Currently Reading
Wilderness and the American Mind, Fourth Edition
By Roderick Nash

So, tell me this, does the elimination of a city's Human Rights Resource and Education Office sound like a good idea to anyone besides the City of Fort Collins Government? Oh, and cutting affordable housing, that sounds like a brilliant plan too. But it's ok because we're going to be creating MORE protected area/public lands so at least the homeless people will have somewhere pretty to be miserable in.

Honestly, I know I'm studying how to manage protected areas and such, and I'm supposed to be all for the preservation of the landscape... and I am. However, our government seems to have placed the preservation of public lands at too high an importance compared to other public necessities I believe a government should provide it's citizens... and face it, the people who need the services they are cutting most likely aren't well heard during the voting process anyways, unlike those who would vote for the preservation of open space.

Maybe it's time to step back as a government from the direct preservation of open space with city tax money and focus more on the fact that Colorado State has one of the best Natural Resource programs in the country. Perhaps the students and faculty at CSU could take a more active role in helping preserve the open space and in trying to bring in more money from other private organizations to do what many citizens (to be fair) appear to be requesting! Maybe I'm being unfair in thinking that the city isn't already doing that, and maybe they are taking in lots of money from other ogranizations to help with the focus on natural resources.

Anyways, I suppose this bothers me because I worked at the library and the library will be affected by the choices the city is making. I feel a tad more sensitive knowing how much good our library does and how patrons are just not going to understand when services get cut back yet again. It makes me mad that sometimes the best public services, because they rely so much on the city's income, can get hit the worst in times of budget crisis.

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050907/NEWS01/509070301/1002


Uh oh, a Heather rant! And a little surprising, too. All very interesting points. Hey, side note...I found out that the new dean of my school is actually from Fort Collins..he was a professor or dean at CSU. I told him about you yesterday!
Posted 9/9/2005 4:52 PM by steph421