Email letters, July 3, 2012

By Staff
Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Our lawns may be saying ‘forgedaboudit’ to watering

If water restrictions limit your chance to water no more often than every four days, your lawn may attempt to go dormant before you can water again. A lawn is attempting to go dormant when it turns off color, wilts or crunches when walked on. If this is the case with your lawn, it is better for the lawn to quit watering altogether and let the lawn go dormant. Turn off those zones that water those areas of turf.

An established healthy lawn should be able to survive for several months during the summer without any water being applied. When water restrictions are lifted, turn the system back on to the settings recommended in my publication on setting your irrigation controller that is available from my office. Do not overwater, as this will increase turf disease problems.

If you have trees in your lawn, and they have been there for a year or more, watering them once every two weeks should keep them in survival mode until water restrictions are lifted. Restrict your water to the area under the canopy of the tree. Some of their leaves might scorch but these trees should recover.

If you have trees and shrubs that were planted in the lawn area this year, you should consider dragging a hose to them to provide the water they need.

For more information on lawn care during the drought, call the Colorado State University Extension office at 244-1836.

CURTIS SWIFT
Grand Junction

$14 million for Avalon better spent on District 51

First we vote down a tax increase to build a new police station because we’re told the city doesn’t have the money. The new police station gets built.

Then they’re going to redo Horizon Drive, and now they’re spending $14 million on the Avalon Theater.

Granted, I’m all for nightlife, but if the city’s going to do favors for CMU, why doesn’t it give $14 million to District 51? Now that would be a budget cruncher.

CURT CLAUSSEN
Grand Junction

On thin ice: Avalon saga similar to Glacier saga

I see in the July 1 edition of the Sentinel that the Glacier ice rink is closed and the property is for sale. After all, that money and effort were poured into a questionable facility.
Does anyone (besides me) see any similarity between the Glacier saga and the Avalon saga?

RICHARD RININGER
Grand Junction

With Obamacare ruling, Chief Justice Roberts joins roster of judicial ‘stooges’

Thank you for publishing my “cruel and unusual punishment” letter in which I demeaned five of the Supreme Court judges as “stooges.”

Well, I spoke too soon ... how was I to know that the subsequent ruling on Obamacare would reveal that none other than Chief Justice John Roberts, a man most respected by many, would succumb to political pressure by the administration and by the liberal mainstream media?

In casting the deciding vote and in writing the opinion finding the Affordable Care Act constitutional, Chief Justice Roberts has become the biggest stooge of them all. With the High Court’s leader simply folding to political pressure, there’s reason to believe that this decision may prove to be the biggest “judicial copout”—among many -– in the often-ridiculed history of the Supreme Court.

It has been said that during his confirmation hearing, Roberts jokingly defined the role of a Supreme Court Justice as that of an umpire, not making the rules, but rather applying them. Well, Chief Justice, in applying the rules, you must make judgment calls and you just called a ball a strike.

I’ve come to rely on two things in order to keep my sanity these days – being eternally optimistic and keeping my sense of humor.

My eternal optimism tells me that justice will prevail (pardon the pun) through voting in a new administration and with the repeal of this health care monstrosity.

My sense of humor got a lift while composing this letter when I heard a well known personality, who was subbing for a radio talk show host, more clearly define Obamacare by referring to it as “Obama-Doesn’t-Care.”

I close with a quote by Ronald Reagan: “I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”

RICHARD DORAN
Parachute