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Friday, September 04, 2009
September 04, 2009 08:29 am
DEAN TODA
THE GAZETTE
It was billed as one young professional talking to a bunch of people like him about what it’s like to quickly climb the ladder of success.
Josh Penry has lived that story. At age 33, he’s the Republican leader in the state Senate.
But what the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce Rising Professionals group got with their lunch Thursday was a stump speech by Penry, who wants to succeed Gov. Bill Ritter.
Penry, who’s from
Penry’s prescription is classic Reaganomics: tax cuts, which he said would not only energize the economy, but increase tax revenues enough to pay for what he called “reforming” the public education system, making college more affordable and investing more in the state’s transportation system.
Penry also defended his vote this year to deny the use of state lands for the expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, a
The more common view in the Springs, however, is to see the
According to a variety of local Republican officeholders at the state and county level, if a Pinon Canyon expansion is less practicable, then Fort Carson becomes less desirable as a place to transfer new Army units or keep the ones already there.
There’s no evidence that the Pentagon is planning to pull the plug on
Penry also faces a name recognition hurdle. He’s not as well known in the Springs as Scott McInnis, who served six terms in Congress and is also seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
County Commissioner Sallie Clark is chairwoman of McInnis’s campaign in
On July 24th we participated in a forum hosted by Action-22 at the
We are concerned that Army is attempting to distort the GAO’s conclusions.
The GAO reports point out that the Army failed to answer several important questions that they were required to respond to by Congress and that the process by which they pursued their expansion proposal was flawed. We find in these reports ample support for our contention that
GAO-09-171 indicates that the Army failed to respond to six of the Congressional mandates and that they failed to provide any rationale for selecting the 100,000 acres for the proposed expansion. This is a significant deviation from the original application for waiver and another factor that should nullify it.
GAO-09-171 also indicates that the per acre cost of the land in the Army's revised initiative to acquire 100,000 acres, has been doubled from the per acre cost indicated in the original proposal. These new factors invalidate the Department of Defense decision to approve the Army's waiver application.
GAO-09-32 recommends that the army develop and implement a process to update its plan for training ranges to reflect current needs. It points out that the Army's application for a waiver was done on the basis of an outdated
GAO-09-32 indicates that the Department of Defense and the Army failed in communicating with citizenry in their attempts at securing this major land acquisition. It makes the point that such public engagement should have occurred prior to their submission of an application for a waiver from the Department of Defense moratorium on major land acquisitions. The Army’s application for waiver, U.S. Department of the Army Major Land Acquisition Proposal, Section 7 - Public and Political Sensitivity, included the misleading statement that, "the military enjoys a positive relationship in the Colorado Springs area and southern Colorado." This statement failed to accurately represent to the Department of Defense the actual level of opposition that was present in the region at the time the application was submitted and that has intensified since. A more realistic approach would have been to include an accurate description of the depth of opposition expressed by political jurisdictions and community groups.
GAO-09-32 indicates that, in contrast with acquisitions in
It is also very important to note that it would not be appropriate for the Army to be allowed to address the unanswered questions identified by the GAO in the context of the NEPA process. The Army should not be rewarded for its failures by being given a green light to move forward with a Pinon Canyon Expansion EIS.
What should be done:
A comprehensive, top-down Department of Defense inventory of all Department of Defense testing and training ranges should be completed in compliance with Section 366 of the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act, 2003 which required that the Secretary of Defense to develop and maintain an inventory that identifies all available operational training ranges, all training range capacities. The Army’s methodology is based upon a base-by-base determination of training land shortfalls and fails to take into account surplus lands within the DoD real estate inventory. This methodology encourages competition between bases and communities for the federal money goes with the expansion of a base. In the case of PCMS the money goes to one community while the nationalization of private land and businesses falls on a different community. Troop positioning should be driven by available training land; not by the distribution of federal funds to local economies.
Another important point is implicitly made within the GAO reports; that the 100,000 acres identified as “Area A” is only the first phase of a larger acquisition plan.
Former Assistant Secretary of the Army, Installations and Environment, Mr. Keith Eastin belittled our concern about a larger, 17-year, multi-phased acquisition plan, characterizing it as a baseless rumor that we have “created in our minds.” But the GAO, having reviewed the same Army documents which gave rise to our concerns, recognizes that Area A is just the beginning. GAO-09-171 says, “the Army stated that from the outset it has placed a priority on the acquisition of area A, the 100,000 acres proposed in the initial expansion. While we are aware that the Army preferred the 100,000 acres initially our recommendation was focused on the usability and sustainability of the 100,000-acre parcel and not why the Army chose to start with the 100,000 acres.”(GAO-09-171, page 22.)
The Analysis of Alternatives, May 6, 2004, and The Pinon Vision (part one), OPLAN05-18, 2006 are two of the documents which prompted the GAO and PCEOC to conclude that “Area A” is only the “initial” “first” phase of the Army’s acquisition plan. These and other documents are also accessible on our website .
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An excerpt from a Rocky Mountain Independent article - read the rest of the article HERE.
In the hot seat
Recent bad press for McInnis in Denver media hasn’t helped improve that brand. The congressman has been criticized over how he’s spent the $1.3 million that was in his campaign account when he left Congress in 2004, and for hiring his wife, Lori, to manage it. At the time, a McInnis staffer said the congressman would distribute some of the money to charities. But according to news reports, he put most of the money into a new political action committee called Western Way Leadership, and has already used some of it to promote the GOP.
A brouhaha occurred over the matter last week when McInnis appeared on KHOW-AM (630) talk radio’s Caplis and Silverman show. There, Dan Caplis, a Republican, asked McInnis about the issue, prompting a heated exchange that had Caplis calling McInnis “silly” and saying his handling of the matter was “beneath the office” he’s hoping to win.
In an interview with the RMI a week earlier, McInnis interrupted a similar query into the matter, saying:
“Let’s stop right there. I’m sensing a little male chauvinism here. If my wife was here, she’d say, ‘Because I’m a woman I shouldn’t be paid for my job?’ My wife was fully employed. It was perfectly legitimate. It was her job. This, again, is our political opponents trying to make hay out of this,” McInnis said.
“Take any of my opponents and ask them what they’ve ever done to help the cause of cancer. Take any of my opponents and ask them what they’ve ever done with Girls on the Run. Take any of my opponents and ask them what they’ve ever done with Catholic Charities. You might as well take that little gotcha thing off the table.”
Penry’s response?
“Those are things he’s going to have to explain,” he said. “We could spend a lot of time doing the tit-for-tat on those things, but that demeans the importance of this election. I assume the Fourth Estate will ask him those questions.”
We've been advised Senator Bennet's message system was full when people have tried to call to ask for pushing a permanent ban for the opposition of pinon canyon. But there are other options!!
Here are links to page on each Senator's website that has their contact/e-mail form (no one in the legislature uses a personal e-mail anymore it seems) along with their offices addresses and numbers so a call to any of them should get forwarded as well.
http://markudall.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm
La Junta Tribune Democrat
Letters to the Editor, July 6, 2009
Declaration of
In recognition of July 4th I read through the Declaration of Independence. In it our foregathers proclaimed that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and that, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
I thought about the irony of our situation here in
Most people are familiar with the first couple of paragraphs of the Declaration, but it is instructive to read through to the list of specific grievances against the English King. Among them are that he had, “sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” That he allowed, “Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” And that he had, “affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.”
As I reflect upon the values embodied in The Declaration of Independence it strikes me that the most patriotic thing that we can do to honor our forefathers is stand together in opposition to the federalization of our state’s lands and the militarization of our state’s economy.
Doug Holdread
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Bill Ritter has saved southeast
Mr. Ritter has shown he doesn’t hide behind partisan politics. Governor Ritter says “I looked at the facts and listened to all sides and am certain I did the right thing signing HB1317.” He goes on to say “
Congressman Mike Coffman has even gone so far as to issue a congressional statement smearing the Governor as "sympathetic" to terrorist organizations for siding with Coloradoans against the expansion of
Many, many families have been tied to the land around
When all of these concerned people with deep roots in
Join us in telling Rep. Mike Coffman to stop using taxpayer dollars to smear Governor Ritter and the people of Colorado.
Thank you for joining us to send a message to Rep. Mike Coffman, and for standing up for the thousands of Coloradans, just like you who would be devastated by the Army's excessive expansion proposal.
Sincerely,
Kelly and Randy Bader, Ranchers, Kim, PCEOC
Arin and Brady Burnham, Ranchers,
Rebecca Goodwin, Chairman -
Grady Grissom, Farrier, PCEOC Board
Linda Grissom, Chemist, PCEOC
Connie Hass, Teacher/Rancher, PCEOC
Rusty and Niki Henard, Ranchers,
Doug Holdread, Artist/Professor,
Randy and Barbara Pond, 1st Sgt,
(3 tours in
RC and JoannaPatterson, ranchers, Kim, PCEOC Board
Gerald Quartiero, Truck Driver, Walsenburg, PCEOC
Shelley Quartiero, Project Manager, Walsenburg, PCEOC Board
Lon Robertson, Rancher/Paramedic, Kim, PCEOC Board
Wayne Snider, Town Administrator, Fowler, PCEOC
Jerry and Karen Winford, Ranchers, Branson, PCEOC Board
Joy Wooten, Rancher/Photographer, Kim, PCEOC
Steve Wooten, Rancher, Kim, PCEOC Board
