Predator students not punished
I read with great interest the article in Friday’s Gazette by Jimmy Sengenerger detailing an incident of abuse by one student upon another, and how the Cherry Creek School, and the school district, ignored and “swept under the rug,” without any resolution whatsoever.
A very similar incident happened to my granddaughter when she was 8 years old and attending an “upscale” Denver Public Schools (DPS) elementary school in the Stapleton neighborhood. The school administration and the DPS administration also chose to treat this incident as if it didn’t matter to my granddaughter, her parents, and family members.
Despite repeated calls and visits to the school principal, nothing to resolve the problem was done. The only action taken was when the school administration chose to move my granddaughter from the classroom that she was in, with the student predator, to another classroom, and nothing was done to the predator despite there being witnesses to the assault that occurred on the playground during a recess. Sadly, my granddaughter felt like she was the one that was punished and it still effects her to this day.
What is wrong with this country today? Predators do roam our school hallways in the form of other students and also in the form of teachers and administrators who take advantage of their position to intimidate students and exploit their “position of trust”.
Sadly, when a person in a “position of trust” within the school system commits these heinous and depraved acts upon students they are not punished and, all too often, given a job, and even promoted, where student contact is minimal.
Also, when a student is found to be a predator, they go unpunished as well, and either continue to harass and abuse their victim or move on to another student. The education system is supposed to be there to educate and protect our young people and give them the tools they will need to navigate this much changed world we live in. Instead they, often times, provide the atmosphere where students feel unsafe and no longer get the education the we, as taxpayers, pay for. The concerned and involved teacher of yesteryear is now a rarity instead of the norm.
Tom Guenther
Denver
HOAs and fraud
I have served on three HOA boards — two in Florida and one in Denver. It seems to me that there is a logical response by any board when a large number of units no longer exist:
All contracts need to be renegotiated based on actual services to be rendered — landscaping, management, water, trash collection, etc. The budget should then be revised in emergency session to reflect those changes.
Any HOA, vendor, or local government that is billing for services it is not providing is defrauding the owner. There may not be specific laws in this regard pertaining to HOAs, but there are fraud statutes that should be reviewed. The HOA arguments are indefensible.
Donna Brosemer
Westminster
Massive spending bill
Wow. After reading the proposed 200-million-dollars ($200,000,000.00) to fix the homeless problem in the Denver area I must respond. No one likes to see the homeless, however it is a fact the large percentage of homeless want to be homeless. Some can be rehabilitated but most to choose to live homeless.
This proposal would set up one of the largest bureaucratic long-term spending bills in the history of Colorado. According to my research there is approximately 10,000 homeless people in the State of Colorado. That means each homeless person will receive $20,000 worth of goodies. Free everything for life! There is no research, science, or proof that any of this spending reduces the homeless population. This is a race for the Democrat legislators set up another massive go nowhere spending bill.
What happens when the federal money is spent? I know there will be a Colorado State Tax on the citizens of Colorado. Rep. Iman Jodeh, D-Aurora says every Coloradan deserves a safe place to live. Isn’t that the first order of business for our federal, state and local government officials? To date these legislators can’t even protect the people of Colorado now! Look at the fentanyl bill recently passed, violent crime is up, car theft is up, and drug use is up. This spending is unsustainable!
Trig Travis
Aurora
Expansion of public transit
Re: “Transit advocates measure the impacts of investing in roads” — The Denver Gazette, Joey Bunch, April 21.
Our city and state have set aggressive climate action goals and in order to meet them within prescribed timelines, we need to holistically focus on making those outcomes a reality through decarbonization of the transportation sector.
By investing in the expansion of roadways we limit our ability to allocate funding towards more progressive investments into the expansion of public transit infrastructure that would reduce congestion on existing roadways by lessening reliance on personal vehicles for members of our growing community and the increasing number of tourists visiting our outdoor haven each year.
Not only is the expansion of fast, reliable, and efficient public transit a benefit for residents of our great state, it also lessens the environmental impact of the tourism industry on our open spaces, which are often the draw for recreational travel to Colorado. Tourists often rent cars or utilize ride sharing services to partake in recreation whereas with an enhanced transit system, they would be able to utilize public transit to access often visited surrounding areas in the metropolitan area, foothills and beyond. As the population of our state and annual tourist visitor numbers continue to swell, we need to think proactively and invest in the expansion of public transit infrastructure that puts our climate action goals at the forefront, instead of backsliding into regressive transit projects that exacerbate inequality and contribute to the expansion of humans’ impact to the climate crisis with our built environments.
Austin Donovan
Denver