Greeley Mayor, Tom Selders, has caused controversy in Greeley with his comments about Illegal Immigration

Selders’ recent trip to Washington D.C. to urge lawmakers to reform immigration policies sparked controversy last week when he told officials how December’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant negatively affected Greeley’s families.

What do you think?

Greeley City Council’s second town meeting of the year will be tomorrow, May 22nd, 5:30pm at New Frontier Bank, 2425 35th Ave.

This is the Ward 3 town meeting, but all residents of Greeley are welcome to come and speak.

Anyone attending this meeting, feel free to post your comments.

Greeley’s new Police Department is having an open house tomorrow, May 19.

Events include

• 5K Run
• Artwork dedication
• Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
• An Open House with tours

The City of Greeley has made available, via it’s website, a Candidate Guide for the upcoming 2007 elections.

This guide lists all of the hoops one would potentially have to jump through to be elected to city council, but one of the more interesting items is this:

Qualifications for Elective Office

• Citizen of the United States
• No other elective office held
• No felony convictions
• Resident of Greeley one year immediately prior to the election (and resident of Ward for 90 days for Ward candidates)
• Completed Nomination Petition signed by at least 25 registered electors residing in the city of Greeley and within Ward for Ward candidates

So, basically, anyone who has been in Greeley for a year, hasn’t been in jail, is old enough to buy beer and can get 25 neighbors to sign a petition can run for City Council. How cool is that?

If any of you out there see this and want to throw your hat in the ring, remember, Greeley Elections is more than glad to print any news, statements or comments that you want to send us. Let’s make November 2007 the best election year EVER!

Evelyn King has an interesting editorial on the proposed Northern Colorado regional transit authority.

She claims that ’special interest groups’, namely Bus and Rail, are attempting to acquire the majority of funds to push through their programs.

Her proposed solution our growing transportation problems is not more public transit, but more roads.

She claims that transit programs will not reduce gridlock, only new roads will… and on that point she is correct. The bottom line is that the majority of Coloradoans don’t want to use public transportation. Driving is much more convenient and independent. Public transportation will never reduce gridlock for one reason, gridlock is the major reason most of us would choose to use public transportation.

King states that:

Data shows that only New York’s transit carries more than either 15 percent of commuters or 10 percent of all travel. Additionally, only the Washington, D.C.; Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco areas carry more than either 10 percent of commuters or 5 percent of all travel. We do know that Denver’s FasTracks was planned to carry only about 2 percent of all travel; and, the Interstate 25 Study also indicated that neither rail/bus transit programs could attract more than 2 percent of all travel.

While I will not dispute her quoted statistics, I do find them incomplete. If New York (I’m assuming New York City, but the reference isn’t clear) transit carries 15 percent of commuters. What kind of impact would a 15 percent, 10 percent or even 5 percent reduction in traffic have on gridlock on I-25 during peak traffic times? As gridlock increases, wouldn’t public transportation usage increase as well?

Her point is well taken, perhaps we do need new highways, but transportation MUST be well funded and well thought out - and mass transit must not be dismissed. Mass transit usability and cost efficiency problems must be solved and citizens must be given adequate motivation to use it. The longer we wait the more difficult it will be to do and if the problems aren’t addressed soon Colorado will just be another Southern California.