Letters

The Light Stuff
Nothing quite so disappointing as the sight of a favorite doing something really dumb. Kenny Be's pathetic stab at satire in your July 11 edition, "Let There Be Light," is an unfortunate case in point. He was somehow suckered into believing that the Great Bicycle Incident on the CU campus was little more than another example of "White Boulder" snootery.

It's hard to guess what Be's transportation druthers are, but for some years now, bikes have been rather standard items in Boulder, and to travel at night without a light is a deadly serious matter. There are no more exceptions to the bike-light requirement than there are in respect to cars. Be is not alone in his misapprehension about the way things go down here; a couple of weeks ago, Peter Boyle's clutch of chronic gigglers on Colorado Inside Out had one of their clutzier moments of high humor over the Incident.

Be's puerile effort could be excused if in fact Boulder were the Toy Town that it's so often made out to be. It's not. A lot of big-time money has slithered into this place while the assorted gigglers have been having their fun. Boulder is struggling to stave off the Terminal Junkification that has all but smothered large areas of Denver and is about to sink Louisville and Lafayette under a flood of franchise imperialism. If Boulder can't muster the savvy to save itself, there's not much chance that any other place in Colorado will be able to maintain whatever integrity it has.

John H. Sherwood
Boulder

A Dry Idea
Regarding Stuart Steers's "Aurora Sucks," in the July 4 issue:
As a native and longtime resident of South Park, I would have to side with the opposition concerning the City of Aurora's plan to desecrate South Park. I find it hard to believe that they plan to spend $100 million to withdraw water and then put it right back, leaving them in the same place they started and with no impact.

Wasting money is not Aurora's intent; getting water is. And to what end? More irrigated highway medians? More golf courses? The harvest of more grass clippings for transport to the landfill? It may come as a surprise to some, but we live in a semi-arid desert and should plan and develop accordingly. The water supply is finite.

This plan leaves too many unanswered questions. How will they guarantee the recharge of the aquifer? How many years between recharges? If the aquifer is not recharged, at what point would the draw-down cease?

If Aurora knows they will be allowed to collect all this extra water during "unusually wet years," let them start now and store the water in the aquifer under Douglas County. I hear there is plenty of room there.

Keith Chisholm
Littleton

Triumph of the Willis
I hope Bruce Willis cleans Patricia Calhoun's clock! If it weren't for the fact that her July 4 column, "Planet Lowdown," starts out in a bar, I would think she was some kind of politically correct police-person who wants to make sure no one has any fun. I'd say that letting some big-time bars into LoDo, even "$12 hamburger joints," is a fair exchange for getting Coors Field.

Lacy McDowell
Denver

Why don't they just go ahead and turn LoDo into a giant mall? What's happening in that part of town (have you been there on a Friday night?) reminds me of Glendale in the Seventies. Party on, dude.

Jeff Ford
Aurora

An anal-retentive roommate is on a quest to purge our household of any undesirable paper products. I, on the other hand, hold your rag in much higher esteem, as I attempt to preserve its place near the throne for at least a week. So before your tome was ripped from my hands, I managed to speed-read Patricia Calhoun's July 4 column, "Planet Lowdown," which demands a correction.

Bruce Willis is subjugating the fine people of Hailey, not Hayden, Idaho. Hayden is approximately 500 miles further north and is separated by significant ideological considerations from the budding La-La Land surrounding Ernest Hemingway's old haunts in Sun Valley. My feeling is that the kind, Neo-Nicety people of northern Idaho would counter Mr. Willis's offensive with stronger tactical maneuvers. Perhaps they would "tease" him into a winner-take-all-the-property game of paintball.

In all Demi-seriousness, the Gem State will remain beautiful in any kind of Moonlight, I hay-den to say.

Troy J. Sholl
Boulder

Apparently Patricia Calhoun was infected by the same hysteria that resulted in Ward Harkavy's July 4 story, "Still Crazy After All These Years," concerning Colorado's so-called "patriots." How else to account for the fact that in the same issue, Westword's editor got the Idaho town of Hailey, Bruce Willis's new hangout, mixed up with Hayden, the right-wing stronghold? There are many philosophical differences between the two, as well as a hundred miles or so.

Jan Pitcher
Denver

Having just returned from Sun Valley, Idaho, which is thirteen miles north of Hailey, I was amused to read Patricia Calhoun's "Planet Lowdown."

Bruce Willis does live in Idaho, but not in Hayden. Hayden is located in the northern part of the state and is home to the Aryan Nation. Hailey is the town that Bruce and Demi have adopted and call home. Willis and his company, Valley Entertainment, have done marvelous things to this central Idaho town--first and foremost, bringing it back from deterioration in the early Nineties. Willis has sunk a tremendous amount of his own money into Hailey, building new buildings, putting in two bars/ restaurants, redoing an art-deco movie house and treating the community to many events, including spending $25,000 on fireworks for the Fourth of July. He brings good things to the community--let's not be too hasty on Bruce!