An Open Letter to Mr. John Bowker

A letter was recently published by one John Bowker regarding ongoing issues with the Longmont airport. While Mr. Bowker chose an unfortunate forum in which to post his letter (it may have been submitted to other sites as well, I’m not sure), hopefully the owner of said site will take a lesson from it in how to respectfully disagree with someone who has a different opinion.

I have no dog in the airport race. Generally I’m pro airport, pro runway expansion, and pro Mile High Skydiving. The planes don’t bother me where I live, but I am not going to judge how those living near the airport might respond to the same noise. (I was actually made aware of a tv segment recently that described how some people are wired in such a way that certain noises literally make them crazy, so maybe there is some of that going on here, who knows?) Obviously there are some people who are bothered greatly by it, and there are many people who aren’t. Mr. Bowker apparently is bothered by it, but he makes some very fair statements in his letter. I don’t agree with all that he wrote, but it sure would be nice if more debate could happen with this same amount of civility.

Mr. Bowker, I would gladly post your letter on my blog for more discussion if you are so inclined to put it here. Thanks for keeping it real……

Shooting Off at the Mouth

I hesitated to even give this its own dedicated post, but just to make it easier for the subject to notice, I decided why not.

Mr. Wray made a snide remark in his copyright article that said something to the effect of “Notice the date on the post where I lifted all the bans. Any article that says they couldn’t see an article on FRL after that is lying”. Mr. Wray, this is precisely why people should take your advice and realize who the comment is coming from to judge its worth…in this case, you, and in your case, worthless.

Two small fallacies in your accusation…the debate was 9/7/11. The video of it was posted on 9/8/11 if I’m not mistaken. You apparently were kind enough to give lowlifes like myself a second (third?) chance to redeem themselves on FRL on 9/9/11. So…..when I tried to access that video through the link Kaye Fissinger put in the comments section of the Times Call on 9/8/11, I got FRL’s “You are banned” screen. (And not that I care, but it was what it was, and I thought people would get a chuckle knowing that I was banned on FRL). Two days later, I wrote my post about the candidates in the debate, and apparently sometime between when I first tried to access the video on 9/8/11 and and when I wrote the article on 9/10/11, Mr. Wray was kind enough to remove all the banned addresses.

This is why people don’t take you seriously Mr. Wray…you shoot your mouth off regardless of the truth of your words, and most of Longmont knows it. In this case, I don’t think you were lying on purpose, since how were you to know when I tried to access things? You just saw a chance to catch me in a lie, and you jumped at it without knowing what you were talking about. What continues to crack me up is that had I made a similar comment on your site, you would have banned me for saying it. So while I so appreciate the kind gesture of lifting my ban so I can see the error of my commenting ways, I’m not convinced yet that you care for honest dialogue and debate there that doesn’t march in lockstep with your own. So rather than go for a third ban, I think I’ll continue to respond to you here…you are obviously getting my messages, even if they aren’t sinking in very well. And that works for me…people will continue to see your thought process for what it really is, and the whole point of this blog is to let Longmont respond to those incorrect and misleading comments.

As always, thanks for playing!

First City Council Candidates Debate

Sure wish I’d been able to attend the debate last week, but unfortunately I had to watch it on video (which would have been a lot easier had I not been banned from the one site on which I saw it posted, but obviously I made it happen 😉 ). “Gardener” on the Times Call article about the debate had some great observations about the candidates (again, these are public comments on the Times Call site from Gardener, so hopefully no one’s panties are going to be in a bunch for my posting them over here too):

John Daniels – Poor kid, it was fascinating to watch him comprehend the difference between being “against” something versus being “for” something. Kudos to him for making this effort. (from LongmontResponds: I agree, it was hard to watch him answer questions, and he really looked like he was in over his head most of the time. I also respect the effort, but he is not yet ready for prime time).

Brian Hansen – don’t you know, campaign funding is the root of all evils. Watch out Brian, you are in danger of becoming a nag. But – very polite – the best at respecting the time limits. (from LR: Hansen has certainly been very vocal about campaign funding ever since the last election, and Gardener is right, it is going to bite him before too long. And definitely a calm speaker, I have to give him that. It doesn’t seem, though, that his heart is truly in it. More like he feels obligated to run. And though I’ve never tried to contact him, I’ve heard all of the complaints from people who have tried to contact him and have never gotten a response. That’s a little bothersome to me, but maybe he has his reasons. Maybe I’ll ask him that next time I get to talk to him in person).

Suzzane Painter – Bold, Brash, Confident, this single mom is ready to leave her high school child and another home alone in pursuit of the glory of local politics – Longmont’s version of Sarah Palin? (from LR: Still not certain about her, but she does seem very confident in herself, and I mean that in a very complimentary way. I still need to review her positions on a few things before I can make a decision about her).

Paul Tiger – if elected, could become the fulcrum on the council – the tie-breaker that is not constrained by groupthink from either side. Interesting…. (from LR: I’ve grown to like Paul Tiger. I think he has tended to speak sometimes just for the sake of letting the public know that he has an opinion, and some of his opinions are not ones that I would support, but he is a very smart guy and doesn’t seem to be the overreacting emotional type. And because he doesn’t seem to think in lockstep with either side, he definitely would make the new makeup of council…interesting).

Dennis Coombs -Fella seems nice, but generally if you have to repeatedly tell people what skill you have, chances are, you don’t. The comment about folks needing to walk more hardly reflects “great people skills”. (from LR: Dennis Coombs seems a little too “pie in the sky” for my liking. To me, he is too much “let’s all help the world and we can all get along” mentality, and I think many of the things he says he’ll work towards are not realistic goals. I give him credit for his heart being in the right place…I truly believe he wants to do what is best for his city, but I think the ways he wants to improve things just won’t work well).

Sarah Levison – prepared as always, give her an “A”. Still needs to work on that “tell a story in 5 words or less” concept. (from LR: Definitely long winded, but also smart as hell. I think she has always had some very strong opinions about things, and many times those opinions doesn’t have enough votes to go anywhere, which has to be incredibly frustrating, but to her credit, I don’t see her flying off the handle all that often in council meetings. If I actually agreed with her vision and direction for the city, I think she would be a very powerful ally, but she is pretty much on the complete opposite side of the fence on everything that I believe in).

Ron Gallegos – definitely experienced. Little bit reckless – what with that imminent domain comment – still the At large seat has two quality candidates, should be interesting. (from LR: The eminent domain comment worried me a bit too, and I disagree with his position on Mile High Skydiving. You can tell he has been in politics, though…he seemed very comfortable in front of everyone. I would have to decide if his pros outweigh his cons, so I’ll be paying close attention in the next debates).

Sean McCoy – Newsflash, Young Daniels is running for Ward 1, not Ward 3. Did Sean really have to attack the weakest, least experienced candidate at the podium? Three times – very unclassy. And the worst at disregarding the time limits. (from LR: Completely agree here, McCoy came across as a bully on this night, which hasn’t been out of character at all from many council meetings that I’ve seen. I’m still waiting to get some confirmation from him about his ElectMcCoy twitter account, and if the postings on it are truly from him. It is seeming more likely, but I’d still like to hear it from the horse’s mouth. McCoy has also tended to be on the opposite side of most of my beliefs for how Longmont could be made better. I don’t live in Ward 3, so I won’t have the chance to vote against him, but I think the council would go a long way towards being more civil if he were not a part of it).

I’m really looking forward to more debates and seeing the other candidates in action. Until then…..