It is going to cost La Plata County and Durango taxpayers $374,241 to clean up trash at Purple Cliffs. Is anybody else upset about the waste? Why are taxpayers being forced to pay for the mismanagement by our elected officials?
I would like to see Commissioners Marsha Porter-Norton, Matt Salka and Clyde Church along with Councilors Melissa Youssef, Barbara Noseworthy, Olivier Bosmans, Kim Baxter and Jessika Buell pay for this cleanup from their personal bank accounts for allowing this to happen. We can add Sheriff Sean Smith to that list for not enforcing our laws.That's $41,582 each. (Feel free to chip in, Neighbors in Need Alliance.) They demonstrate no more accountability than the Durango School District 9-R board that now brushes off dismal student performance like it was unavoidable.
Ignorance is understandable, but these leaders were not ignorant of consequences. The county and city were warned what would happen at Purple Cliffs. The school district was warned what would happen to kids with COVID-19 lockdowns, masking and quarantines of the healthy. (See the Johns Hopkins study, “A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality.”)
They all did it anyway and now leave the community to clean up the mess. We have a leadership accountability crisis in our community and country. It's poor leadership, a poor example to our kids and, most important, it didn't have to happen. Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing more harm.
Jason Mietchen
Durango
