It’s not democracy

The news stories about Denver City Council spending $26,000 for a retreat are missing the bigger picture — democracy is about voting for good ideas, not sticking together to pass too many bills that lack merit.

The bigger issue here, other than the $26,000, is the fact that how the “body comes together” is already there, it’s called democracy. The winning vote wins. We will have a better city when city council sticks together right after the vote, not before the vote.

The retreat is for Amanda Sandoval to get other council members in-line. As citizens of the city we should expect our council members to think and vote for themselves, based on what they think is a good bill or not. And not to pressure each other to get in-line.

We will have better laws this way. Bills will need to pass based on merit, rather than voting as a team. We don’t need City Council to gang up, we need for the members to be individual members, and to vote accordingly.

We, the citizens of the city, we deserve better than City Council sticking together and working as “a body” at the expense of better legislation. Sticking together arrives right after the vote, not before the vote.

This idea that the council members should try to vote more like other council members is exactly what’s causing so many problems in Denver. Because bills keep getting passed so that the other council members will approve their bill next week.

This is terrible. It’s not democracy, it’s ganging up on the Citizens of the City. It pressures Council Members to get in-line. There’s no such thing as a “divided council,” it’s called democracy and it’s about the winning vote.

Sticking together to back each other’s ideas as long as they back your idea — this generates one bad bill after the next.

I attended Denver City Council meetings every week for over two years, I saw this problem, “sticking together as a body.” This creates a non-democratic environment, an environment of high school-like peer pressure to go along to get along.

Jason Robert Bailey

Denver

Not in Colorado

Since the Great State of Colorado was hijacked by the liberal progressive voters and elected officials, it’s become very clear that all of the things we took for granted are gone, such as our Second Amendment rights.

Law-abiding citizens are now the criminals. We, the taxpaying citizens have to endure a background check and wait three days for a gun. The illegals and criminals just steal a gun and commit a crime.

We took for granted that the people who broke the law and put the citizens at risk would be put in jail. Not in Colorado.

Illegals and criminals are treated better than the taxpaying, law-abiding citizens.

We trusted our public schools to teach our children to read, write, do arithmetic, and maybe some common sense. The unions run the schools and they teach what they think is appropriate which is DEI still going on here in Colorado. We trusted them to collect taxes, fees and other revenues from the taxpayers to pay for road and bridge maintenance with some new and better roads. Not in Colorado! We have numerous unused bike paths and a financially strained mass transit system that fails to serve taxpayers, instead giving away revenue to subsidize free rides.

Our “trusted” officials steal taxpayers’ money to support and fund 40,000 illegals that live here for free. Forty thousand illegals that Biden/Harris let into our country illegally. The DEA just rounded up 30 Tren de Aragua gang members who have terrorized our state.

Remember when Danielle Jurinsky exposed the Trende de Aragua gang to the public and Jared Polis attacked her? Our “trusted” officials bloat up the state and local government with new hires to support their stupid programs put into the state and local governments. We took for granted that our government officials would follow the law. Not in Colorado.

Before the progressive liberals took over the state of Colorado, we didn’t have these problems. The problems the state faces now are a direct result of the actions taken by the elected officials (Polis and Company) running the State of Colorado.

They would like you to blame Donald Trump for all these problems. State and local governments running deficit budgets. Government layoffs, Medicaid is broken because of the illegals, fraud and abuse.

The people running our state continue to make really stupid and damaging decisions that affect the taxpayers of Colorado negatively. They need to own the damage they have caused the people!

Unless there are some big changes in the next election, Colorado is headed the same direction as other blue states such as California, Maryland, Illinois, New York, and others. Oh, wait a minute, we are already there.

Trig Travis

Aurora