need to more than double the size of the current Cedar Creek wind farm in Weld County. That would total 2,051 wind turbines operating on 240,000 acres, or 375 square miles.

Colorado Springs Utilities isn't lobbying against this measure, because it won't apply (for now) to publicly-owned utilities. One shareholder-owned energy company, Xcel, has figured out how to cash in on the mandates, by betting the ranch on wind farms. It supports this bill because it helps hedge the company's high-risk bet, buffering it against the day that the wind energy bubble bursts. So why, if other energy providers support a new round of mandates, should CSU fight them? Here's why.

CSU is engaged in Ostrich-like thinking, in my opinion, pretending that future mandates will pass it by if it lays low on this fight and buries its head in the sand. But given how mandate mania spreads, it's only a matter of time before these quotas are imposed on everyone else -- including on energy providers, like CSU, for which a massive investment in renewables might not make sense. What goes around comes around, in short. And hiding our heads in the sand won't save us for long from the mandate maniacs.

Supporters of the new wave of mandates claim they will create new jobs, but those claims are as pie-in-the-sky as the other numbers they pull out of thin air. Reports today's Pueblo Chieftain:

"Environment Colorado’s study said the bill would create 23,450 jobs in solar generation over the next 10 years. But researchers acknowledged that only 152 of those jobs would last for two years or more. The remaining jobs would be short-term construction and support jobs.

Raising the renewable energy standard to 20 percent has already created 17,000 jobs in Colorado, Gov. Bill Ritter said last month.

But even supporters acknowledge the projects need government subsidies of up to 50 percent to cover the cost to make it affordable.

‘‘It’s a make-work project on the front end and heavily subsidized and costly on the back end,’’ said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, a Republican from Fort Collins.

Critics say the only way to sustain the industry is with subsidies and increasing energy standards, since most of the jobs are short-term construction jobs.

Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, said a study of Spain’s experience, cited by President Barack Obama as a model for the United States, showed the energy industry lost nine traditional energy jobs for every four jobs created by a shift to renewable energy.

If Colorado’s standards were economically viable, mandates and subsidies wouldn’t be needed, Lundberg said."

An admirably alert scribe at the Grand Junction Sentinel, who actually bothered to check some of the job creation claims made by Gov. Bill Ritter, found, at least in one case, that they were misleading, if not bogus. Ritter's spokesman, when confronted with the falsehood, said it was a simple mistake. But I'm betting many more such "mistakes" would be found if one examined the numbers closely. Enough of these mistakes, added together, almost constitute a "lie."

We should fight for the freedom to provide CSU ratepayers with the energy mix that makes the most sense for CSU. Meeting mandates arbitrarily imposed by politicos in Denver, based on nothing more than warm-and-fuzzy whim, is not a rational or responsible way to run a utility company, or to make energy policy. Will California have to completely implode before Coloradans see that this isn't the model to follow?

As troubled as I am by DA Dan May's efforts to intimidate and hassle a local business owner (whose business just happens to be legally dispensing medical marijuana), because May doesn't want the shop located in a commercially-zoned area near his neighborhood, I'm also disturbed by the DA's efforts to spread misinformation about Amendment 20 and whip up unnecessary public anxiety about the situation.

Typical was his statement in the story linked above, in which he suggests that the mere presence of a MMJ dispensary will lure innocent school children into the web of drug abuse.

"May said he “absolutely” supports medical marijuana. Dispensaries, however, are a different story.

“I have seen crimes because of dispensaries,” he said. “I’m seeing them being put up next to schools, which gives the potential to openly recruit kids out of our high schools.”

It's amazing how many people in Colorado Springs, like May, claim they support the medicinal use of marijuana, at least in theory, yet seem determined to eradicate it in practice, by making life impossible for those who grow, distribute or use it in city limits. We're not against it, they say -- we just don't want it going on anywhere in the city. It's a new form of nay-saying called Canna-NIMBYism.

It's also remarkable that some residents, like May, seem to believe that school kids will go to the trouble of getting marijuana at locked-down dispensaries, which they can't even enter without a red card, when pot and much harder drugs are far easier for these kids to acquire from schoolmates or Facebook friends. I'm not aware of one case in which a dispensary has been caught selling MMJ to minors, but I'm sure the DA knows of many, many cases of black market drug transactions that go down on or near school property. Given the much higher prevalence of illegal drug activity taking place in Colorado Springs schools, neighborhoods have much more to fear from schools than from dispensaries. Maybe, instead of creating setback rules to "protect" schools and neighborhoods from MMJ dispensaries, we should create zones of separation that protect neighborhoods from schools.

As a step-parent, I'm not oblivious to the temptations and dangers drugs pose to young people. I wrestle with many of the same issues other parents do. But I think the anxiety in this case is misdirected -- and that May's position on the dispensary issue is irrational, reactionary and will prove unconstitutional if tested in court.

If school kids are the DA's concern, he should concentrate his efforts on cleaning-up Colorado Springs schools, not hassling legal dispensary owners, operating responsibly and discretely in commercial zones. If he wants to help get a better handle on the medical marijuana situation in Colorado Springs, fearmongering and vigilantism aren't the way to go. I would suggest, instead, that Mr. May get more involved in shaping the draft ordinance produced by the Medical Marijuana Task Force, which is currently bogged-down in city bureaucracy -- a process I invited him to be a part of back in December, when we began working toward a solution. Many of the issues that tend to raise public concerns are dealt with in the ordinance. His input, even at this late date, would be welcome.

No one denies that dispensaries can become a target for criminals. But are they a bigger target than the average bank, convenience store or Subway sandwich shop? Not that I'm aware of. The police chief, when questioned at a Council meeting last week, could not produce evidence of a MMJ-related crime spree in Colorado Springs (I asked him to begin tracking such stats way back in December, when this issue first was raised during a briefing to council). The appropriate response to a crime threat isn't banning potential targets -- which would mean imposing a moratorium on banks and Subway sandwich shops in Colorado Springs -- but bolstering protection for those businesses and going after the criminals who target them. That would be a much more appropriate use of the DA's time and energy.