Tony Mercia is a senior writer at the Weekly Standard paper in Pueblo. His June 18, 2018 article "Reefer Madness," should be read by all who believe marijuana businesses in Bayfield is the answer to our town's money needs.
Pueblo has Shanty Towns built by the homeless "Who arrive from other states in loaded-up cars, sometimes with mattresses on top looking for a new life. A lot of new arrivals are unable to pass employer background checks or drug tests. Many wind up in shanty towns filled with tents, tires and garbage along Fountain Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River that cuts through the middle of town."
In 2013 Pueblo helped about 2,400 homeless people. In 2016 the number has tripled to 7,800 homeless.
If this happened to our small town, who would feed and house the homeless?
How many dollars would be siphoned out of the big bucks that marijuana revenue would supposedly bring to the town's coffer to help the homeless? The Bayfield Town Board hasn't considered the problems that the environment of marijuana brings to our community. Durango, with all their marijuana tax revenue, is still asking for a tax increase.
By putting this issue on a ballot our town board was only thinking of the money that might be at the end of the rainbow.
Is this what voters want in our family-oriented friendly community?
Families move here for our environment and lifestyle, not to see shantytowns alongside our parks and the Pine River that our tax dollars support!
Funds for all the wonderful recreational ideas will be diverted to problems that marijuana brings to our town. David Black blurted out at the last meeting I attended, "this isn't about a community, it's about the town of Bayfield."
We urge the few registered voters who represent the whole community to VOTE NO on 2B and return your ballot to be counted.
Put an end to this madness of becoming just another pot hole in Colorado.
Anne Schrier and Concerned Community Citizens
Bayfield
