Pueblo's League of Women Voters Forum (Sept 21, 2017)
Tommy Farrell was there. Margaret Wright was there too. Bob Schilling wasn't, however, even though he was billed to be.
Last night at the Rawlings Library in the Ryal Meeting Room on the 4th floor, the Pueblo chapter of the League of Women Voters & the local chapter of the NAACP held a forum where 5 local speakers talked about 5 different local ballot measures.
The speakers in the order that they spoke, & their ballot issue, are as follows:
1- Lori Winner, City Councilwoman, on Ballot Question 2B (1/5 cent sales tax for 24 new cops);
2- Earl Wilkinson, Director of Public Works, on Ballot Question 2C ("street repair enterprise");
3- Garrison Ortiz, County Commissioner, on Ballot Question 1A (0.45 cent sales tax for a new county jail);
4- Colette Carter, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ballot Question 2A ("Strange Mayor");
5- Some fireman from West Pueblo for some ballot question, 5B, or 5C or something.
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1- Ballot Question 2B (1/5 cent sales tax for 24 New Cops);
Ruth Nerenberg, the President of Pueblo's League of Women Voters, introduced Lori Winner as a "lame duck" city council member, which is technically accurate, but not totally. The moment a candidate becomes a "lame duck" is when their legislative power is nullified by the looming election. So as long as City Council continues to meet, & Lori continues to vote, then her political power continues on, so therefore, she's not a lame duck. It's technically correct because Lori Winner isn't running for reelection, and therefore her seat will be occupied by another person. Lori Winner stepping down is a humble political move.
Pueblo City's current sales tax rate is 7.4% (2.9% State + 1% County + 3.5% City), & Lori Winner wants Pueblo City to adopt a 1/5 cent sales tax hike in order to pay for 24 new cops. That would increase the sales tax burden on Pueblo City to 7.6%. Cops - Courts - Jail, these 3 institutions are necessary for law & order, so all of those issues are slam dunk issues. It's like arguing against food stamps... who would argue that the poor don't have a right to eat? Anyways, Lori is putting all of her efforts into campaigning for the 0.2 cent sales tax hike.
Lori also said that she wouldn't talk about Question 300 because the city's lawyer told her not to. A woman in the audience talked about how the cops are abusing the poor & powerless instead of going after real criminals, like burglars, and Lori only responded by saying more cops would cut down their response times, which would help burglaries in progress, but not for burglaries already accomplished.
There were a few questions for Winner, but Lori is accessible to anybody & everybody wondering about 2B. She invited anybody to ask her about 2B.
The current City Manager will be in charge of hiring the 24 new cops, or the brand new Strongarm Strange Mayor will be.
xxx
2- Ballot Question 2C ($1/month street repair tax on our water bills)
I'm almost on board with the "Street Repair Tax on our Water Bills" ballot question 2C. This tax doesn't touch the sales tax, so the sales tax will stay at 7.4% for the City of Pueblo (the sales tax rate is only 3.9% for Pueblo County). This doesn't tax food or medicine. It's a utility tax, for street repairs, around Pueblo City, with the locals of the streets paying whatever tax their fancy algorithms conclude on their water bills.
Last night, Earl Wilkinson said that the average tax per household of this street repair enterprise tax on our water bills will be about $1 per month per "unit", apartment, or household, etc. $12 a year doesn't sound that bad to fix our streets. Fucked up streets add to the damage to our cars, and nicer streets would be nicer. I'm used to Kentucky having a huge Transportation budget, & streets being paved all over, so I'm wondering why Pueblo City isn't getting those Colorado State funds for their road, but regardless...
That's the advantage of having a municipal-owned corporation; you can tax water in order to pay for other services. Now it's our streets, next, it will be a new hospital, or a homeless town just on the outskirts of Pueblo City. Or perhaps seeding funds for our brand new Municipal Trash company, whose going to turn our trash into electricity, just like they're doing in Sweden.
The last question I have on the street repair utility tax is... for how long? How long is this tax going to be added onto our bills? Until the end of time? Ortiz's jail is a 30 year tax.
xxx
3- Garrison Ortiz's Ministry of Love (1A);
Pueblo City's current sales tax rate is 7.4% (2.9% State + 1% County + 3.5% City). If Ortiz's Ministry of Love ballot question gets passed, the 0.45 cent tax kicks the county tax up to 1.45%, which kicks up the county tax rate up to 4.35%, versus the city's increased tax rate of 7.85%. Pueblo City pays $3.50 more overall sales tax than Pueblo County per $100 spent.
Garrison Ortiz (who was wrongly billed as "Gilbert Ortiz, Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder" on the League's website; a small albiet fun oversight) put on a nice presentation about his Ministry of Love. Ortiz showed a short video, a nice high quality crisp video, detailing the need for a jail, & Ortiz talked about how many folks from the community with "good resumes" had come together to form this Jail Task Force. Ortiz showed us a Power Point, & he could only answer a few questions, because his time was cut short. He was asked to stay around afterwards to answer questions, which he did.
Why is the county even meddling in the city's election to begin with? Of course he gets Ballot Question 1A. The city should handle our own elections. When did the city cede that authority away? What year did that happen? Probably during Mayor B.B. Brown's reign. Fkn B.B. Brown.
I will stay opposed to this superfluous jail for many reasons. Pueblo County already has a jail, & they don't even let Pueblo City use it. 1/2 of the jail is filled with non-violent victimless "criminals". It's mostly drugs. A treatment center is precisely the direction Pueblo City needs to go & a jail is precisely the opposite direction we need to go. Michael Stapleton, a Libertarian city council candidate for District 1, is 100% opposed to the War on Drugs. He's also opposed to a government-funded treatment center.
We need to care about each other. We need to be the change we wish to see in the world. We need to give a damn, we need to be compassionate, that's the direction Pueblo City needs to go. Of course Pueblo City needs a jail, as every jurisdiction does. Perhaps I would have supported a jail for Pueblo City, then we wouldn't have any issues with putting our criminals behind bars. What kind of bullshit is that? Non-violent homeless folks are getting fucked with by the police for petty drug offenses, & yet, we can't even put shoplifters - thieves - behind bars? Pueblo City was seriously considering shipping our shoplifters out to Douglass County, because of the overcrowded County jail. Fremont County has 11 jails, so perhaps we can lease some of their cells out if crime is as out of control as the yellow muckrake'n journalists pretend it is. But Pueblo City had problems with putting shoplifters behind bars with the County jail before, and I don't see how that would be any different afterwards. The County will still control the County jail, the old one & the new one, and I predict that Pueblo County will continue to bully Pueblo City out of the jail space we taxpayers pay for & need. I'm sure having a City jail would be more compassionate with local folks too. I wonder if the County officials have a seething biased hatred for all things Pueblo City.
You want Pueblo City's crime to go down? Then build a Pueblo City jail for Pueblo City to use for Pueblo City, for fucks sake. Pueblo City already pays 3.5% more on our sales taxes than Pueblo County does. Also, never forget that the County voted consolidation down, no... they voted STUDYING consolidation down, so, no. These conservatives aren't trying to save any goddamned money. They're trying to keep their good ol boys club going. And they don't realize that the privilege of owning land gives them plenty of space, plenty of room to live & play & grow, it gives them more security, & respect, only land owners were citizens of the US in the beginning, so "The County" has it nice, they have it better than the City does. A city has a bunch of people dumped on top of each other, living like sardines, because the Industrial Revolution provided lots of jobs, & houses were built around these factories, which are dead now. Cities aren't natural. Jefferson is right to see America as an agrarian society. Folks are moving in & out, commerce is coming & going, from the hustle & bustle of a city, of course problems will emerge. But most city folks are just like county folks. There's no difference. Most city folks are good folks, good folks who have to look over their shoulders for violent thugs & thieves of all stripes. Cities will have bad apples, but the majority of city folks are good folks. And if county folks really wanted to help city folks out, then they should turn their acres into subdivisions. Urban sprawl is needed, urban sprawl is demanded, to be used as a relief valve for the bloat. Also, our homeless should be given a chance, so why not build a homeless town on the outskirts of town, say in the county somewhere? All of those spacious acres that just go on & on forever, yeah, take 1 of those mf'n acres, & give the homeless their own town, deputizing the peaceful harmless ones, & offering police protection until more permanent solutions can be figured out.
I'm glad that Ortiz's Ministry of Love has a treatment center included in it, but it's only added on as an after thought, & probably with much opposition from the conservatives. Stapleton is against a Treatment Center, because it's government spending on helping folks, which he detests, but I'm willing to bet he's for a goddamned Jail. A Jail signals that the County is embracing full blown fascism, versus a Treatment Center, which says that Pueblo believes in love & compassion, & we believe in helping folks out who need help, until they get on their feet... we Puebloans are sick & tired of the U.S. not having any kind of social safety net. The Republicans will get rid of the homeless problem by criminalizing them, by declaring war on the homeless, not the homelessness problem, & by fucking up their encampments, & harassing them, until they move on, or get arrested for disrespecting some hot-headed Nazi, & going to jail, where our taxes go to house the homeless anyways. Shit, if you're homeless, what incentive do you have NOT to commit a crime? Winter is coming up, & a jail is warmer than a ditch, or an alley underneath a box flap.
You're tired of having the homeless throw their change at your rude & uppity disrespectful ass? Then give a fuck about their lives. Give them a mf'n chance for godsakes!
I'm also curious about how developed this plan is. Should we built the jail in a remote location, or at a downtown one? Remote, of course. It's cheaper. Why ntf would it go downtown?!? On all of that expensive prime downtown real estate? Buying out all of those businesses next to the Judicial Center is going to be expensive. Plus, did those folks already bid out the job, before the vote even passes? That's cocky, doesn't seem ethical, might not be legal...
But the proximity makes me concerned about something else. What's the check on the police? The Judicial Branch? The Magistrates? The Municipal Judge? What's the check on the jailers? The Legislative Branch? The City Council, or the County Commissioners? By having an injustice system next to a new Jim Crow jail, I forecast unlimited torturous activities happening. The bridge between capture, conviction, & imprisonment forever is now shared by a hallway, & probably some secret underground tunnel that nobody notice included in the blueprints. All it would take to fuck over some innocent person, for whatever reason, is for a corrupt cop & a corrupt judge to merely exist, then that poor sap won't ever see the light of day, forever being tortured in Little Brother's Ministry of Love. Fascism is the new American norm now, & by design, all states are statist anyways. State is the root word of statist. And statehood means the monopoly of violence, by an unaccountable branch of government, whose thin blue line employs their vengeance, just or not, for eternity. Once in the white collared mafia, there's no getting out of it. You're in for life. You're a made man. You're protected. So if a corrupt officer kidnaps a person, falsely accuses them, throws them in jail; they come out in an orange jumpsuit, in hand & feet cuffs, in front of a cocky over-compensating wimpy bitch-ass cunt Judge, a corrupt turd with a Napoleon complex, who throws the book at them, not because they're guilty, but because they're in front of him, and therefore their fate is at his/her mercy, & he/she is power-hungry as a mf'er since being bitched at by their superiors earlier that morning, so they have an ax to grind...
At the end of 1984, Winston Smith finally learned to love Big Brother, & that made him happy, like blue pill happy. Like Lord of the Flies happy. Like Hunger Games happy. Like a Brave New World happy.
So, no. I can't & won't support this 75%-jail/25%-treatment center. Pueblo County already has a jail that they don't let Pueblo City use, so I don't see how building Pueblo County another one will help Pueblo City. A jail has already been built, & if we build a Treatment Center only, that would solve the overcrowding problem at the jail, by getting rid of the non-violent victimless "criminals". A Treatment Center would nip the actual problem in the bud. A Treatment Center would have been the stone that killed two birds at the same time: emptying the jail, & nipping the actual mass addiction problem in the bud.
Ortiz will probably get his jail, & I'll appreciate that 25%-portion that goes towards that Treatment Center. Garrison Ortiz is also right when he said that we need to attack this problem at "the front end". I just wished he would have pushed his mandate to go towards a Treatment Center only, because Love & Compassion is the direction Pueblo City should go, not more fascist authoritarian violence. Our direction should always be towards Liberation, & never Oppression. If we go 25% in the right direction & 75% in the wrong direction, that's 1 step forward, 3 steps back. A brand spanking new Ministry of Love torture box is moving 3 steps backwards.
xxx
4- Colette Carter (Strange Mayor, Question 2A);
Assistant Professor Colette Carter (CSU-P) was the speaker who spoke about "strange mayor", but she didn't even know jack shit about this year's ballot question. She was an advisor for it many years ago, but she didn't even have any basis for what she was talking about, since she hadn't read the 10 page document, which includes 70 Amendments to our beloved & precious 1954 Charter.
Colette Carter admitted that she didn't read the new bullshit Gardisar's group cooked up, & therefore she talked about different forms of government in general. I believe her voice is important, she knows some shit, but she act like she knows it all, that we are all just a bunch of dumbshits, and that we need her expertise for our small precious little minds to comprehend the genius she spews. Of course tyrant Colette Carter would speak in defense of the tyrannical strange mayor. I can feel her micromanaging oppressive ways & I feel sorry for her intellectual slaves (college students). Colette was unbearable. If she would have insulted 1 more person, I would have walked out.
Colette wasn't used to speaking to the public. Colette was extremely annoyed when folks in the back said that they couldn't hear her. She wasn't speaking direct into the microphone. And her tone just felt rude & disrespectful, towards the whole room. That's how her professors acted towards her, so that's how she acts towards us. I don't blame her, but that's why college is bullshit.
Colette Carter was wrong when she said that cities have no Constitutional Standing. Home Rule municipalities ARE state power. The state ceded that local authority for home rule cities to have a higher degree of autonomy. Home Rule cities are essentially City-States. Plus there's the concept of First Principles. Since we the people in a democracy govern ourselves, in a large city-state, we need that autonomy to keep shit locked down, & under control. The power doesn't begin at the top. It begins at the bottom. With the people. With local municipalities. The state ceded their state authority to a home rule city, so therefore their independent is state power, hence, it's Constitutionally protected, therefore, home rule cities have Constitutional standing.
Some of Colette's dates were wrong, some of her history of Pueblo City was wrong, & Colette Carter's definition of a "Commission" form of government was wrong too. In 1911, Pueblo City got their first Charter, & we had a Commission style of government. A Commission style of government is how Pueblo County governs themselves, with a Board which combines the legislative & executive powers into a few hands. Right now, Pueblo County's executive/legislative branch is the 3 Commissioners, including Garrison Ortiz. That's what a commission style of government is.
Colette alleged that a commission style of government is where all of the department heads are popularly elected, such as the directer of water works, director of public works, Police Chief, & Fire Chief, etc. That would be an ideal form of government, where all of the executive heads were voted upon. Of course it would be. I'm supposed to believe that folks are in favor of popular elections for a chief executive Mayor, but not for a Police Chief, when a Police Chief can arrest a Mayor, but a Mayor can't arrest a Police Chief? All fascist violence rests in the 4th Branch of government, and while cops are said to work for the Executive Branch, the Executive Branch only has soft power controls overs the police, not fascist power, says Dennis Maes. I tend to disagree.
Let's vote on the Directors of all the Heads! Let's have a Charter Convention, & make all of the city positions elected positions. Let's make every single action voted on by the city is voted on by the people. Let's a direct & pure democracy! Let's get ourselves a "drain the swamp" kind of democracy! Only those elected should be paid with taxpayer dollars.
Pueblo City can end the War on Drugs by Ordinance. That's the power of Home Rule government. That's what you give up when you get duped into supporting strange mayor.
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5- Fireman. Anti-TABOR question for West Pueblo.
Some Fireman from West Pueblo talked about his anti-TABOR ballot question for West Pueblo. I'm sure he'll win that one. There's no tax increases, just permission from the city's residents to forgo TABOR (Taxpayer's Bill of Rights) so they can keep their surplus.
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Overall the meeting went smoothly. The women of the League of Women Voters-Pueblo know wntf they're doing. I can't wait for their October 19 candidate forum.
Last night at the Rawlings Library in the Ryal Meeting Room on the 4th floor, the Pueblo chapter of the League of Women Voters & the local chapter of the NAACP held a forum where 5 local speakers talked about 5 different local ballot measures.
The speakers in the order that they spoke, & their ballot issue, are as follows:
1- Lori Winner, City Councilwoman, on Ballot Question 2B (1/5 cent sales tax for 24 new cops);
2- Earl Wilkinson, Director of Public Works, on Ballot Question 2C ("street repair enterprise");
3- Garrison Ortiz, County Commissioner, on Ballot Question 1A (0.45 cent sales tax for a new county jail);
4- Colette Carter, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ballot Question 2A ("Strange Mayor");
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1- Ballot Question 2B (1/5 cent sales tax for 24 New Cops);
Pueblo City's current sales tax rate is 7.4% (2.9% State + 1% County + 3.5% City), & Lori Winner wants Pueblo City to adopt a 1/5 cent sales tax hike in order to pay for 24 new cops. That would increase the sales tax burden on Pueblo City to 7.6%. Cops - Courts - Jail, these 3 institutions are necessary for law & order, so all of those issues are slam dunk issues. It's like arguing against food stamps... who would argue that the poor don't have a right to eat? Anyways, Lori is putting all of her efforts into campaigning for the 0.2 cent sales tax hike.
Lori also said that she wouldn't talk about Question 300 because the city's lawyer told her not to. A woman in the audience talked about how the cops are abusing the poor & powerless instead of going after real criminals, like burglars, and Lori only responded by saying more cops would cut down their response times, which would help burglaries in progress, but not for burglaries already accomplished.
There were a few questions for Winner, but Lori is accessible to anybody & everybody wondering about 2B. She invited anybody to ask her about 2B.
The current City Manager will be in charge of hiring the 24 new cops, or the brand new Strongarm Strange Mayor will be.
xxx
2- Ballot Question 2C ($1/month street repair tax on our water bills)
I'm almost on board with the "Street Repair Tax on our Water Bills" ballot question 2C. This tax doesn't touch the sales tax, so the sales tax will stay at 7.4% for the City of Pueblo (the sales tax rate is only 3.9% for Pueblo County). This doesn't tax food or medicine. It's a utility tax, for street repairs, around Pueblo City, with the locals of the streets paying whatever tax their fancy algorithms conclude on their water bills.
Last night, Earl Wilkinson said that the average tax per household of this street repair enterprise tax on our water bills will be about $1 per month per "unit", apartment, or household, etc. $12 a year doesn't sound that bad to fix our streets. Fucked up streets add to the damage to our cars, and nicer streets would be nicer. I'm used to Kentucky having a huge Transportation budget, & streets being paved all over, so I'm wondering why Pueblo City isn't getting those Colorado State funds for their road, but regardless...
That's the advantage of having a municipal-owned corporation; you can tax water in order to pay for other services. Now it's our streets, next, it will be a new hospital, or a homeless town just on the outskirts of Pueblo City. Or perhaps seeding funds for our brand new Municipal Trash company, whose going to turn our trash into electricity, just like they're doing in Sweden.
The last question I have on the street repair utility tax is... for how long? How long is this tax going to be added onto our bills? Until the end of time? Ortiz's jail is a 30 year tax.
xxx
3- Garrison Ortiz's Ministry of Love (1A);
Pueblo City's current sales tax rate is 7.4% (2.9% State + 1% County + 3.5% City). If Ortiz's Ministry of Love ballot question gets passed, the 0.45 cent tax kicks the county tax up to 1.45%, which kicks up the county tax rate up to 4.35%, versus the city's increased tax rate of 7.85%. Pueblo City pays $3.50 more overall sales tax than Pueblo County per $100 spent.
Garrison Ortiz (who was wrongly billed as "Gilbert Ortiz, Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder" on the League's website; a small albiet fun oversight) put on a nice presentation about his Ministry of Love. Ortiz showed a short video, a nice high quality crisp video, detailing the need for a jail, & Ortiz talked about how many folks from the community with "good resumes" had come together to form this Jail Task Force. Ortiz showed us a Power Point, & he could only answer a few questions, because his time was cut short. He was asked to stay around afterwards to answer questions, which he did.
Why is the county even meddling in the city's election to begin with? Of course he gets Ballot Question 1A. The city should handle our own elections. When did the city cede that authority away? What year did that happen? Probably during Mayor B.B. Brown's reign. Fkn B.B. Brown.
I will stay opposed to this superfluous jail for many reasons. Pueblo County already has a jail, & they don't even let Pueblo City use it. 1/2 of the jail is filled with non-violent victimless "criminals". It's mostly drugs. A treatment center is precisely the direction Pueblo City needs to go & a jail is precisely the opposite direction we need to go. Michael Stapleton, a Libertarian city council candidate for District 1, is 100% opposed to the War on Drugs. He's also opposed to a government-funded treatment center.
We need to care about each other. We need to be the change we wish to see in the world. We need to give a damn, we need to be compassionate, that's the direction Pueblo City needs to go. Of course Pueblo City needs a jail, as every jurisdiction does. Perhaps I would have supported a jail for Pueblo City, then we wouldn't have any issues with putting our criminals behind bars. What kind of bullshit is that? Non-violent homeless folks are getting fucked with by the police for petty drug offenses, & yet, we can't even put shoplifters - thieves - behind bars? Pueblo City was seriously considering shipping our shoplifters out to Douglass County, because of the overcrowded County jail. Fremont County has 11 jails, so perhaps we can lease some of their cells out if crime is as out of control as the yellow muckrake'n journalists pretend it is. But Pueblo City had problems with putting shoplifters behind bars with the County jail before, and I don't see how that would be any different afterwards. The County will still control the County jail, the old one & the new one, and I predict that Pueblo County will continue to bully Pueblo City out of the jail space we taxpayers pay for & need. I'm sure having a City jail would be more compassionate with local folks too. I wonder if the County officials have a seething biased hatred for all things Pueblo City.
You want Pueblo City's crime to go down? Then build a Pueblo City jail for Pueblo City to use for Pueblo City, for fucks sake. Pueblo City already pays 3.5% more on our sales taxes than Pueblo County does. Also, never forget that the County voted consolidation down, no... they voted STUDYING consolidation down, so, no. These conservatives aren't trying to save any goddamned money. They're trying to keep their good ol boys club going. And they don't realize that the privilege of owning land gives them plenty of space, plenty of room to live & play & grow, it gives them more security, & respect, only land owners were citizens of the US in the beginning, so "The County" has it nice, they have it better than the City does. A city has a bunch of people dumped on top of each other, living like sardines, because the Industrial Revolution provided lots of jobs, & houses were built around these factories, which are dead now. Cities aren't natural. Jefferson is right to see America as an agrarian society. Folks are moving in & out, commerce is coming & going, from the hustle & bustle of a city, of course problems will emerge. But most city folks are just like county folks. There's no difference. Most city folks are good folks, good folks who have to look over their shoulders for violent thugs & thieves of all stripes. Cities will have bad apples, but the majority of city folks are good folks. And if county folks really wanted to help city folks out, then they should turn their acres into subdivisions. Urban sprawl is needed, urban sprawl is demanded, to be used as a relief valve for the bloat. Also, our homeless should be given a chance, so why not build a homeless town on the outskirts of town, say in the county somewhere? All of those spacious acres that just go on & on forever, yeah, take 1 of those mf'n acres, & give the homeless their own town, deputizing the peaceful harmless ones, & offering police protection until more permanent solutions can be figured out.
I'm glad that Ortiz's Ministry of Love has a treatment center included in it, but it's only added on as an after thought, & probably with much opposition from the conservatives. Stapleton is against a Treatment Center, because it's government spending on helping folks, which he detests, but I'm willing to bet he's for a goddamned Jail. A Jail signals that the County is embracing full blown fascism, versus a Treatment Center, which says that Pueblo believes in love & compassion, & we believe in helping folks out who need help, until they get on their feet... we Puebloans are sick & tired of the U.S. not having any kind of social safety net. The Republicans will get rid of the homeless problem by criminalizing them, by declaring war on the homeless, not the homelessness problem, & by fucking up their encampments, & harassing them, until they move on, or get arrested for disrespecting some hot-headed Nazi, & going to jail, where our taxes go to house the homeless anyways. Shit, if you're homeless, what incentive do you have NOT to commit a crime? Winter is coming up, & a jail is warmer than a ditch, or an alley underneath a box flap.
You're tired of having the homeless throw their change at your rude & uppity disrespectful ass? Then give a fuck about their lives. Give them a mf'n chance for godsakes!
I'm also curious about how developed this plan is. Should we built the jail in a remote location, or at a downtown one? Remote, of course. It's cheaper. Why ntf would it go downtown?!? On all of that expensive prime downtown real estate? Buying out all of those businesses next to the Judicial Center is going to be expensive. Plus, did those folks already bid out the job, before the vote even passes? That's cocky, doesn't seem ethical, might not be legal...
But the proximity makes me concerned about something else. What's the check on the police? The Judicial Branch? The Magistrates? The Municipal Judge? What's the check on the jailers? The Legislative Branch? The City Council, or the County Commissioners? By having an injustice system next to a new Jim Crow jail, I forecast unlimited torturous activities happening. The bridge between capture, conviction, & imprisonment forever is now shared by a hallway, & probably some secret underground tunnel that nobody notice included in the blueprints. All it would take to fuck over some innocent person, for whatever reason, is for a corrupt cop & a corrupt judge to merely exist, then that poor sap won't ever see the light of day, forever being tortured in Little Brother's Ministry of Love. Fascism is the new American norm now, & by design, all states are statist anyways. State is the root word of statist. And statehood means the monopoly of violence, by an unaccountable branch of government, whose thin blue line employs their vengeance, just or not, for eternity. Once in the white collared mafia, there's no getting out of it. You're in for life. You're a made man. You're protected. So if a corrupt officer kidnaps a person, falsely accuses them, throws them in jail; they come out in an orange jumpsuit, in hand & feet cuffs, in front of a cocky over-compensating wimpy bitch-ass cunt Judge, a corrupt turd with a Napoleon complex, who throws the book at them, not because they're guilty, but because they're in front of him, and therefore their fate is at his/her mercy, & he/she is power-hungry as a mf'er since being bitched at by their superiors earlier that morning, so they have an ax to grind...
At the end of 1984, Winston Smith finally learned to love Big Brother, & that made him happy, like blue pill happy. Like Lord of the Flies happy. Like Hunger Games happy. Like a Brave New World happy.
So, no. I can't & won't support this 75%-jail/25%-treatment center. Pueblo County already has a jail that they don't let Pueblo City use, so I don't see how building Pueblo County another one will help Pueblo City. A jail has already been built, & if we build a Treatment Center only, that would solve the overcrowding problem at the jail, by getting rid of the non-violent victimless "criminals". A Treatment Center would nip the actual problem in the bud. A Treatment Center would have been the stone that killed two birds at the same time: emptying the jail, & nipping the actual mass addiction problem in the bud.
Ortiz will probably get his jail, & I'll appreciate that 25%-portion that goes towards that Treatment Center. Garrison Ortiz is also right when he said that we need to attack this problem at "the front end". I just wished he would have pushed his mandate to go towards a Treatment Center only, because Love & Compassion is the direction Pueblo City should go, not more fascist authoritarian violence. Our direction should always be towards Liberation, & never Oppression. If we go 25% in the right direction & 75% in the wrong direction, that's 1 step forward, 3 steps back. A brand spanking new Ministry of Love torture box is moving 3 steps backwards.
xxx
4- Colette Carter (Strange Mayor, Question 2A);
Assistant Professor Colette Carter (CSU-P) was the speaker who spoke about "strange mayor", but she didn't even know jack shit about this year's ballot question. She was an advisor for it many years ago, but she didn't even have any basis for what she was talking about, since she hadn't read the 10 page document, which includes 70 Amendments to our beloved & precious 1954 Charter.
Colette Carter admitted that she didn't read the new bullshit Gardisar's group cooked up, & therefore she talked about different forms of government in general. I believe her voice is important, she knows some shit, but she act like she knows it all, that we are all just a bunch of dumbshits, and that we need her expertise for our small precious little minds to comprehend the genius she spews. Of course tyrant Colette Carter would speak in defense of the tyrannical strange mayor. I can feel her micromanaging oppressive ways & I feel sorry for her intellectual slaves (college students). Colette was unbearable. If she would have insulted 1 more person, I would have walked out.
Colette wasn't used to speaking to the public. Colette was extremely annoyed when folks in the back said that they couldn't hear her. She wasn't speaking direct into the microphone. And her tone just felt rude & disrespectful, towards the whole room. That's how her professors acted towards her, so that's how she acts towards us. I don't blame her, but that's why college is bullshit.
Colette Carter was wrong when she said that cities have no Constitutional Standing. Home Rule municipalities ARE state power. The state ceded that local authority for home rule cities to have a higher degree of autonomy. Home Rule cities are essentially City-States. Plus there's the concept of First Principles. Since we the people in a democracy govern ourselves, in a large city-state, we need that autonomy to keep shit locked down, & under control. The power doesn't begin at the top. It begins at the bottom. With the people. With local municipalities. The state ceded their state authority to a home rule city, so therefore their independent is state power, hence, it's Constitutionally protected, therefore, home rule cities have Constitutional standing.
Some of Colette's dates were wrong, some of her history of Pueblo City was wrong, & Colette Carter's definition of a "Commission" form of government was wrong too. In 1911, Pueblo City got their first Charter, & we had a Commission style of government. A Commission style of government is how Pueblo County governs themselves, with a Board which combines the legislative & executive powers into a few hands. Right now, Pueblo County's executive/legislative branch is the 3 Commissioners, including Garrison Ortiz. That's what a commission style of government is.
Colette alleged that a commission style of government is where all of the department heads are popularly elected, such as the directer of water works, director of public works, Police Chief, & Fire Chief, etc. That would be an ideal form of government, where all of the executive heads were voted upon. Of course it would be. I'm supposed to believe that folks are in favor of popular elections for a chief executive Mayor, but not for a Police Chief, when a Police Chief can arrest a Mayor, but a Mayor can't arrest a Police Chief? All fascist violence rests in the 4th Branch of government, and while cops are said to work for the Executive Branch, the Executive Branch only has soft power controls overs the police, not fascist power, says Dennis Maes. I tend to disagree.
Let's vote on the Directors of all the Heads! Let's have a Charter Convention, & make all of the city positions elected positions. Let's make every single action voted on by the city is voted on by the people. Let's a direct & pure democracy! Let's get ourselves a "drain the swamp" kind of democracy! Only those elected should be paid with taxpayer dollars.
Pueblo City can end the War on Drugs by Ordinance. That's the power of Home Rule government. That's what you give up when you get duped into supporting strange mayor.
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5- Fireman. Anti-TABOR question for West Pueblo.
Some Fireman from West Pueblo talked about his anti-TABOR ballot question for West Pueblo. I'm sure he'll win that one. There's no tax increases, just permission from the city's residents to forgo TABOR (Taxpayer's Bill of Rights) so they can keep their surplus.
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Overall the meeting went smoothly. The women of the League of Women Voters-Pueblo know wntf they're doing. I can't wait for their October 19 candidate forum.
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