Nebraska understandably wants to finally tap into a water right it has held on the South Platte River for almost a century.

Coloradans understandably are worried the plan will cut into the amount of water they can pull during the winter to save up for their crops in the spring.

Now the matter will go to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Colorado officials have violated the long-standing water-sharing compact for the South Platte River or whether Nebraska’s complaint is much ado about hoping to evade actually having to construct a billion-dollar canal to claim their water.

Fortunately, the 1923 South Platte River compact is abundantly clear and written in language that is difficult to interpret any other way. And also, fortunately, farmers relying on the South Platte River were not born yesterday.

Nebraska can build a canal that begins south of Ovid and travels east through Colorado to Perkins County to pull water during the winter months — roughly October to April — to store water to be used by Nebraska farmers during the spring growing season.

The canal — after taking into consideration upstream and downstream senior water rights — can take 500 cubic feet of water per second from the flow of the lower section of the South Platte during the winter.

So, Nebraska is entitled to the water, clearly, but only if it builds a canal.

And that is, of course, the rub.

Building a canal is going to be expensive. Nebraska lawmakers appropriated $628 million to get the project started.

But the state found landowners in Colorado unwilling to sell. An obvious development given that the canal could limit how much water the very farmers who own the land could pull from the river during the winter to store for spring.

Would you sell cheap?

Nebraska is expressly guaranteed the right to use eminent domain — the government’s power to take land against the owner’s will — to purchase land or egress for the canal. But the problem is land in Colorado is not cheap, and Colorado law demands that when eminent domain is used, a person is not only compensated for fair market value but also gets damages for the taking.

For example, a new interstate running next to a house is going to dramatically devalue that property. Colorado law requires a city or state to compensate the individual for the property taken, but also for the damages to their house. Could landowners convince a court that the taking of their land for a canal also included the taking of water from the river that they otherwise could use for crops? Maybe.

Notifying Colorado landowners of their rights and helping them organize to protect their own interests is most certainly not interfering unlawfully with Nebraska’s plan. Nebraska’s attorney general included this quote from Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser:

“We don’t believe there’s ever been a case in American history where one state has sought to exercise the power of eminent domain in another state. That is going to raise some significant legal issues. We are preparing for them. We’re prepared to engage on the ground to let people know what rights they have.”

That quote only proves that Weiser is doing his job protecting Coloradans and informing them of their legal rights.

Nebraska may need to bring a lot more money to the project than was originally proposed, but that is not Colorado’s fault.

As for the other claim in Nebraska’s lawsuit, that Colorado has routinely been violating the compact by not sending enough water downriver during the irrigation system, we are skeptical. The initial claim from Nebraska was scant on details about how much water is being shorted to Nebraska users.

Colorado’s response, filed this week by Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser, makes it abundantly clear that the state takes meeting the compact’s obligations seriously.

“Nebraska itself has not concluded whether Colorado is impermissibly reducing flows during the irrigation season, and there are other forums to explore Nebraska’s speculation on the efficacy of Colorado’s augmentation plans,” the state’s Supreme Court brief reads.

That is, if Colorado’s plan to offset or “augment” the negative impacts of pervasive groundwater pumping along the South Platte River is failing to deliver the required water downstream, the state is happy to address it, but first, Nebraska must bring evidence and bring it to the water managers in charge of enforcing the state’s prior appropriations system.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Under no circumstances should the City of Denver bail out the bad investments made into risky bonds at the old Gates Rubber Co. redevelopment site.

The land at South Broadway and Interstate 25 could soon become a soccer stadium for Denver’s new women’s team, but those plans could leave investors who banked on getting repaid by property tax revenue high and dry because the city will buy the land from the former developer, rendering property taxes on a big chunk of the land zero.

Joe Landen, the managing director of a Denver-based investment firm, said in an interview with BusinessDen reporter Justin Wingerter, that it will “be remembered” if the city allows the bond investments to fail at the old Gates site, which is formally known as the Broadway Station Metropolitan District. We can only hope so.

Landen tried to equate the investment his firm made into the project to investments in municipal bonds. The difference between the two is laughable. The municipal bonds Denver will sell if voters approve a billion-dollar bond issue in Tuesday’s election are backed by the city, a major metropolitan city already fully developed and rated AAA quality by all three major bond rating agencies.

The bonds Landen’s firm invested in were issued by a developer who was given taxing authority through a metropolitan district and the promise of lucrative tax breaks through the city’s redevelopment authority. The bet investors made was not on whether Denver would succeed, but on whether the developer controlling the quasi-governmental authority, the bond money and the tax rates was trustworthy. In the case of the Gates Factory, the plans for redevelopment failed spectacularly, but not before the developer spent millions of dollars from investors on infrastructure and remediation.

Our response to Landen’s plea now for a bailout from the City of Denver is simple — absolutely not.

Metropolitan district bonds are extremely risky, and the investors in the Broadway Station metropolitan district should be used to set an example for the entire state. These bonds are nowhere close to the secure investment of city bonds, and investors should be very wary of entering into these deals with developers.

So yes, Landen, we hope you and other investors have a very long memory and that you tell all your friends in the bond market industry the risks of investing in metro districts. Perhaps the drying up of the bond market will be enough to save future taxpayers from the rampant abuse at the hands of many developers.

We can think of several housing projects going on right now in the metro area that could teeter and fail with an economic downturn and a housing crisis — including Sterling Ranch and Aurora Highlands. The bondholders whom developers convinced to invest in their property taxation scheme will be the ones left on the hook, instead of the developer, who can walk away from the project with very little personal investment in the infrastructure.

We’ve wondered for years how long it would take for investors to realize that these bonds are not safe-secure municipal bonds guaranteed by city officials. Mayor Mike Johnston has an opportunity here to let the harsh reality of developer-granted taxing authority hit investors hard in the face, and he shouldn’t hesitate to take it.

Colorado’s local elected officials have, for decades, ignored warnings that giving developers unlimited taxation authority and allowing them to market their bonds as tax-assured investments similar to a municipal bond is a looming financial disaster on par with the Big Short of 2008. Instead, elected officials have handed taxing authority to every developer who asks, with few restrictions or protections for investors or future taxpayers. Denver is preparing to do it again with the Denver Broncos stadium redevelopment plan for Burnham Yard.

Now, it appears the only solution to the problem is for investors to stop putting their money in these schemes because they fear a default on the bonds.

We applaud Mayor Mike Johnston for refusing to bail out the developer of the old Gates Rubber Factory and the investors who treated a risky project led by a developer like a safe municipal bond.

We tried but couldn’t muster much sympathy for Landen and the others who knowingly gambled on the Gates Rubber Factory redevelopment, putting their faith in metropolitan districts.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Tucker Carlson will no longer be on Fox News. The announcement Monday that Carlson and Fox had parted ways came after Fox had agreed to pay out three quarters of a billion dollars to Dominion in a defamation lawsuit that rested heavily on Carlson’s on-air reporting about election fraud coupled with his off-air text messages indicating he thought it all was a hoax.

To mark this moment, I’ve pulled some of the best Tucker Carlson cartoons from over the years because sometimes a drawing is worth a thousand words.

Megan Schrader is the editor of The Denver Post’s opinion pages.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Federal immigration officials are out of control, and America’s third branch of government needs to rein in the gross abuse of power on display in Colorado and across the nation.

Gregory Davies, a high-level federal official overseeing deportation arrests in Colorado, told a judge last month that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not have a warrant to arrest Fernando Jaramillo-Solano. But the agents arrested Jaramillo-Solano anyway after mistakenly pulling the Durango man over while he was on his way to drop off his 12-year-old and 15-year-old children at school. ICE officials detained all three, and they spent weeks in Durango before they were shipped to Dilley, Texas.

This is no simple mistake that is easily rectified.

ICE is causing real harm to contributing members of our community  — teachers, nurses, mothers and fathers. And children are traumatized in the wake of these unjustified detainments.

President Donald Trump has upended the mission at ICE, a part of Homeland Security that was once dedicated to keeping Americans safe by deporting criminals. The president has said he plans to deport the more than 13 million people who live in the United States without legal immigration status, regardless of whether they have committed other crimes. But he has gone farther than that, and his agents are now detaining people who do have legal status. The intent is clear — push out immigrants even who are doing everything right.

Trump’s intent is that the people his agents wrongfully detain will either self-deport becasue conditions are so poor in the federal facilities or that if a judge orders their release, they will be silenced by their fear of reprisal, after all, they were detained once; who can protect these individuals from being detained again?

But Trump has calculated wrong. These brave victims of Trump’s mass deportation policy are speaking out, and have filed a lawsuit together to try and prevent ICE from terrorizing people.

Caroline Dias Goncalves, the 19-year-old college student who was detained in Grand Junction and held for almost three weeks in a detention center in Aurora because a sheriff’s deputy thought her perfect English was broken by an accent, testified that her detainment has dramatically affected her life.

She lost her driver’s license, moved back home and has reduced her course load at the University of Utah.

To Davies she might be “collateral” damage, but to us she is an injured kid trying to rebuild her life. Her arrest was completely unnecessary and likely illegal. If people like Davies don’t step up to make sure that ICE agents are doing their jobs – targeting and arresting criminals for deportation – then who will?

The answer of course is that the judicial branch must act as a strong check on the abuses of the executive branch.

Trump’s immigration enforcement squad cannot just smash and grab Coloradans because they suspect someone might be here illegally. And if these agents do, there must be legal consequences for them and their bosses, no matter how high the orders have come from.

Gonclaves was lucky. She was released.

Jaramillo-Solano and his children are still detained in Texas with no end to their nightmare in sight, despite the fact that a federal official just testified to a judge that their arrest was a mistake.

Meanwhile, a Douglas County teacher who was detained with her family by ICE under similarly questionable circumstances is also in the same Texas facility.

Marina Ortiz, who teaches fifth grade at the Global Village Academy, went for a routine check-in with ICE officials and she and her family never came home. The principal of the school says that Ortiz had work authorization to work legally in the United States. She said the school is working with immigration attorneys to see if Ortiz can be released from detention.

The sad truth is that unless the courts step up, these abuses will likely continue, and thousands of people like Ortiz and Jaramillo-Solano will never get home.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Air Force Academy graduation chance to rethink cuts

Re: “Bauernfeind wants warriors from the Air Force Academy, so he’s cutting ‘education,‘” May 25 guest commentary

The academic heart of the U.S. Air Force Academy is under threat.

On Thursday, we honor the USAFA graduating class of 2025. U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink will be giving the keynote address, and the situation warrants his intervention to reverse the damage being done.

The ongoing, indiscriminate cuts of USAFA’s experienced (and cost-effective) Ph.D. faculty are putting the academy’s academic excellence — and its mission to forge leaders who think critically — at risk. These cuts are not strategic; they are politically motivated and overtly based on “anti-woke” notions that jeopardize the core of what makes USAFA a world-class educational institution, without increasing lethality.

The academy is not merely a military training camp with classrooms. Rather, it is a premier university where future Air and Space Force officers learn to think critically, act ethically, and lead decisively on complex problems in a rapidly changing, increasingly autonomous battlespace. Decimating academic departments by cutting 30% of their veteran faculty demoralizes both faculty and cadets, threatens even basic accreditations (not to mention academic excellence), and sends the wrong message about the kind of leaders we value.

There must be a reasoned reassessment, discussed openly by USAFA’s many stakeholders, that protects the Academy’s academic and research core, not as an afterthought, but as a central pillar of officer development.

If we lose USAFA’s academic strength, America loses a key part of its war-fighting and peace-keeping edge.

Thomas Bewley, Colorado Springs

Excellence of Air Force Academy’s educational programs at risk if civilian faculty cuts continue (Opinion)

/*! This file is auto-generated */!function(d,l){“use strict”;l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&”undefined”!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll(‘iframe[data-secret=”‘+t.secret+'”]’),o=l.querySelectorAll(‘blockquote[data-secret=”‘+t.secret+'”]’),c=new RegExp(“^https?:$”,”i”),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document);

$23 trillion new debt, not $3 trillion

Re: “Economy: Trump ignores warning signs,” May 25 news story

For some reason, everyone is concerned about the $3 trillion being added to the national debt over ten years by the House bill.  Left unmentioned is the fact that the current $2 trillion annual budget deficit is projected to continue throughout that decade, adding more than $20 trillion to the national debt.  The $3 trillion is just icing on the cake.  (A trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon we’re talking about real money.)

Bond investors will soon conclude that the U.S. is too stupid to be relied upon and interest rates will skyrocket. (Bond markets are stable until they aren’t.)

Buckle up, everyone. I hope you’re protected.

Robert Kihm, Centennial

Governor should veto the kratom bill

Re: “Will Polis veto kratom bill?” May 23 news story

Gov. Jared Polis should veto Senate Bill 72. It puts patients like me at risk and fails to do what regulation should: make things clearer and safer. I live with chronic pain. After trying countless treatments, I found relief with a kratom derivative called 7-OH. It’s plant-based, affordable, and has worked without the need for dangerous opioids.

SB 72 threatens that access. The bill, rushed through at the end of the session, sets a hard cap on the active compound 7-OH but gives no clear direction on what happens to products that go over the limit. Without clarity, patients and businesses are left guessing, and the risks of misinterpretation or overreach grow.

Safe, regulated access matters. When rules are vague and confusing, people might turn to an unregulated black market or to opioids. Lawmakers could have passed thoughtful, evidence-based regulation. Instead, they rushed a bill that creates confusion and instability. I hope Gov. Polis will veto SB 72 and bring patients and experts to the table in 2026 because we deserve better.

Suzanne Whitney, Golden

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

I live in Jackson County, in northern Colorado, where hundreds of inactive and abandoned oil wells litter the landscape. Not only are they an ugly sight, they are also just a few of the estimated 2.6 million unplugged wells across the country that leak methane, benzene and other toxic substances.

The reality is that long after I’m gone, most or all of those wells will remain unplugged. The companies and people who once owned them will have been allowed to walk away from their responsibility to clean up their mess.

Uncapped wells are what happens when the federal government enables the fossil-fuel industry to dominate energy policies, as is happening again now, both in the Interior Department and Congress. The policies emerging would allow companies, including many foreign ones, to profit from public lands and minerals that all Americans own. They would also leave taxpayers holding the bag for cleaning up leaking wells.

These abandoned wells already have consequences for wildlife, air, water and rural people. Kirk Panasuk, a rancher in Bainville, Montana, said: “I have personally experienced serious health scares after breathing toxic fumes from oil and gas wells near my property. And I’ve seen too many of my friends and neighbors in this part of the country have their water contaminated or their land destroyed by rushed and reckless industrial projects.”

Republicans and Democrats in previous administrations and Congresses took pains to reform this historically biased federal energy system because of the damage done to rural communities and American taxpayers. Now, the federal government is rolling back those reforms.

Recently, the Interior Department announced that “emergency permitting procedures” were necessary when carrying out NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act. Timelines for environmental assessments for fossil-fuel projects were changed from one year to 14 days, without requiring a public comment period. The timeline for more complicated environmental impact statements was cut from two years to 28 days, with only a 10-day public comment period.

In May, the House Natural Resources Committee unveiled its piece of the House budget bill, which enables the federal government to expedite oil, gas, coal and mineral development. It gives Americans basically no say on whether those projects should move ahead, while keeping taxpayers from receiving a fair return on the development of publicly owned lands and minerals.

The administration’s justification for expediting permits is that we face “a national energy emergency.” No such emergency exists. The United States is currently the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas and is producing more oil than any other country on Earth.

Both the House bill – -just passed and now before the Senate — and the Interior Department’s policies, ignore the long-standing mandate to manage public lands for multiple uses. Instead, the new policies: drastically reduce the public’s role in the permitting process, allow large corporations to pay to evade environmental and judicial review, and exempt millions of acres of private lands with federal minerals and thousands of wells on these lands from federal permitting and mitigation requirements.

The House bill would also slash the royalty rate for oil and gas production from 16.67% to 12.5%, depriving state and local governments of funding they depend on for schools, roads and other essential services. An analysis by Resources for the Future found that the proposed lower royalty rates would result in a loss of nearly $5 billion in revenue over the next decade.

The Interior Department’s emergency permitting procedures and the House bill are assaults the federal government has waged on public lands since January. The public has been shoved to the side as oil and gas drillers enjoy their energy dominance throughout our public lands.

Now, it’s up to the Senate to strip out these gifts to the fossil fuel industry, and it’s up to us tell our elected Senate representatives that these policies ignore the wishes of Westerners. We have told pollsters innumerable times that we support conservation, not exploitation of public lands for private interests. What’s happening now is radically wrong.

Barbara Vasquez is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. A retired biomedical researcher and semiconductor engineer, she is board chair of the Western Organization of Resource Councils and a board member of the Western Colorado Alliance.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Track your grocery prices at checkout

Re: “‘Secret shoppers’ challenge pricing,” May 16 news story

Even in ancient Rome, the advice to shoppers was caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). It does not matter whether the overcharging of customers at King Soopers is the result of understaffing — which does not allow the store to post accurate prices — or a deliberate policy to try to increase profits; the result is the same. Just as it was 2,000 years ago, it is up to the customer to make sure that they are receiving the advertised price.

When shopping at King Soopers, I make a habit of using my smartphone to take an image of the shelf price of “specials.” Then I use the self-checkout line to ensure that the amount charged matches the shelf price. If it doesn’t, I ask for assistance. The staff at King Soopers has always adjusted the price when they see the image on my smartphone.

Some may say that this should not be necessary. In an ideal world they would be correct. But bear in mind that your local grocery stocks tens of thousands of items. Even the best system will produce errors. It is up to you to catch them. It’s your money, so be careful with it.

Guy Wroble, Denver

Transgender troops expensive to recruit (and dismiss)

Re: “Recruitment: Military spent $6 billion in 3 years,” May 26 news story and “Removal of transgender troops: How the military is dealing with Hegseth’s order,” May 11 news story

Apparently, the military has spent a truly significant amount of money recently recruiting and training troops. So why would they want to get rid of 1,000 members? Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth announced that they will immediately begin removing approximately 1,000 transgender and transexual service members. Demonstrating an embarrassing lack of understanding, he proclaimed, “No more dudes in dresses. We are done with that (expletive).”

Men in dresses are not transgender or transsexual. Transsexuals are people who have gone through a long, arduous process of: counseling, hormone therapy, and operations. And one of their essential goals, from what I have been told, is to look like they fit in with their new sex. That is why it will only be at their yearly physical exam that their history will be used to identify them. So if transitioned people want to serve their country, and if recruiting and training costs between $50,000 and $100,000 per candidate, that translates to $50 million to $100 million dollars down the drain in the interest of prejudice and ignorance, not to mention the emotional toll of being fired simply for being who you are.

T. John Hughes, Denver

Air traffic control crumbles, warnings ignored

The current “mess” in the United States air traffic control system should not and is not a partisan issue. The safety of all Americans is a fundamental duty of our elected officials. They have failed miserably. I am so disgusted that so many of our issues are handled in a reactive mode instead of being proactive. The air traffic control system has been outdated for many years in both Republican and Democratic Congresses. Is it going to take a preventable air disaster where hundreds of lives are needlessly lost? The warning signs are on display on a daily basis.

In the same vein, the credit of the United States has just been downgraded. The blame lies in all of our politicians. However, I am afraid that it is too late to act proactively, and the reactive solution may not be enough.

Allen Vean, Denver

Opposed to the Boulder suit? How about a carbon tax?

Re: “Lawsuit would punish handful of companies for generations of global emissions,” May 7 commentary

The author, a lawyer writing on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers, argues against lawsuits seeking damages from energy companies for outcomes linked to climate change. He states, “deciding how to pay for climate adaptation is a policy, not a liability, issue.” So who will pay these costs? If companies have to pay these costs, things will be more expensive, says he, and “this is the last thing people can afford right now.”  Better to just go along with the status quo: let industry do its best at cutting emissions. But that course of action has produced our warming world.

How do we move payment into the policy arena? The carrot-not-stick Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress and signed by Biden in 2022, now under piecemeal attack by the Trump administration, is our best attempt thus far. A tax on carbon has been proposed for years in the U.S. Congress, referred to as “revenue neutral” when introduced with a tax rebate to offset the higher consumptive costs. Support for a carbon tax has been voiced in the past by ExxonMobil, now one of the defendants in the Colorado case, although they never went to bat for it. In a written brief for the Colorado case, the Chamber of Commerce argued for a “uniform approach” to greenhouse gas emissions. A carbon tax would fulfil their desire for uniformity. A carbon tax could also provide funds for loss and damage.

The primary cause of warming and its consequences are with us now. We must get better at cutting emissions and coping with damages. Let’s get started on a nationwide carbon tax.

Phil Nelson, Golden

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Beware the all-or-nothing mentality in our schools

Re: “Valor Christian isn’t the only Colorado high school lost to ‘gladiator culture’,” May 15 editorial

I do not follow high school athletics, but I did teach adolescents, so I read the editorial about school sports with interest.

If we want to understand the toxic nature of competition in our schools, we only need to look in the mirror. Holding fame and fortune as the primary focus for student effort has always been present, but it has gotten out of hand. The bell curve reminds us that only a small percentage of our students will achieve measurable fame and fortune, but the majority of them should be able to achieve, with the support of parents, teachers and the community, a level of personal satisfaction and empowerment.

I personally witnessed the crippling effect on students who were otherwise “pretty darn good” when the adults around them implied that being the best was the only acceptable outcome. Success is not going to college or making over $200k a year. Happiness is not having more money and power than your neighbors. It is not the job of schools or colleges to provide a culling vehicle for professional sports or any competitive business environment.

As adults, our job is to help children find and improve their strengths and learn from their mistakes. They will encounter plenty of toxicity without us adding to it. We are reading about the increased number of young people who are mentally “dropping out.” We have made it clear to them that they will never be “the best.” They are the collateral damage of our gladiator culture.

A. Lynn Buschhoffl, Denver

Can no longer recommend Naval Academy path

Re: “Naval Academy removes nearly 400 books from library,” April 3 news story

Recent actions by the U.S. Naval Academy – my alma mater – and the service academies at West Point and Colorado Springs have serious ramifications for the education, training, and commissioning of junior officers. Books removed from library shelves, classes censored or dropped, speakers disinvited, all to comply with both the letter and spirit of executive orders issued by a protofascist – these have all the hallmarks of cowardice in the face of creeping authoritarianism.

While the military leadership at the academies may be in a tough position – balancing their oaths to the Constitution with their commitment to provide well-rounded, educated, and principled graduates to American forces at home and abroad – there is a reason the superintendents of these schools tend to be in their final tour of duty. They should be able to speak their minds, stand their ground, and take stands against illiteracy and bigotry.

For more than 10 years I served as a “Blue and Gold Officer” for the Naval Academy. In that capacity, I’ve spoken with hundreds of Colorado high schoolers from the Western Slope to Yuma, interviewed dozens of interested applicants, and recommended the top academic, athletic, and patriotic young men and women to the Admissions Board in Annapolis, Md. As of this year, I’ve resigned from that position and cannot in good conscience tell a Colorado student that they should pursue a spot at any of the academies, not until the leadership there explains their actions, inactions, and silence.

Travis Klempan, Morrison

Appreciating the Dolores and efforts to keep it preserved

Dear Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper,

In early June of 2023 the water was high and we rafted the Dolores from Bradfield Park all the way to Dewey Bridge on the Colorado River. It was 184 miles in nine days, and eight nights camping out. It was some of the most spectacular scenery, wildlife and challenging rapids I’ve encountered in 35 years of rafting.

The Dolores watershed is truly a gem that should be preserved and restored for future generations.

Thank you for your efforts in this regard.

Joe Mollica, Glenwood Springs

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

On May 12th, Denver’s city council overwhelmingly approved $70 million towards the nascent National Women’s Soccer League team’s new soccer stadium and surrounding entertainment complex. Inspiring news. I wanted a first-hand look at the site.

But where? For even the most enthusiastic supporters do not name the neighborhood where the complex will reside. Official statements tout the location as “Santa Fe Yards” – a name that is yet to appear on a map of Denver.

Makes sense, because the actual neighborhood does not yet exist. Currently vacant dirt just south of Interstate 25 between Broadway and Santa Fe, there is not much to see. Instead, assurances: the $70 million investment, primarily to purchase the land, will provide a boost of economic activity, including “restaurants, bars, and shops.” Writing for the Colorado Sun, columnist Mario Nicolais gushed: “It is like a whole neighborhood winning the lottery.”

I thought of this image – a new neighborhood rising from dirt by winning the economic lottery of government support – while walking home up Colfax Avenue just north of the Capitol. Once Denver’s beating heart, Colfax runs astride several existing neighborhoods, each with their own restaurants, bars, and shops, a rich history memorialized by great works like Kerouac’s On The Road and the eponymous album by the Delines.

Small echoes of the proposed site accompanied my walk. A vacant building on the left past Logan Street; several abandoned stores; an empty lot after Ogden. Across Franklin, a long row of dilapidated houses slowly falling into themselves; beyond Williams Street boarded-up buildings lean gently on each other. There is an existing entertainment complex on Colfax these days, but it has a very different feel, and is unlikely to be transformed by the forthcoming elevated bus stops.

Opponents of the new entertainment complex were chided by Nicolais as “short-sighted,” in part for citing “other unrelated priorities.” But the vacant lots on Colfax and across Denver whispered an all-to-familiar word: housing. Last month Denver ranked 12th in the nation for the gap between home prices and household income.

So here is a modest proposal for the City Council: provide Denver’s existing neighborhoods the same winning lottery ticket afforded the proposed entertainment complex. Offer similar terms – subsidize new construction by purchasing the land — for anyone who builds on these vacant and abandoned lots.

Or broader: give the same deal to the public fans buying tickets for stadium seats as the private group who will own them. For new homebuyers, Denver could purchase the land under their houses, subsidizing the price of homes by about 15% to 25%.

Like the complex’s supporters, I harbor a deep passion for soccer and women’s athletics. I played, coached teams for my sons and daughter, and now spend many weekends as a referee, willingly accosted by fans loudly questioning my mental capacity. I have been a spectator at games for DU men’s and women’s teams, local clubs, high schools, a semi-pro team, and a spontaneous neighborhood match which ended with cupcakes. I truly, deeply love the sport. But there are many avenues for soccer enthusiasts that do not entail $70 million of municipal spending.

Soccer will be Denver’s only professional sport with two local stadiums. The new NWSL stadium (capacity 14,500) will be just eleven miles away from the existing MLS stadium (capacity 18,000). We can all agree that loyal fans deserve a dedicated soccer stadium. But is it short-sighted to question spending $70 million to build a second?

The new stadium will host NWSL games just 13 days per year, but it is crucial. “Without the stadium, the team likely wouldn’t have stayed in Denver,” the head of the ownership group confided, while also envisioning the entertainment complex as “a destination place that’s 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

This is a shell game — follow the ball as the three cups rotate. No stadium, then no team. But without the entertainment complex, no stadium. And minus millions in public dollars, no complex. Because the intense passion of fans for soccer and women’s athletics is worth far, far less to investors if it comes without government subsidy. The stadium is soccer bait, dangled in front of an eager audience, and once snatched by the City Council the full cage of the entertainment complex will fall down around it, trapping $70 million of public support.

In an artist rendition of the proposed site, if you gaze across the four broad lanes of Interstate 25 and past the commercial buildings, one can just make out residential city blocks in the distance. If we all want something to cheer, City Council members should give the same incentives and attention to building in our existing neighborhoods as they have for the vacant dirt of the new entertainment complex.

Alexander Ooms lives in central Denver and supports Tottenham Hotspur, who are usually not very good.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

With Memorial Day upon us, known until 1967 as Decoration Day, now is the time to not only thank those who made the ultimate sacrifice, but also to commit to triumph over these turbulent times to maintain American greatness.

The moment has come for all Americans to re-create the selfless spirit of those that won World War II and built a great nation, and to become the new Greatest Generation. Today, we must address our lack of faith in our institutions, both private and public.

My dad’s generation grew up during the Great Depression and fought in WWII, or worked to help win it. They were low-key citizens who returned to ordinary lives. At home, there were those who produced war goods, served in government or provided moral support to overseas troops. It was the generation that gave us the unique sight of women in uniform. Many postponed their careers to fight in the war. It was the “Greatest Generation” ever because they saw their duty as the right thing to do, not to gain fame and recognition.

My dad was an ensign on the USS Pensacola for three years, three months and three days in the South Pacific.

So, what happened? When did we sacrifice solid American values and instead start wallowing in greed, power and self-centeredness? It may have been in the late 1900s, when the self-sacrifice and teamwork that helped the United States to persevere began disintegrating into greed and materialism.

The enemies today are not Japan, Italy or Germany. Instead, they are domestically produced: global warming, mass shootings, conspiracy theories, domestic terrorism, the nation’s political divide, a growing antigovernment sentiment, the high costs of higher education and health care, the misuse of technology through fake news, an economy that doesn’t work for all, the missing middle class, an appeal to authoritarianism, over $36 trillion in debt, and more.

There’s a crying need for Americans of all ages to step up and live the noble ideals that carried us through tough times – not just World War II, but also the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, Korean War, Watergate, Vietnam War, the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Today, there are serious enemies to our greatness: A country which teaches our kids to put forth an effort only when they can expect a big reward and to work at jobs not to earn money for college, but to spend on useless stuff. There is the birth of artificial intelligence, which will fundamentally change our country and the world.

There is apathy, a force of inertia that keeps us addicted to cell phones, social media and things devoted to our pleasures.

There is still too much anger and violence, in our schools and in our neighborhoods, in society and of course, in our hearts.

We need to usurp the “Greatest Generation” — to seize control of our future and ensure the United States’ purported prominence as the world’s most powerful nation. We must make a new commitment to public service and contributions beyond just political agendas.

We need to continue to share our unique talents overseas, offering the latest techniques in such areas as producing safe drinking water, operating farms, building schools, providing medical assistance and so much more.

On the home front, we need new volunteers to work in our schools, civic organizations and charities, and to help revitalize our communities.

We need parents to run for school boards and to help their kids with homework. We also need courageous community leaders who will help local governments manage the public’s business without fear of mean-spirited personal attacks. We need people to help tutor at-risk kids and to register new voters.

We still need all Americans to show us we still have the right stuff and that war is not the only way to prove greatness. Sacrifice, unity, hard work and humility must once again define the American character.

We’re not a broken nation but simply unfinished and always striving not to become perfect, but to become a “more perfect union” as enumerated in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

Memorial Day is not a relic of the past, but a living call to action — a reminder that the freedom and security we enjoy are fragile, and must be protected and cherished.

Today, “We the People” should all get to work or risk losing our 249-year experiment, thus becoming the “Worst” Generation.”

Jim Martin can be reached at jimmartinesq@gmail.com.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.