Optics are often king in gov't purchases, trumping common sense. Federalism means freedom, the chance to live as you see fit. It's parental notification, not bans for me. How about you?
Private industry usually prioritizes price and efficacy, the government, the perception.
A reader asked recently about why it is that this state has so many closed rest areas, and then also mentioned the VERY expensive rest areas outside Pueblo that are now closed, never to reopen.
The answer to the first part of the question is pretty straightforward. It's money. See the first link below.
You see, while CDOT and our state take more and more money from you in terms of fees, they are spending that on things like electric busses (see the second link), and tying money to climate action plans and the like.
They are NOT spending it on pavement. They are not spending it on rest stops, places to stretch your legs, places to go to the bathroom on a long highway drive.*
A pattern I've noted elsewhere shook out of the research on this post, so I thought I'd share a bit more about that. It relates directly to those closed (and expensive) rest areas near Pueblo on I-25.
The government far too often makes purchasing and design decisions based on optics, on what our own Gov Polis said in reference to geothermal energy (if memory serves -- this is a paraphrase based on memory), on "leading the market".
Put this in contrast to the decidedly non-sexy and non-novel approach taken by business: spending on known quantities that have familiar costs, benefits, and operations.
The rest stops near Pueblo were a perfect example. To give you some context and deeper reading if you're not familiar (or want it), check out links three and four below.
Link 3 is to a May 2018 CDOT study that detailed the plans for Colorado's rest stops. The section you want for Pueblo is 3.2.5.
Link 4 is an article is a 2021 KOAA news story about the rest stops and the fact that they were (at the time and still are) closed indefinitely due to both water and sewage issues.
The rest stops near Pueblo were speculative to begin with. Sited out in the middle of nowhere along Southern I-25, an area not known to be teeming with water sources. A subsequent revamp of the original design tried to get by with even less water than the original design.
Water at a rest stop is important, however, and not just for consumption. Most known technology for dealing with waste, from the toilet on down (if you'll pardon the pun), even for dealing with grey water like that from handwashing, needs water to function. You're either going to send the waste to a treatment facility or a tank/leach field and it's going to get there and be processed in the medium of water.
CDOT spent big on a system that promised to deal with waste and not need water: a mulching toilet. A mulching toilet which failed (and the company that sold it is no long gone). A mulching toilet which would have required 5 times its installation cost to replace when it failed.
Instead of sticking with known technology (or abandoning the project if it was untenable), the state instead chose to spend on a system which was likely spanking new at the time, a system which hadn't been tested by being in use for decades, and a system which was backed by a company which folded like a card table.
And the result was millions of our dollars wasted.
Now, extend this forward to the fifth and final link below. It details how a Denver housing project is replacing gas heat with heat pumps (similar being done in, again if memory serves, a public housing project up in the mountains). A known and workable technology for something that is still speculative in terms of its cost and performance.
Will we have an article a few years into the future about them ripping out the heat pumps and putting in a high efficiency gas furnace at yet more cost?
*I do want to make a quick note here that I've heard rumors about contracts being let to work on Welcome Centers, the rest stops at the borders. If I hear more, I'll post. No word or rumor, however, on opening run of the mill rest stops.
https://www.cpr.org/2024/01/02/whats-with-all-the-closed-rest-areas-on-colorado-roads/
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/gov-jared-polis-colorado-department-transportation-31-7-million-grant-28-new-electric-buses/
https://wp-cpr.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2023/12/May-2018_Rest-Area-Study_Phase-II.pdf
https://www.koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/pinon-rest-area-on-i-25-remains-closed-indefinitely?fbclid=IwY2xjawEjZGpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTkboEVlVLT4zrVYO1-92X26HiWA49siTBRk36W_R1Stay-XcYrPLBj1hA_aem_3zLoeWmRDy4ys9ao3T-1eQ
https://www.cpr.org/2024/08/23/denver-housing-authority-electrifies-multifamily-public-housing-complex/
Related:
My recent rundown on some of the MANY fees that CDOT and others put on you supposedly to "fix our damn roads"
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/are-your-damn-roads-fixed-yet-a-look?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Federalism means freedom, the chance to live as you see fit.
The survey in the CPR article below may say that most Americans "support public schools' selection of books", but most Americans don't have children in or live in the Elizabeth School District.
And that is the point.
One of the joys of a federal republic (as opposed to a giant free for all democracy) which gives freedom to smaller units of government is that, in theory at least and to the extent it's feasible and morally tolerable, you have the freedom to have things the way you like them where you live.
Even if the way you like things is counter to the way a larger group thinks they ought to be.
That was what I kept thinking to myself as I read the article below. It details how those poor, misguided souls in the Elizabeth School District are (as Obama so charmingly and arrogantly put it) "on the wrong side of history" with regard to books.
I don't particularly care what the nation says. I don't particularly support every single thing the district is doing.
Still, not my decision to make and I don't find their choices morally repugnant enough to think that it ought to be stopped.
For those that live in the district that disagree, I sympathize. I am, after all, a conservative in a rural area living in urban Democrat Colorado. Find ways to make your life work, or find a way to move somewhere that fits your values more.
We needn't nationalize everything. We needed have one single standard that everyone has to follow. This nation was designed as a federal republic and we should remember that when we have the temptation to try and force everyone into the same mold.
https://www.cpr.org/2024/08/21/elizabeth-school-district-book-bans/
To me, it's not about banning books, it's about parental notification. How about you?
I want to return to the CPR article from the previous post (linked again below for convenience), but this time I want to use it to flesh out what I think is a reasonable and centrist view on controversial books.
I cannot, will not get behind bans. A ban is a bridge too far.
At the same time, I do recognize that parents, those who have the most responsibility for the child, have the right, the moral duty, to pass along their values and to be foremost in the raising of that young one.
This is not the government's job. It is not the school's job. It's not society's job. They can weigh in of course (and obviously step in when that parenting presents a danger), but the say should go with those we hold most responsible.
So where to put the balance?
I put it roughly where Elizabeth School District does. I refer you now to the screenshot from the CPR article that outlines their policy regarding what they term "sensitive" books.
Now, I don't know that my sensitive books list would match theirs, but my preferred method of navigating the decision is similar.
I'm not asking for banning. I'm not asking for books to be removed.
I am asking for books that deal with controversial topics to be placed on a list such that I have to be notified if my young one (below a certain age) wants to check them out.
That's all. If I want to let my child check the book out, it's hers. If not, the library says no.
It's hard to communicate this since we don't know each other well personally, but take my word for the fact that I value individual intellectual freedom and curiosity highly. I am in an academic setting for my professional life after all.
I want my young one to read and think widely. I want her to come to her own conclusions about things even if they don't match mine. It's HER life to live and not mine. I want the values she eventually constructs for herself to be informed by a variety of sources. I want her to be familiar with the arguments those that disagree might make.
At the same time, however, there is a season for encountering ideas. Brains need to be ripe for what hits them. Children need to be able to make proper sense of what they see so they can categorize and wrestle with the thoughts those things provoke.
My job as a parent, my responsibility, is to make sure that her mind is ready and that I help her make sense of what she sees. This can only happen if I I know what she's encountering.
Part of this involves an open and trusting relationship, and part of it involves outsiders not hiding things from me and my wife.
If there are books she's looking into, I want to know what those are. Maybe she gets them now, maybe she waits a bit, but I as the parent should be the one deciding.
I deserve to be informed.
What do you think? Where do you put the balance?
https://www.cpr.org/2024/08/21/elizabeth-school-district-book-bans/