I find the recent decision by the La Plata County Commissioners to close the county clerk'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. Coming on top of the county's self-inflicted inability to maintain our rural roads, the office 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 higher education, urbanization, the tech boom and globalization. They often die prematurely from preventable chronic afflictions, due to 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 Bayfield office, and saving on multiple trips to the Durango clerk's office at Bodo Park, with its crowded, harried, grim-faced prison-like atmosphere, is 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 ministrations of the self-serving MadMan at the White House?
Tom Givon
Ignacio
