Saturday, May 25, 2013
Comment Archives: stories: Columns: City Sage
Re: “Fighting gravity at the Colorado Springs Airport”
A rail line will soon be open between Denver and DIA, which will launch a building boom along it's path. When the DC area built its Metro Subway, the transit lines helped greatly to transform the region into an economic powerhouse. Expect jobs to go to Denver metro area, not here.
It'll be the final nail in the coffin for COS Airport AND our city's economic future.
Between clownish evangelicals, the idiotic TABOR, and our moron in Congress, our city is a joke to most of the country; a laughing stock of a city in a job-poor nation. Except for economic bottom fishers with low-wage jobs for a dumbed-down tea-party population, no reputable firm will consider moving here.
Posted by
OldCrank
on 05/22/2013 at 10:07 AM
Re: “Fighting gravity at the Colorado Springs Airport”
Airline deregulation, signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1978, began the impact on dozens if not hundreds of small regional airports that culminates in what we see today at COS airport. The act removed government over fares, routes, and market entry of new airlines from commercial aviation and phased out the Civil Aviation Bureau's regulation powers. The CAB had created a bottleneck of bureaucracy that stood in the way of innovation and service. Deregulation created a free-market environment for air service which delighted all, well, free-marketers and their airlines, increasing competition but eventually eroding service to less-profitable routes and cities. Like ours. Precisely because we did not deregulate phone service and other utilities in the same manor, considering them to be essential life services, people living in rural areas have access to those services. In the case of air service, free-market capitalists got what they wanted, the airlines got what they wanted, and the flying public gets what's left. In our case: bupkis. Coffee and newspapers from the mayor do not constitute the needed economic incentives to both sides of air commerce. They constitute amateur hour.
Posted by
Stephen Bowlby
on 05/22/2013 at 10:01 AM
Re: “Pitching City Council! to HBO”
At least the old group didnt lay down for Bach or his dirty attorney. Watching this Council is like watching paint dry.
Posted by
pirate brands
on 05/15/2013 at 9:45 PM
Re: “Sanders vs. Anschutz ... really”
bad and boring article, who cares?
Posted by
pirate brands
on 05/15/2013 at 9:42 PM
Re: “City Council looks to lawyer up”
Didnt the old Council actually vote at one time to get their own attorney? Chris Melcher put the old Council in terrible positions from almost the beginning of his employment. He has lied, gone directly to press to mislead, attends events he has no business attending, reported as ignoring Council requests for timely information, undermined Utilities and has paid out more taxpayer money to outside law firms then any previous attorney all while losing and settling millions of dollars of lawsuits. He was practically fired from Colorado College for dirty dealings and brought his unethical and scheming ways to the City. He needs to be fired.
Posted by
pirate brands
on 05/15/2013 at 9:39 PM
Re: “City Council looks to lawyer up”
"I warned people..." gosh darn it crank, if we would only listen to you...
The funniest comment of the month comes from crank himself, "...there's something smelly going on down there...". Have you figured it out yet old dude?
Posted by
siggie
on 05/15/2013 at 10:57 AM
Re: “City Council looks to lawyer up”
Something isn't adding up.
Keith King seems to have been painted as a crony of Mayor Botch but suddenly he and the whole council feel a need to have their own legal counsel. Keep digging, there's something smelly going on down there...probably Botch and Melcher.
I warned people not to elect Botch and not to adopt a "strong dictator" charter. By the time we get rid of this clown it's going to cost us more than Rivera's follies.
Posted by
OldCrank
on 05/15/2013 at 9:23 AM
Re: “City Council looks to lawyer up”
It looks to me like Council's focus is on fighting the mayor instead of managing city business. Or is it simply the Indy's attempt to make it seem that way?
Posted by
siggie
on 05/15/2013 at 6:39 AM
Re: “Sanders vs. Anschutz ... really”
Anschutz killed Jackson as sure as he has killed the Gazette.
Posted by
TejonTech
on 05/12/2013 at 11:41 PM
Re: “Sanders vs. Anschutz ... really”
This is the stupidest trial of all time. Anchutz isn't responsible for Jackson being a crackhead like Whitney Houston or Rick James.
Posted by
Stacy in Woodland Park
on 05/08/2013 at 11:06 AM
Re: “Sanders vs. Anschutz ... really”
WOW! Who says, "it isn't all about money?!?!?" - because, in reality, "YES IT IS!!!" These two mega-rich people will duke it out and fight to the death because of the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR. Yes, IT REALLY IS ABOUT $MONEY$ - for EVERY PERSON ON THIS PLANET.
Posted by
Addy M. Hansen
on 05/08/2013 at 10:52 AM
Re: “Pitching City Council! to HBO”
C'mon, Bill- it's still the longest running tragicomedy in local history. We should be proud that we each had bit parts in the show years ago. And Scott - who else could play you? Maybe the young DeNiro "You talkin' to me??!!"
Posted by
john.hazlehurst
on 05/01/2013 at 4:25 PM
Re: “Pitching City Council! to HBO”
Robert Redford??!! I'm flattered but my wife won't stop laughing!
Posted by
Scott Hente
on 05/01/2013 at 12:31 PM
Re: “Pitching City Council! to HBO”
Will it be a comedy, drama, chick flick, gay flick, tragedy, or action adventure series?
Posted by
TejonTech
on 05/01/2013 at 10:02 AM
Re: “Pitching City Council! to HBO”
John, obviously you're not a member of the CSA! ;-)
"City Council" would probably play well here in COS as a reality show, but I don't think the rest of the country's viewers would get our sense of humor.
Posted by
bill.guman
on 05/01/2013 at 9:39 AM
Re: “A lesson from Jan Martin’s fate”
Wah wah, we have lost countless years of pointy headed political genius, wah wah. This is one of those politician becomes media hack-job whack job deals, right?
Posted by
Stacy in Woodland Park
on 04/30/2013 at 9:59 PM
Re: “A lesson from Jan Martin’s fate”
Only an idiot would want to serve now on Colorado Springs City Council and get no pay, no respect. City and County is all partisan. There is no fair representation any longer.
Posted by
hole in one
on 04/25/2013 at 6:35 AM
Re: “A lesson from Jan Martin’s fate”
Common sense not ideology should guide our city...this is why Jan Martin was not elected.
But King Kong of the City using brut force is not good either.
Posted by
TejonTech
on 04/24/2013 at 8:45 PM
Re: “Fighting gravity at the Colorado Springs Airport”
Stephen, exactly so.
De-regulation is a dangerous concept for any industry, especially transportation, in which case deregulation was a form of ignorance that failed to grasp sophisticated concepts that such services ARE a form of public utility requiring regulatory oversight to assure all of the public are well served at fair prices and without abuses. We were so much smarter in years past; the modern era of American history is turning out to be a disaster, save for a few of the hustlers on Wall Street who fleece the entire nation.
Though the CAB (and the ICC) were hidebound bureaucracies, that could've been easily fixed with new leadership and a revamp of the rules. Instead, the idiot from Harvard (Alfred Kahn) through out the baby with the bath water. The best aviation industry the world has ever seen was sacrificed on the alter of fare wars.
Low fares pleased the masses but the masses are truly ignorant of what's good for their own best personal and national interests, especially in the longer term. We've destroyed most airlines and eventually will get down to a de facto duopoly where two huge airlines achieve sufficient market dominance to allow monopolistic fare prices, at which time profitability will return to the industry so the survivors can avoid bankruptcy. We're almost there and are now seeing fares a good deal higher. I laugh at whiners, the ones who preach that everything should pay its own full cost, but scream like stuck pigs pay about today's airfares which are finally starting to cover the full cost of the service, plus that sacred free market profit factor.
Vaporous dreams of free market theorists that deregulation would give us an industry full of snazzy new start up airlines that serve even tiny towns with sparkling new planes and voluptuous cabin attendants at convenient times of the day has become an apocalyptic nightmare of what a true free market is really like.
The true bare knuckle, fight for your life, no holds barred, free market reality has arrived: bankruptcies, crashes, wage cuts, service cuts, disappearing pension funds (with taxpayers picking up the tab via the PBGC) and the humiliation of hub/spoke flying patterns that treat people like a package on FEDEX, i.e., y'all get to fly via a hub airport before we'll take you where it is you wanna go....so here's a stale bagel, now shut up, sit down, and buckle up.
The same mental midgets that love doug bruce love deregulation. Idiots.