Removing parking won’t get people out of cars

Reducing parking requirements may sound like a good idea at first glance. I can tell you, as a former resident of Southern California, that making parking scarce — even if only at certain times of day, leads to cars blocking neighboring streets (hence, reduced visibility and more accidents) frustration on the part of people trying to find accessible parking near a building, even fistfights. What does “market-based parking supply” really entail? Too often, it leads to people selling parking spaces on their land at outrageous prices. In Southern California, you can pay for many of these private lots only through your smartphone. No smartphone? You can’t park. Parking provided by “the market” may be in an unsafe location — unless, of course, you have lots of money. Some of these private lots are adjacent to transit park-n-rides that were supposed to satisfy demand, until demand grew along with the city. As Boulder, and the need for parking grows, we may want that “surplus” parking back.

Another consideration is that people with certain spatial orientation disabilities cannot park and back out in difficult spaces, such as between an SUV and an Amazon truck. As usual, market-based solutions fail to address the needs of people with disabilities. Do we send all these people to the MVD to have their licenses revoked for bad parking, a la SoCal “Mean Girl”?

The best way to “get people out of their cars” and cool the earth’s surface is to significantly improve transit, not to make parking difficult.

— Andrea Monk, Boulder

Trump is the least effective modern U.S. president

The C-Span Presidential Historians Survey 2021 ranks presidents based on overall effectiveness. Ranked highest to lowest, our “modern” presidents are Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Obama, Johnson (Lyndon), Clinton, Bush (H.G.W.), Carter, Ford, Bush (G.W.), Nixon and Trump.

My question is: Why would any patriotic American vote for a second term for our least effective modern former president? Donald Trump is someone who:

• still lies about the 2020 election being “stolen,” and lies incessantly;

• incited an insurrection, watching it for two hours before acting;

• announced eliminating our Constitution, then serving as an autocrat “on day one” if re-elected;

• ridicules our military (except when needed for a photo op);

• is guilty of thirty-four felonies;

• boasts about appointing SCOTUS justices who overturned Roe v. Wade;

• praises dictators as models;

• uses religion as a false cover, and the list goes on.

Trump, who mocked “feeble Joe,” is now the 78-year-old out-of-shape nominee. So, if Trump is re-elected, then dies in office, we get J.D. Vance as president. Who thinks that’s good for America?

— Denise Fazio, Longmont

Don’t circumvent science-based wildlife management

I will be voting “no” on Proposition 127 this November, and I urge fellow voters to do the same.

The proponents of Proposition 127 (Cats Aren’t Trophies) are attempting to pull the wool over Coloradans eyes to further their personal agenda. Proposition 127 attempts to ban the sustainable hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and Lynx. (The last of which are already federally protected.) To do so they have been telling voters that these animals are being hunted to extinction when, in reality, lions and bobcats have stable or increasing populations at levels that haven’t been seen in the last century. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) says that there are between 3,800 and 4,400 mountain lions and the bobcat population is estimated to be nearing 20,000.

While CPW may be bound to abstain from commenting on Proposition 127 specifically, they are not at all neutral when it comes to science-based wildlife management.

I’ll leave you with some final thoughts. A “no” vote on 127 is not a vote to require continued hunting of any species, in contrast it leaves these decisions in the hands of proven experts. Voting “yes” on Proposition 127 would circumvent decades of data collected and employed in a proven system of wildlife management that has served Colorado well.

— Seth Brandstetter, Loveland