I find the recent decision by the La Plata County Commissioners to close the Department of Motor Vehicle’s Bayfield office rather puzzling. (I am sorely tempted to say “asinine,” but – caution prevailing – will bite my tongue and settle for “self-defeating.”)
Gwen Lachelt may perhaps be excused for the considerable insensitivity and tone-deafness of this move. But Julie Westendorff and Brad Blake ought to know better, seeing as how they nominally represent the two rural districts of our county. The county’s self-inflicted inability to maintain our rural roads – see pointed letter to the editor by Jeff Pratt in The Durango Telegraph (Aug. 17) – the DMV-closure decision once again finds the rural residents of La Plata County shunned orphans.
Mirroring the national trend, our rural folks are the invisible downtrodden minority (Hillary’s “deplorables”), dumped in the wake of high-ed, urbanization, the tech boom and globalization. They often die prematurely from preventable chronic afflictions because of lack of preventive medicine and affordable care.
Many drive long distance on the gut-wrenching gravel and ill-maintained blacktop to demanding low-paying jobs. Their children often attend less-than-ideal schools and scrape hard to make it to a decent college. Alcoholism, meth and opioids mar the lives of many. Spousal and child abuse are not uncommon.
Visiting with the gracious ladies at the Bayfied office and saving on multiple trips to the Durango DMV at Bodo, with its crowded, harried, grim-faced prison-like atmosphere – let alone the con-face picture on your license – has been one of the few advantages we can boast here over the high-living metropolis that is our county seat.
I was hoping, against all hope, that our elected leaders would be a bit more sensitive to the plight of this minority that elected them (well, at least one of them). Or is it that, as is the case nationally, rural La Plata County must entrust its pain to the ghoulish administrations of the self-serving mad man at the White House?
Tom Givón
Ignacio
