Council should just stick to city business

Rate	Price	Duration
One Week	$4.00	for 7 days
One Month	$11.00	for 30 days
Three Months	$34.00	for 90 days
Six Months	$58.00	for 180 days
One Year	$104.00	for 365 days
Two Years	$160.00	for 730 days

Rate

Price

Duration

One Week

$4.00

for 7 days

One Month

$11.00

for 30 days

Three Months

$34.00

for 90 days

Six Months

$58.00

for 180 days

One Year

$104.00

for 365 days

Two Years

$160.00

for 730 days

Council should just stick to city business

For years, the Salida City Council has been nonpartisan in terms of politics. Candidates have not run for office under any political brand.

That standard, however, appears to be changing with the city’s latest “civility” statement.

At its Jan. 3 meeting, the council approved adding language affirming support for women’s rights including equal pay, treatment under the law and in the workplace and right to determine decisions impacting “direction and personal values of one’s life, including all individuals’ reproductive health choices.”

The latter portion of the statement appears to be in reference to the U.S. Supreme Court decision to change the nation’s abortion law, leaving it up to individual states to determine that state’s policy.

The question became a national political issue during the last election, with candidates debating the issue and voters making decisions accordingly.

But is this matter an issue before the Salida City Council? As far as is publicly known, reproductive rights have not come up as an issue before the council.

As it has for years – or make that decades – the council should stick to city business, to budgets, staffing concerns, streets, etc., and steer clear of national political questions, whether those questions be abortion, the president’s handling of classified documents or international relations.

The council should continue the longtime practice of a nonpartisan approach to city issues.

Precip up, now down

At the end of August, precipitation in Salida stood at more than an inch above average, about 15 percent above the norm.

After a relatively cool and wet summer, though, the valley including and around Salida has seen a dearth of moisture.

By the end of the year, the surplus precip had turned to a negative, down 0.38 inch from the 10.81 average, following a meager 0.01 inch of moisture in December.

That the Sawatch Range and the Arkansas Basin is below average in moisture content then comes as no surprise. According to the National Resource Conservation Service, as of Jan. 16, only two river systems in the state are reporting below median snowpack, the Arkansas at 78 percent and the Upper Rio Grande at a just-below-median of 96 percent.

Storms appear to be going around the Arkansas Basin, to the north and southwest. Snowpack ranges from 154 percent of median of the Yampa-White to 112 percent of the South Platte. The Gunnison Basin shows 141 percent with the state averaging 121 percent.

Some of the snow piling up in Colorado is what’s left of the storms hammering the West Coast over the last couple of weeks.

It is early in the snow year so precip levels are certain to change.

Effort helps Ukrainians

Thanks to a coordinated effort, local organizations together with Lucenec, Slovakia, nonprofit ASTRA raised $17,000 to be used to benefit Ukrainian war refugees.

As Russia’s war on Ukraine nears one year, refugees continue to flee, heading to other nearby countries to escape the fighting.

Thanks to Oveja Negra staff members, Chaffee County Community Foundation and other donors, refugees will receive essentials including clothing, school supplies and bikes for transportation in an attempt to adjust to their lives away from home.

— MJB