Citizen editorial

City patches potholes

With local weather turning warm this week, the City of Florence has undertaken the annual ritual of filling the potholes which seem to magically appear as winter gives way to spring.

Thanks to the work of the city crews, fewer of us will be banging up wheel rims and knocking our cars out of alignment, and we’re thankful they got on that job early.

Hopefully, as we begin to climb out of our recession, the city will be able to start finding funds for seal coating and overlays to keep our streets from falling apart.

Letter to the editor

Christo’s project disruptive

The definition of “art” according to Webster’s College Dictionary is;

1. The quality, production, expression, or realm of what is beautiful or of more than ordinary significance.

2. The class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria, paintings, sculpture, or drawings.

3. A field or category of art: Dance is an art.

We recently had Jesus Aguilera, a house painter, redo our study and library in subdued colors to match the Baroque character of these rooms. He carefully covered the hardwood floors with drop clothes to mitigate paint splatters from damaging the varnished surfaces.

Now we have Christo wanting to cover parts of the Arkansas River with what are essentially drop clothes, only instead of providing a useful purpose, his plan will disrupt a major East-West road in Colorado.

His activities will no doubt impact the normal rhythm for the valley wild life, and the construction of stanchions to support the “so called art” will leave his legacy on the banks of the Arkansas River for decades if not hundreds of years.

When Jesus picked up his drop clothes, they did actually in an abstract kind of way show an art form worthy of hanging on a studio wall. We have seen Christo, and he is no Jesus.

Sincerely

Hans Miesler

Penrose

The laziest congress

Harry Truman referred to the 80th Congress as the most lazy Congress in the history of the United States. He was kind, he left out worthless. Harry Truman took this country from a war time economy to a peace time economy without a ripple, in spite of the 80th congress. When Eisenhower got in it started downhill.

Well the 80th has just been out classed by the 110th congress. This congress is concerned about one thing and that is re-election and passive the lobbyist, their side money and benefits. They are not at all concerned about the well being and the protection of the consumer. Obama has done more for consumer protection in one year than all the presidents (put together) since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but this Congress has fought him from the beginning. "Special Interest" and greed is destroying this country.

In 1979, there were people in prison for violating the usury law. In 1980 Reagan's term the usury law was repealed. lt was a state option after that. South Dakota was the first to repeal it … here comes the credit card companies … and then came deregulating Wall Street. And allowing them to police themselves and then came the likes of Bernie Madoff and 150 more ponzi scams. This is what deregulating does ...  in 1980 banks were charging as much as 22% Interest plus an upfront fee ... credit card companies 30% . This was all done in Reagan's term. Is this consumer protection? I think not..There are millions of people without health insurance and Congress has fought against this for the insurance companies even though they promised it during their election campaigns. There are too many people that listen to the Republican propaganda machine that says we can't afford it. The tax break Bush gave the rich would more than pay for it. Wall Street was allowed to steal more money than the health care bill would cost. THANK YOUR CONGRESSMEN like Doug Lamborn.

George Fletcher

Penrose

Thank you notes

School appreciates dictionaries

Dear Editor,

My name is Martha Lamm and I'm a third grade teacher at the Fremont Elementary School in Florence.

My colleagues and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Florence Rotarians for the wonderful dictionaries given to our third graders on February 19.

Dave Ackerman, Rudl Mergelman, Tom Piltingsrud, Dick Upton, Larry Baker, Ron Hinkle, Tina Rozell, Drew Lamoreux and Cecil Slattery made a nice presentation to the students. The students are able to keep these dictionaries for their own use in studies at home.

Thank you Florence Rotarians for the generous donation.

Sincerely,

Martha Lamm

Florence

Penrose Chamber says ‘thanks’

The Penrose Chamber of Commerce would like to thank everyone who helped make our Annual Banquet a success. A very special thank you to Barbara and Tim Martin and their staff.

We would like to thank the following businesses for donating the door prizes: Coyote's Coffee Den, ABL Development, E and R Enterprises, Wells Fargo Bank, The Garden Wall, Atmos Energy, Wilson's Shop, Canon National Bank, Penrose Manufacturing, Kneading Knots, Kwik Stop, Rocky Mountain Bank and Trust, Classic Leather Designs, Rose Lindley, Dr. Paul Sarver, and CCMA. Thanks to Rose Lindley, Elvira Patterson, Bill and Ione McGuire, and Pete Mugasis.

The Chamber board would like to give Pete Mugasis a very, very special thanks for his excellent job of being President for our chamber for the past five years.

Thanks to the Daily Record, Florence Citizen, Canon Shopper, and the Pueblo Chieftain.

Penrose Chamber