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Sunday, September 13, 2009
Letters To the Editor
Church Expansion Is Man's Selfish Act
I found the Journal's "Not in My Backyard" argument concerning Jeffrey Bronfman's proposed church expansion in Arroyo Hondo as ironic as it was grossly overstated. If Bronfman was proposing to use the site for affordable housing or social services for the homeless, the residents' objections might appear selfish and parochial — the correct definition for "NIMBY-ism."
What he is proposing, however, is a mega-expansion of what until now has been the equivalent of home worship. In effect, he is taking his idiosyncratic church from a living room to a permanent 7,100 square feet facility on a postage-stamp size lot — a building that will dwarf its neighboring homes.
By mischaracterizing as NIMBYs the hundreds of Arroyo Hondo residents who are doing the best they can to protect the common good of the most people, the Journal has given the neighborhood's true NIMBY, Mr. Bronfman, a free ride. As one of Santa Fe's wealthiest individuals, he is pursuing a singular and selfish set of personal interests, shrouded in an esoteric form of spiritualism, at the expense of a much larger good.
The question that the County Commissioners must answer is whose good is being served by this proposal — that of the hundreds of long-time neighborhood residents or that of one of the community's most privileged individuals.
Mark Winne
Santa Fe
Park Service Should Manage Caldera
For eight years the public has experienced the "Trust" model of managing the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Disappointment and frustration are increasing as the experiment in public land management has veered off in a direction much of the public doesn't want and never intended when we pushed for public purchase of the Baca Ranch in 2000.
Since 2000, the Valles Caldera has been largely closed to the public. Though some opportunities for hunting, fishing and hiking exist, the vast majority of the Preserve is inaccessible and citizens will be fined for entering land that we all bought and own together.
At the core of the Trust model written into the 2000 purchase legislation is a requirement that the VCNP protect natural values and become "financially self-sufficient" by 2015. This financial requirement is supposed to save the public the roughly $3 million per year it costs to run the VCNP. Yet it has turned into a monster, driving much that happens on the Preserve except the science program.
The current "access and use" planning process where the Trust is proposing everything from hotels, parking lots, gift shops, hiking trails and RV parks is a case in point. Since logging and grazing are not profitable for the VCNP, the Trust has turned to commercial developments in an attempt to attain financial self sufficiency.
Many major problems are endemic to the Trust model but two take center stage. First, in order to build hotels and parking lots, the Trust will need between $43 million and $143 million taxpayer dollars. Whether the Trust plans to pay these taxpayer funds back, should it get them, is unclear. Second, public opinion runs strongly against commercial developments of the VCNP, yet the "financial self-sufficiency" mandate will push the trustees to defy the public and choose the most optimistic money-making plan; one that will lead to over-development and damaged recreation and education experiences.
The Trust experiment is a chronically flawed management system. This privatization of public land emphasizes money over the tremendous watershed, wildlife, recreation and educational values of the VCNP. It's time to end the Trust experiment, transfer the land to the National Park Service as the 19th NPS Preserve, see professional management, financial efficiency, quality public access, and enjoy a sense that we have created a true asset to our region in a well protected nationally significant place. Please contact Congress to support this transfer before irreparable damage is done to our preserve.
Tom Ribe
Executive Director of Caldera Action
Santa Fe
Health Centers In Schools Will Help
I am writing in response to your excellent editorial of Friday, Sept. 4, "Additional Flu Shots Key to a Flu-Free Fall." Vaccination centers in schools make a lot of sense. Secretaries Vigil and Garcia understand that New Mexico's 80 school-based health centers (SBHCs) located throughout the state can be an effective partner in this effort, helping to ensure that this flu season is as "uneventful" as possible in New Mexico.
SBHCs are located precisely where students are — in school. They very often provide the only medical care (both physical and behavioral) for students, particularly those who are uninsured — a major concern in this state, as your editorial so clearly points out. In addition to supporting a school vaccination program, SBHC medical professionals can provide prompt medical attention to ill or high-risk students who may need medical evaluation for influenza-like illness while in school.
Several years ago, an initiative sponsored by Gov. Richardson doubled the number of SBHCs in the state, and, today, there's one in nearly every county. Most school-based health centers provide a wide variety of primary care, mental health, and prevention services. It is in times like this — with a flu pandemic upon us that is affecting many school-aged children — that communities with school nurses and SBHCs in their schools have an upper hand.
Let's all hope that both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 strain are mild for our school-age population, but it's good to know that when prevention efforts and medical evaluation are needed, SBHCs are there to help.
Howard M. Spiegelman
Executive Director
New Mexico Alliance for School-Based Health Care
Santa Fe
Bipartisanship Will Be Obama Downfall
Albert Einstein's definition of insanity is "to do the same thing over and over and expect different results." President Obama has his head in the sand, repeating the mantra "bipartisan" over and over.
It didn't happen with his stimulus package, even though he made severe changes in it to satisfy the Republicans who, with three exceptions, voted against it. And it isn't going to happen with health care reform. No Republican will support it, even after the public option, on which he campaigned for office and which is desired by 77 percent of Americans, is stripped from it.
President Obama is extremely intelligent and very well educated. Why can't he see that he is going to sabotage every one of his major programs by insisting on support from Republicans who have vowed to see him fail by defeating those programs, or by so changing them that they will be ineffective?
Adele E. Zimmermann
Embudo
Do We Really Have The Water To Spare?
There has been a fair amount of chatter lately about making over Santa Fe into a modest version of San Antonio (Texas). The idea would be to convert the occasionally flowing Santa Fe River into a constantly flowing — and much larger — stream to provide for a San Antonio-like river walk. Not the least of this enthusiasm appears to be coming from city hall. Apparently, the thrust would be to use water from our reservoirs supplemented by a series of downtown wells. My question is as follows. If we have sufficient and nearby water resources to dump into a usually dry ditch, and in the face of an endless, ongoing drought, why are we spending in excess of a hundred million dollars to tap into the Rio Grande for water fifteen or twenty miles away?
Paul McConnell
Santa Fe
Church Knows All About Controlling
I'm sure I am not the only one who has thrown up her hands over the raging health care debacle. Yet, my attention was caught by the Journal headline, "Some Catholic Bishops Questioning Health Plan." I had to at least scan the article to see just what those bishops were up to this time.
I was, of course, happy to read that the Catholic Church thinks overhauling health care is "vital." But I threw up my hands again when I read that the church was mainly concerned that the final plan might cover abortion when the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest or (god forbid) to save the mother's life. Great concern, also, on the part of the church that health care workers would be "forced" against their religious convictions to provide abortions (and, presumably, "forced" to prescribe or dispense birth control pills). Then I just gave up reading after I came to the sentence that read, in part, that the good bishops thought that "... an oversized government health system could wield too much power over people's lives."
Well, now THAT is something that religion, and Catholicism in particular, would know something about. Power over people's lives. How about religion's desire for power over MY life to say I can't have an abortion if I want one? How about its desire for power over MY life to say that I must die in pain and suffering because THEIR putative savior died for my "sins" two thousand plus years ago? How about their real power over MY life to say that I can't marry whomever I choose to love?
Government power of some sort is something civilized society cannot exist without (tho there are those who believe otherwise), but as far as I can tell, society is often far less civilized when it is dominated by religion of any kind meddling in government affairs.
When is the line finally going to be honored between church and state in America? How far is too far for churches to involve themselves in secular government affairs? Tell you what — let's fix the deficit. Tax those churches that want to dictate government policy. It's only fair to reach into their collection plates if they want to reach into the private lives of all Americans, believers or not, by way of political activism.
Patricia Victour
Española
Wars Are Destroying The U.S. Financially
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently said that the U.S. is in Iraq for oil and he would like to see our leaders stand up and admit it. Evidently, we are also in Iraq to spend money.
When President Bush's economic advisors said that the Iraq war would cost $200 billion, Secretary Rumsfeld said "baloney," and the estimate was lowered to $50 billion to $60 billion. The sad truth is that we have already spent a trillion dollars in direct operating costs such as fuel, ammunition, salaries, etc. Add to the direct costs the interest on the money borrowed to fight the war, the cost to replace all the destroyed equipment, medical and disability expense, lost opportunity costs to society for all the disabled veterans, and you have a total cost of $3 trillion or more for the Iraq war.
But this all assumes that we have won the war, with a scheduled drawdown of our troops, and have set a definite end date. The end of the Iraq war, however, is illusory. We still have approximately 100,000 troops in Iraq, and the Pentagon plans to keep 50,000 there for who knows how long. Add to that the 60,000 troops we are committing to control the oil and gas pipelines in Afghanistan, and one wonders how long we can afford war after war.
Richard Foster
White Rock
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