The Paths of Resistance

Would it then follow that climbers take the hard way, but have their ups and downs?
Is it necessarily an advantage to prefer a steadier path,
even though you may never see anything from the top?   Credit - Wikipedia

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

        - Robert Frost, from The Road Not Taken

One recent evening I awoke from a nap on the living room sofa to find my wife surfing for something to watch on TV. 

She was using the cable remote to go channel by channel, individually. She watched for a few seconds until apparent disinterest, disgust, or boredom led her to the next channel. This seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time, so I asked her about it. In hindsight, I'm not sure that this was a good idea.

"Why aren't you using the channel guide?"

"I need to learn how to use the remote this way."

"But the channel guide is faster."

"Just because it's faster doesn't mean it's better. That's one of the differences between you and me."

Leslie has had to fight her way through barriers created by class, race, and gender for everything she has achieved. I have not had those problems.

Beyond those fundamental facts, circumstance and choice have shaped the life journeys that have brought us to this same place together. Those journeys have rarely enjoyed similar physical or ideological terrain, save that we were born and grew up in the same town.

These experiences shape our approach to the challenges of everyday life, whether in work or at home. I've often chosen the simplest (or easiest) way to an acceptable solution - what is known as the path of least resistance. Leslie bristles at this approach sometimes, and I can't say that she's wrong. 

My life has been deeply involved in following the development of technology, and leveraging it for benefit in both my personal and working lives. Considering the advancements of the last 25 years, it's been quite the ride.  

How we ride even has it's differences. Leslie and I can both drive cars with manual transmissions, but she prefers and has chosen a car with a stick. She feels she has more control of the vehicle, and that shifting keeps her more attentive to what's happening on the roadway. In this age of distracted driving, that's a persuasive argument.  

Another argument has been made in many corners that the speed with which life moves for many nowadays is detrimental to its inherent quality, including information and services that are available "on demand". This is best demonstrated by a large segment of the general public's obsession with the capabilities of today's smartphone. 

Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand

until it finally disappears.

- Robert W. Sarnoff

Another example of this is the way that the world engages in commerce and exchanges money. Banks encourage their customers to sign up for direct deposit and online banking, touting not only its convenience but also to help justify having less human tellers at branch offices. One can easily move funds from one account to another, and spend money with a click, or a swipe or tap at the vast majority of retail outlets that accept credit and debit cards. 

I have learned that this ease and transparency of moving wealth seems to have the effect of lessening the cognition associated with the act itself. There seems to be more of a tendency to spend money that you don't necessarily ever see or touch.

Leslie resolves this for herself by physically depositing checks in her bank account - if she needs to make transfers, she does it at the bank. When she pays bills, she writes checks or pays cash - in person. She uses a debit card only for small purchases, and carries a limited amount of cash.

She has structured her life so that it's more difficult to spend money frivolously. This is something I am slowly learning from, but also requires the same level of discipline, which has admittedly been tough. 

I have always been averse to financial risks associated with investing, and generally anything involving Wall Street. This is magnified by the fact that most retirement plans involve risk associated with investing in these markets, which in light of the recent financial crises sounds akin to staking a high roller at a casino with your life's savings.

As a result, those investments I do have are designed to provide slow, steady growth while reducing the impact of market volatility when possible. Kind of like the illustration above. 

I am confirmed in my division of human energies.

Ambitious people climb, but faithful people build.

 - Julia Ward Howe 

There are as many differences in how Americans lead their individual lives as there are ways to make a living and raise a family in this great nation. This includes how we as citizens exercise our freedom to worship, and how faith affects our decision-making processes.

I got quite an interesting perspective on choices and faith from a guest preacher at our church this past weekend. She dove into the admonitions contained in the 1st Psalm, which go something like this:

Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

She then expanded upon this psalm as it relates to our world and society - There are no "shades of gray". Righteous OR wicked - there's little or no middle ground to be had.  Wickedness includes those who are focused on their own self-interest, having "no real grounding in the truth beyond themselves". She went on further, expanding on the concept of self-sufficiency, which she claimed was both rooted in wickedness and "culturally desired" in this country and others. 

She related how those with a foundation in faith are like a kite attached to a string. The kite needs the resistance provided by the string to obtain lift, and remain airborne. Without the string, the kite will drift briefly with the wind, and then fall. 

I'm wondering about the choices we make in this regard - to climb, to achieve more and more, to move our worldly lives faster and faster to keep pace with a race we cannot hope to win. I am reminded of the myth of Icarus, who ignored warnings not to fly too close to the Sun, and as a result watched his wings of wax fail him.

All the while we leave behind, or pay short shrift to, those things that take time and genuine work to achieve. The essential simplicity of maintaining a home, raising children to honorable personhood, or just sitting on the porch holding your loved one's hand - these are examples of what we may be ignoring as a society that reaches for too much, and is gradually losing the ability to care for itself.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,

every hill and mountain shall be made low,

the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord

shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. 

 - Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I am increasingly disturbed by the way that our society is being divided into factions, especially in our recent political discourse. This seemed to be most glaringly displayed by Mitt Romney's comments about the "47 percent" that he speculated would vote for President Obama in a few weeks, because they believe in a culture of entitlement, on government dependency.

Post-Gazette columnist and Sewickley-area resident Reg Henry addressed this concept with an eye on both "sides" of this battle in a recent column. He conceded an important point to start - 

When conservatives warn about a culture of dependency, they make a good point. People who live off entitlements often become lazy, non-productive and out-of-touch. It's a fact. I have seen it myself.

He then expanded upon this concept with those who benefit from wealth not part of a so-called "entitlement" program: 

If you are no longer doing your own sweating, and depend on others sweating for you, the moral danger is the same as if you were on a government program. And in a sense you are, because conservative politicians have been devoted to satisfying your every whim for lo the past 10 years, so that any wealth redistribution that has gone on has only sent more wealth your way. And what have you done with your good fortune? Not made a whole lot of new jobs, that is for sure.

A friend on Facebook in Colorado simplified this nicely:

When we make statements about "all Republicans" or "all liberals" or "all Libertarians" or "all Democrats," we are barbarically hammering complex personalities into cramped pigeonholes. This action disrespects others, distorts the positions of ourselves as well as our opponents and minimizes the possibility of persuasion. 

Only a Sith deals in absolutes. 

 - Obi-Wan Kenobi

A lot of us out there, and right here, aren't listening like we should. If we were, we might be able to tune out the drone of excessive consumerism, polarized discussions on talk radio and elsewhere, and just spend some time looking around us to all we truly have, and should spend time cherishing and nurturing instead of trying to just accumulate more. This may also be a time to take stock of whatever faith you purport to espouse, if any.

Chances are you'll find that even among all of the talk about one way being the polar opposite of another, there are plenty of residents along the entire curve of the political and social spectrum whose beliefs, circumstances, and humanity cannot be distilled into the 30-second sound bite, or an easy answer in a televised debate. 

We work hard - a lot of us have never taken a government handout, but sure are interested when politicians talk about messing with the ones that we were always told would be there for us at retirement. 

And guess what? Despite what we have on our balance sheets, we are still all in this together. As autumn comes upon our area, take a walk through your neighborhood and remember that.

Here's to finding the paths of best resistance. 

Have a good week ahead.

The Power of Teamwork

A multiple-choice question has been going through my head:

What were factors in the Steelers' loss to the Packers in the Super Bowl?

A. Me putting my Steeler jersey on backwards by accident (I did)
B. Pittsburgh native Christina Aguilera mangling the national anthem
C. Too many mistakes on both sides of the ball
D. Utter confusion during the last 4th quarter drive
E. All of the above.

The answer doesn't really matter. Perhaps the best answer is the simplest one - the best team that showed up was the one that won.

This may be a ham-handed segué to another story about teamwork in Pennsylvania, but it has implications for Coloradans as well, and it's worth the lead-up.

A story in Sunday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette detailed the activities and effectiveness of groups of landowners who have been negotiating collectively with energy "landmen" seeking leases for drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation. Some key points and quotes:

• "We have to stick together. It's the strength-in-numbers strategy," the Loretto (Pa.) group's lead organizer, Lee Wyland, told his members at the beginning of the two-hour-long meeting. "If we don't, they will pick us apart one-by-one -- there's no doubt about it."

• These landowner groups "have become a major force in the industry, educating their members, usually resulting in higher payments and more environmental controls for landowners than they would have gotten as individuals".

• When interest in the Marcellus Shale started to ramp up a few years ago, many landowners confused by the offers they were receiving reached out to the cooperative extension service at Penn State for information and assistance. Numerous community meetings later, these self-described "farm families" have learned the power of effective organizing and negotiation.

• The story quotes the director of a royalty managers' trade group about efforts at organizing for the purpose of negotiating leases in other areas of the country:

"There is a cultural difference particular to Pennsylvania and New York," (Jerry Simmons) said. "In the Rocky Mountain west, in particular, everyone is kind of on their own, an individual attitude."

To be sure, there is lots of grassroots community organizing going on in Colorado and elsewhere. Groups such as Battlement Concerned Citizens and the Western Colorado Congress have worked hard to educate and advocate for more intensive study of drilling and fracking. This includes outright opposition to these activities without additional government scrutiny and regulatory oversight.

It's also true that there are significant differences in the circumstances. I don't think there are that many split estate situations in the Eastern U.S., and there's significantly less public lands.

Still, imagine a group of private landowners, let's say in Garfield County, collectively negotiating a drilling lease for all involved lands. Through cooperative pooling of resources and procurement of expertise, they are able to agree to a fair price. Included in the agreement are certain environmental clauses that whoever drills those leases must adhere to, on pain of withdrawal of permission and possible dissolution of the agreement for all drilling locations. A portion of the agreement proceeds would be set aside to assist with the necessary compliance monitoring processes.

How would something like this look politically? Would it dovetail with Governor Hickenlooper's stated desire for responsible energy development? How would such news be received by those on the GOP and/or Tea Party (are they interchangeable?) forefront, who disdain what they see as government running amuck where it should not?

This sounds like win-win to me:

• Our country needs the energy that sits beneath us, but it must be extracted with respect for the surface and those who live on and/or farm that earth.

• The energy companies and lease landmen are not going away; they see profits from the energy beneath the ground, and have the resources to expend on leases that will likely yield considerable earnings. They would prefer to pay a fair price to a large organized group, saving them time and expense from having to deal with individual landowners.
  

• Given the aforementioned profit potential when faced with an organized, informed group of landowners backed by an effective regulatory structure, respecting the environment becomes just the cost of doing business.

• The community at large benefits from the infusion of lease proceeds and employment into the engine of the local and regional economy. The organized groups find that their collective political and economic strength allows them to advocate and become a partner for positive change in the communities where they reside.
  

• Government intervention is balanced with respect for both private property and human rights, with effective strategies in place to avoid repeating the tragic historical lessons of communism and feudalism, not to mention socialism or the environmental scars of unbridled capitalism.
  

A Utopian pipe dream? Perhaps. I look at it this way - anything that educates and mobilizes the people to help them achieve a greater quality of life together than separately cannot be a bad thing. Greed and other misunderstandings will always be there - but the message will continue to be firmly reinforced in our collective psyche that we are better off together than we are apart.

Our current political climate and economic systems, reinforced by commercial media, seem designed with the express purpose of dividing us into segments of a society, too addled with individual concerns and mistrust to work together. The promise of the Internet and social media to mobilize for change - particularly in places like Egypt - must be balanced with a strong desire to work together and avoid the paradoxical, destructive, collective narcissism that comes along with the world of the electronic screen.

Teamwork - strength in numbers - collectivism - any label you place on what's happening in Pennsylvania and New York with respect to drilling can translate to the potential for improving the American condition. I think this is one big reason that the competitive nature of humanity, combined with the freedoms that Americans have been blessed with and have a responsibility to uphold, is one of the greatest forces for positive change that history has ever seen.

Have a good week ahead.

Rocks and Hard Places - An EMS Paradox

This past Tuesday Rick Wagner posted a story from Face the State to his blog, detailing the nature of EMS operations at the Thornton Fire Department in the northern Denver suburbs. The story carried the headline "City-Run Ambulance Services Double Dip Patients Pockets, Public Till", and detailed the model used by Thornton and other metro Denver cities of providing EMS services through their respective Fire departments.

These departments subsidize their EMS operations by billing for their services. If the billing receipts from health insurance and patients don't pay for the cost of the services, tax revenue covers the rest. This model is essentially the same as that utilized here in Grand Junction.

Mr. Wagner has been a longtime critic of the demise of private ambulance companies in Mesa County, after the County sought to license ambulance services and establish service areas to assure that the entire county had EMS coverage. After the GJFD won the contract to provide emergency service in the City and GJ Rural districts, the bulk of the county's call volume essentially went to them. This has resulted in the departure of the private providers, and the entirety of the county's first-due EMS service now being provided by fire departments.

The central point of the Face the State post, and an associated radio minute, is to put forth what is becoming an old debate; that with the workload associated with firefighting declining, the fire service must re-invent itself somewhat. They also had to put in an anti-union shot as well. Many departments, like Grand Junction's, provide EMS services, as well as specialized services such as Hazardous Materials response, arson investigation, and hazardous device technicians (if you see one running, try to keep up). The EMS component makes up the lion's share of the call volume of most fire departments that provide this service in urban and suburban population centers.

It's very interesting that this past Monday, a Denver Post story seemed to spell out an entirely different perspective on the provision of EMS. The story profiled the struggles of the Morgan County Ambulance Service, a non-profit rural agency struggling with increasing costs and declining reimbursement. The story also mentioned the same difficulties being experienced by a private ambulance company providing service to neighboring Logan County, as well as the challenges of first response EMS in the mountains with Summit County's ambulance service, described on their website as "an enterprise fund department of the Summit County Government".

The consensus from the Post story appeared to me to be that the nature of rural EMS may not be sustainable in the present scheme of things; many are experiencing aging populations and increasing call volume at a time when reimbursement rates and volunteer commitments are declining. Others have lost call volume, but must maintain a high level of service delivery for a population that includes a robust tourist economy.

In many rural areas, these smaller agencies along with hospitals and clinics have taken to call in air medical services to assist with patient care and transport, at times only because a lengthy ground transport to a specialty hospital will leave the remote area uncovered for additional calls. This compounds the problem of under- or uncompensated care at a nearly exponential rate.

Yet all areas share a mandate and a public expectation for these services, whether you are a long-time elderly resident having difficulty breathing, or a traveler passing through on the Interstate who's been injured in an accident. The Post story quotes both a State EMS official and Morgan County's ambulance director asking the same question; what kind of services do citizens want to see provided?

When faced with this question in Mesa County, the two stories referenced above would appear to illustrate a paradox of sorts in terms of how to provide effective service to all citizens and visitors in our area. Based on the above reporting, it appears that private companies are able to thrive only where there is sufficient volume with a reliable revenue stream, such as inter-hospital transports and/or patients who have money or good insurance.

The further away you get from the urban core, the dynamic and the demographic changes to where reimbursement may be sporadic and undependable. In order to provide these services in an efficient manner as dictated by citizen expectation or government regulation, equipment and personnel must be positioned in these outlying areas. This may be difficult to sustain or justify for the EMS provider that is also saddled with a profit motive.

What to do? I guess it depends upon your point of view. If you believe, as I do, that Emergency Medical Services are an essential component of any community's public safety system, then there has to be some reliable, effective means of providing EMS across all population densities, political subdivisions, and socio-economic boundaries.

I've said before that a truly responsive EMS system draws its operating paradigm equally from the symbiotic disciplines of public safety and health care. In many communities it remains the bastard stepchild of both. Here in Mesa County, EMS is provided by the public sector, which is where it belongs.

Recent changes in local EMS support and oversight may provide for both challenges and opportunities in the future. These changes include the elimination of the St. Mary's Hospital EMS office, the growth of Mesa State's EMS training program, and the relocation of Mesa County's EMS Coordinator and Emergency Manager from county administration to the Sheriff's office.

We in our local area should be thankful for the expertise and sacrifices made by both compensated and volunteer EMS professionals to assure that services are available from Gateway to DeBeque, and all points around and between.

Have a good weekend.

Sentinel Goes Behind the Paywall

Leetsdale, PA - Happy October.

When Daily Sentinel publisher Jay Seaton announced in a column last week that his newspaper would be charging a fee for access to much of its online content, I was disappointed but not surprised, in part because of my research last year that showed most Seaton-owned papers doing the same thing, but also because Mr. Seaton told me as much in an e-mail exchange almost a month ago.

I was doing some research on a post about copyright trolls such as Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based law firm that made headlines back then for pursuing both commercial and non-profit websites in court for alleged infringements on the copyrighted material of its client, the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  I had asked the publishers of both local papers if they would consider such a move, and if they had anything in place that defined for the end user exactly what constituted infringement. Mr. Seaton replied initially:

"We at The Daily Sentinel have elevated our enforcement efforts against misappropriation of our intellectual property.  We are finding that our competitors are lifting and repurposing our content at the rate of 1-4 stories or photographs per week.  This misconduct will likely force our hand, and we will find ourselves vigorously enforce our rights -- perhaps with the assistance of Righthaven, LLC.  We are building a case internally against the worst violators."

It's unknown specifically who these "worst violators" are, but it's possible that other media outlets in the Grand Junction market may be among those Mr. Seaton applied this label to.

Mr. Seaton also referred me to a post by federal judge and blogger Richard Posner, which put forth basically the same argument that Mr. Seaton used to justify putting up a paywall to view most of the "value-added" content in the Sentinel. His argument is somewhat blunt and stark:

"We're trying to tamp down on the free rider problem.  The industry as a whole is headed this direction.  As Posner has observed, it's a matter of survival or extinction for this industry, I'm afraid."

Kim Burner, General Manager of the Free Press, replied:

"Colorado Mountain News Media has a policy in place prohibiting copy right (sic)infringement and will seek to better understand the Righthaven strategy. Once we do we will perhaps get back with you with comment." 

So the Sentinel will keep a good portion of its' features and top stories from those Internet freeloaders, making them available only to 7-day subscribers to the print edition, which costs roughly $140 a year. In all fairness, a lot of valuable content will still be available for free, and I cannot dispute Mr. Seaton's desire to charge for the any or all online content of his newspaper if he wishes to do so. However, I have a few points to make regarding this:

• Mr. Seaton states in his column: "Significantly, we derive revenue from sales of The Daily Sentinel; we do not derive revenue from visitors to the website." I question the Sentinel's prior commitment to its web presence in terms of the marketing of advertising space online, and creating features that make the value-added power of online content that much more appealing to the potential subscriber. I'm sure that the banner ad just below the top of the home page can contain ads for something other than right-wing astroturf groups and Rick Wagner.


• Speaking of value adds, there are some annoying quirks of the Sentinel website that could be resolved with a revenue stream, and perhaps more help for the web editor. Examples are a search feature that allows for more detailed article searches, and a more complete online archiving of stories that doesn't expire, similar to the Free Press and most of the broadcast stations.
  I did make a remark that perhaps through subscriptions Mr. Seaton had figured out a way to rid himself of comment trolls, which he had earlier termed an "unmanageable risk". He added another trick recently that will hopefully go away with paywall-based access to local opinion; commenting on his column was not enabled. That's pretty wimpy. 


• I'm hoping that any revenue stream realized will be put toward these and other improvements to gjsentinel.com to make it an even more attractive online destination for news and information, and not just something that gets all too easily ignored by the majority of Internet news junkies, who generally eschew anything with a price tag on it.

As much as I understand the Sentinel's action, I disagree with it on the grounds that without a commitment to innovation and added value, combined with a possibly lukewarm reception to the idea of paying for Internet content or subscribing to a 7-day print newspaper to access it, gjsentinel.com will not grow. 

Then again, if the Sentinel did nothing, it's quite possible that the entire operation, if not the newpaper industry itself, might be a victim of what is known as the tyranny of small decisions. A brief example is cited below:

The fact remains that each selection of x over y constitutes also a vote for eliminating the possibility thereafter of choosing y. If enough people vote for x, each time necessarily on the assumption that y will continue to be available, y may in fact disappear. And its disappearance may constitute a genuine deprivation, which customers might willingly have paid something to avoid.  1

Best of luck to Mr. Seaton, the Sentinel staff, and especially to Jim Spehar, who is moving his excellent column from the "unsustainable" (?) Grand Junction Free Press to a weekly slot on the paywalled local opinion page of Grand Junction's "chronicle of record".

Have a good week ahead.


1  Kahn AE (1988) The economics of regulation: principles and institutions Volume 1, pp 237–238. MIT Press.

How It's Done

From today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The (Pennsylvania) Department of Environmental Protection announced today it has fined Atlas Resources LLC $97,350 for allowing used hydraulic fracturing fluids to overfill a wastewater pit and contaminate a high-quality watershed in Hopewell Township, Washington County.

The violations were discovered on Dec. 5 and 6, 2009, at the Cowden 17 gas well on Old Trail Road off Route 844. Once the unknown quantity of fluid overflowed the impoundment's banks, it ran over the ground and into a tributary of Dunkle Run, according to a DEP news release.

"It is unacceptable for drilling companies in Pennsylvania to threaten public safety or harm the environment through careless acts, such as this," DEP Southwest Regional Director George Jugovic Jr. said in the release. "The Marcellus Shale offers significant economic opportunities for Pennsylvania, but these companies must adopt operating standards that prevent these sorts of accidents and they must make protecting our water resources a top priority."

I especially like the last sentence.

The DEP also fined this same company earlier this year for violations at 13 separate well sites in 2008 and 2009. They held public forums last month to further augment existing rules and regulations. Their website is comprehensive and easy to navigate, and includes news releases of meetings, enforcement activities, as well as ways that citizens can become more involved in the processes that define the agency's mission.

In contrast, while the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is making progress toward assuring that energy companies in Colorado conduct themselves responsibly with respect to natural resources and groundwater protection, it looks like there's more to be done. The record fine levied against Williams Co., reported last Friday in the Daily Sentinel, is a continued step in the right direction, but the structure of and manner in which the Commission's activities are reported to Coloradans seems to pale in comparison to the example set forth by Pennsylvania.

The COGCC website has plenty of information on rules, policies, staff reports, and includes a guide for those who are media savvy, but no news releases detailing enforcement activities, or how interested citizens can become more involved in the process. They have a kids page, though.

Many will call this an apples-to-oranges type of comparison. Granted, state governments back east are more entrenched, multi-layered, intrusive, and admittedly inefficient in many areas. There is a lot more at stake in Pennsylvania and other states that sit on top of the Marcellus Shale; the population density is higher, and many people depend on both surface and groundwater resources that require significant diligence to protect, especially given the heavy industrial past of many areas.

I wrote about this same kind of thing over three years ago, and I still feel the same way.

Many in Colorado will cite the manner in which government is reined in, through things like a part-time legislature, decidedly less local government, and TABOR. That can be a good thing in some areas, but not when public safety is threatened through harm to our physical environment. Attempts to further exacerbate restraint on government through ill-conceived initiatives such as Propositions 60, 61, and 101 will not help. You get what you pay for.

Having spent considerable time in Pennsylvania over the last few months, I know that there's a fight brewing over how drilling in the Marcellus Shale will be overseen by not only state government, but by local governments as well. Incumbent, term-limited Governor Ed Rendell will have his replacement elected in November. Many cities and townships are gearing up to attempt to ban drilling outright, and many citizens are calling for a New York-style moratorium on drilling until the regulatory infrastructure can catch up.

Is all of this appropriate, or even workable, in Colorado? Of course not. The squeeze is on for many people in this economy, and seemingly more so in Grand Junction. Striking a balance between the economic needs of our citizens and protecting the environment in which we all have to function will be a subject of impassioned and seemingly endless discussion wherever there are energy resources to be extracted.

How we achieve that balance of sustainability, economic and otherwise, will in large measure define our legacy, and impact the quality of living, for those who live here after us.

Have a great day.

An Important Week for Homeless Issues

It was a weekend paved with the best of intentions to organize several topics and write about them, but work and my son crashing his car this past Thursday (he's fine, we'll see about the car) prevented a lot of this from happening. Here we are as another week begins, and it feels full of possibilities on a number of fronts. Here's just one:

The week ahead will provide a number of opportunities to participate with and/or observe those charged with oversight in government, or of one of the numerous organizations assisting homeless individuals, as they continue to work together to address the problem of homelessness across the Grand Junction metropolitan area.

Before dismissing this as just talk with a nebulous level of commitment or action, remember what was going on a year ago. The City of Grand Junction had just been rebuffed in an attempt to criminalize panhandling and solicitation. Many battle lines that lay hidden to many in the community were starting to become a focal point for scrutiny and comment.

Fast forward through an effort by the City to reach out to homeless advocates and service providers to craft legislation that, while flawed, addressed the safety issues associated with panhandling in medians, both real and perceived. Factor in a difficult winter by Grand Junction standards, and the emergence of groups and individuals displaying a commitment to bring attention to, and address, issues pertaining to homelessness in ways not previously seen.

Enter this spring and summer, and what was the potential for more discontent between the homeless and advocacy groups, government, and law enforcement has instead become an opportunity for real progress in improving the manner and availability of services for homeless individuals and families.

The revelations concerning police misconduct toward homeless individuals that continue to emerge, and the leadership displayed by Grand Junction's police chief in addressing them, are but just one of the developments that is injecting new people, ideas, and solutions into the ongoing struggle to address the needs of these populations.

I have some more ideas about this that I'm writing about in more detail, but in the meantime here are at least three opportunities this week to observe, and in some cases sit in on, the process:


City Council Committee on Homeless and Transient Issues
Tuesday, July 13, 12:00 PM, Grand Junction City Hall

When I contacted City administration to obtain the date and time of this apparently nascent committee's meeting, it was stated rather pointedly that while this meeting is open to the public, the committee will be taking no public testimony. Still, I'm thinking that the presence of a significant number of interested citizens can serve as a reminder to Council of the level of community interest in what at least one level of government thinks about the issue.

The City's current Mayor, Teresa Coons, has long been an ally of the social service and non-profit infrastructure that addresses homelessness here. That's a start, but it will be interesting to see how the remainder of Council interacts with each other and their constituents on these issues.


Beyond Charity Work Session
Wednesday, July 14, 9:30 AM, Homeward Bound Shelter (2853 North Ave.)

This is a continuation of the work sessions that began last week in response to the brainstorming session held in late May. I attended both, and began to see players new and old looking at where we were in addressing homeless issues nearly 10 years ago, through the eyes of a planning document that can be read here.

Other things that I saw last week included the positioning of certain groups in the room around what appear to be two core philosophies in dealing with those in need of housing: Continuum of Care, around which many federal funding programs have been built, and Housing First, a comparatively new philosophy that seeks to remove the bureaucratic and psychological stigmas surrounding the provision of housing to those who need it. I'll have more to say about this in the near future.

Equally interesting in observing the alignment of those in attendance is noting the absence of those whose presence at the table is critical to both consensus and assuring effective service delivery. Colorado West Mental Health, the agency charged with providing the lion's share of mental health and substance abuse services in Mesa County, has not sent a representative to the first two Beyond Charity work sessions. Let's hope that changes this week.


Grand Valley Coalition for the Homeless - Monthly Meeting
Thursday, July 15, 10:00 AM, Homeward Bound Shelter

One noteworthy point brought up at the first Beyond Charity session was a need for strong, centralized coordination of service provision by a disparate and varied number of organizations, for whom homelessness occupies a varying degree of priority in their overall mission.

These organizations attempt to coordinate and communicate their activities through the Grand Valley Coalition for the Homeless. Their monthly meeting, typically the third Thursday of each month, affords these groups the opportunity to engage in this collaborative activity. I've not been to one of these meetings previously, but I hope to be there later this week.

As with any gathering of groups such as this, the internal politics that establish administrative control of the organization can at times translate itself to tacit control of how certain issues are framed, prioritized, and debated within the confines of the organization's internal structure. I've heard from more than one source that there are concerns about this within the Coalition membership. It will be interesting to observe it firsthand.


Before concluding, it's important to also note that the Federal government's focus on homelessness may be intensifying with last month's release of a comprehensive report by the US Interagency Council on Homelessness. The Executive Summary is a must-read for anyone even a little bit interested in this issue.

Also, check out yesterday's edition of the ongoing Washington Post series Five Myths. The problem isn't going away, but it is changing, and our response to it needs to recognize and address those changes to have any chance of effectiveness.

Finally, as a Pittsburgh native I must recognize fellow blogger Gene Kinsey for his post yesterday about the Sentinel's Sunday Page One story on young professionals entering the non-profit sector. He invoked Andrew Carnegie, whose extraordinary example of philanthropy may be duplicated by such modern-day business icons as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. As a Pittsburgher, I also have to recognize that Carnegie amassed his considerable wealth in ways that would be questionable in today's business and labor environment.

Gene wanted to frame Carnegie's example as a defense of free market capitalism; I would respond that while it is that vital engine that fuels the private philanthropy and governmental allocations that wind up helping needy populations, its effectiveness is reduced if the manner in which such resources are gathered is irresponsible in relationship to the public good. One need look no further than Wall Street or the Gulf of Mexico to see examples of this.

Have a great week ahead.

Sign O' The Times 4

I've seen this and similar messages adorning benches at bus stops around town in recent weeks. This particular one is on 5th Street Downtown, just north of Grand Avenue.

These messages are part of a national campaign coordinated by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, in cooperation with a nationally known designer of similar messages involving religious themes, paid for by an anonymous donor.

You can see examples of more of these messages here. Thanks to those involved for helping those of us in need of work or otherwise struggling to keep things in perspective.

Have a good weekend.

Media Myopia - The Exempla Transfer

As I wrote about earlier this week, it's been a busy month for St. Mary's Hospital and its parent organization, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System (SCLHS). The completion of a new facility, introducing it to the community, and preparing to move into it must be a daunting challenge for SMH management and staff.

Additionally, the Sisters of Charity has been very busy taking over two hospitals in the Denver metro area. This is locally significant on many fronts, most recently because SCLHS tapped Robert Ladenburger, the Chief Executive of St. Mary's, to head the newly reorganized Exempla Healthcare.

What hasn't been substantively reported anywhere in the Grand Junction media is that the Sisters of Charity, partners in Exempla since it's beginning, have just begun to assert operational control over the entire Exempla system, bringing to a seeming conclusion one of the most acrimonious and controversial transitions involving non-profits in recent memory.

Full disclosure: I was employed by St. Mary's from August 2008 to August 2009.

The arrangement that created Exempla is a complex one - SCLHS is now assuming a role similar to that of a managing general partner. Think George Steinbrenner and the Yankees. As a result, the Sisters will operate these hospitals under directives established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The proposed transition of Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette into hospitals following these directives brought out many cries of foul in the western suburbs of Denver, mainly because these facilities would cease to provide certain reproductive services and end-of-life care options.

I began following the controversy surrounding this transfer of control in late 2007. The bulk of the media coverage of the dispute came from both the Denver Post and the Denver Business Journal. During this time several grassroots efforts were underway by community groups to attempt to block the transfer, which would have included a payment of $311 Million from SCLHS to its fellow sponsor of Exempla, the Community First Foundation. Some physician groups were opposed to the deal as well. Petitions and letters were sent to State Attorney General John Suthers urging him not to approve the transfer, which is required under state law when the assets of non-profit organizations are involved.

SCLHS claimed throughout the dispute that it needed operational control to be able to secure financing for extensive planned improvements to the involved hospitals.

During this time the local media in Grand Junction did not report on this developing issue involving one of Mesa County's largest employers. In December 2007, I sent an e-mail to the editors of both local papers with a copy of a November 30 Denver Business Journal story that led off as follows:

Executives from the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System and the Community First Foundation say that if a proposed sponsorship change for Exempla Healthcare is blocked, the hospital system will "break up" and the Sisters' $2.1 billion plan to improve facilities will be in jeopardy.

Given that St. Mary's had already begun construction of their new tower, I wondered out loud to these editors what else it would take for some local media to report on this issue. The Sentinel assigned a reporter that same day, and in their December 12, 2007 edition reported on the proposed transfer, but none of the challenges associated with it. This story included the following:

Dan Prinster, vice president of planning and business development at St. Mary's, said although the hospital is part of the Sisters of Charity Network it operates independently. "What takes place in Denver will have minimal impact here", he said.

Well, it just cost us one really good CEO.

In 2008, the board of directors of Exempla sued its two sponsors to prevent the transfer of assets and control. An arbitrator ruled this past summer that while control over the hospitals could be transferred, no money could change hands between the two sponsors. The Exempla board agreed to the transfer of control this past October.

SCLHS began taking over Exempla at the beginning of the year. Mr. Ladenburger will head up a team of executives to replace five that were recently fired as part of the transition process.

I really don't feel very strongly either way about the transfer. There have been equally persuasive arguments for the changes, and in an area as diverse as Metro Denver access to non-sectarian health care services is readily available within a reasonable distance.

An entirely different picture might emerge if such a transfer of control occurred in an area such as Mesa County. If, for example, SCLHS purchased the assets of Community Hospital and Family Health West, local health care consumers might have a problem with driving to Delta, Montrose, or Rifle for services that Catholic health care will not provide. As unlikely as such a scenario may be, it's still something to think about.

My primary concern remains the seeming blind eye that the local media turned toward a nearly 4-year long controversy involving a major player in the local economy. There was a chance for a redemption of sorts with the reporting of Mr. Ladenburger's departure, but all that was offered was one sentence in a sidebar. A tribute editorial in the Sentinel also deftly skirted the likely challenges facing Mr. Ladenburger as the head of Exempla. Coverage from the Free Press, or any local broadcast outlet, was no better.

In contrast, the corporate restructuring of an energy company based in Oklahoma, that may result in increased exploration for natural gas on the West Slope, was a Page One story in yesterday's Sentinel. Yet a lengthy dispute involving the parent of a major economic and service sector player in our area went unreported for years, and received short shrift even as a major community leader is thrust into the middle of it.

I'm hoping for a better job of relevant reporting on these types of issues by our local media in the future.

Best wishes to Mr. Ladenburger in his new position.

Have a good weekend.

'Capitalism' at the Tech Center

Living in and around the Denver Tech Center, even temporarily, is an interesting experience. On a Saturday night, it's a little weird.

For those unfamiliar, the Tech Center is a large complex of office buildings, southeast of downtown Denver along the Interstate 25 corridor. It houses among other things numerous media companies that call the Denver area home, and benefit from its location along the 105 Degree Meridian, which optimizes satellite transmission to many parts of the world.

The streets that traverse the Tech Center are largely unlit at night, owing perhaps to its mostly weekday, 9-to-5 population. Combined with the darkness of the streets and the surrounding buildings, driving through it is an eerie, dark experience for an area with so many people and activity around it. This is even true when there are significant numbers within the complex, enjoying a show at Fiddler's Green Amphitheater as was the case last night.

From South Quebec Street, the directional signs to the Village Shops at the Landmark are unlit and difficult to see; once in this large high-end residential and retail area, the subdued nature of it was still evident. Like Fiddler's Green, the complex feels out of place in the sterile environment of the glass box office towers, kind of like wildflowers sprouting between the cracks in a shopping mall parking lot. Among plenty of parked cars, mostly-shuttered retail shops and a few scattered bars and restaurants between two large high-rise condominium buildings, the only discernible noise was the constant drone of traffic on I-25.

I was there to see a movie at the Landmark Theatres complex there, specifically Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. This was a unique experience for me, beginning with the theatre itself; the movie cost $12, but all the popcorn and soft drinks you want are included. There is also a full bar that serves some unique appetizers if you are so inclined. I was reminded of the line in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta's character says that you can go to a movie in Amsterdam and buy a beer, "and I don't mean a cup, I mean a glass of beer".

For long-time readers here it should come as no surprise that I am a fan of Mr. Moore and his work. This latest film is more personal than his most recent movies, as he used many references to his own childhood in the Flint, Michigan area, and included his own father and several catholic priests of his acquaintance.

Some of his antics were overly simple and predictable, but in the end rather effective in delivering a message. He fires salvos at Democrats and Republicans alike, and speaks with the American equivalent of Tony Benn, the former British M.P. who made such a splash in Sicko.
And don't get me started on dead peasants...

The parts that I enjoyed the most were those that lent historical perspective to what has happened in recent months. Specifically, the Flint Sit-Down Strike, and the use of archival, previously unseen newsreel footage of President Franklin D. Roosevelt calling for a "Second Bill of Rights" after the end of World War II, which he did not live to see. My favorite part of the movie was a too-short homage to Dr. Jonas Salk. I'm wondering what Big Pharma was thinking back then...

If you have a vested interest in the financial forces that influence our government (and if you lost money as a result of the near-crash and bailout, you do), I would strongly recommend taking a couple of hours to see this. Many of you will no doubt disagree with some of Mr. Moore's conclusions and assertions, but he does put on a good show, and regardless of how you personally feel about Mr. Moore or his politics, you will come away with a better appreciation of the nature of the beast.

As with most of Mr. Moore's latest work, the enlightenment extends through the credits, so if you do go, stick around for them. His choice of music to run behind those credits is very interesting.

Time for bed.

Mount Gallitzin Memories

There was a certain amount of sadness when I read last week that several Catholic schools in the Pittsburgh area with declining enrollments were closing their doors at the end of the school year.

These closures include Mount Gallitzin Academy in Baden, PA, a Pre-K through 8th grade school operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph, which I attended from the 1st through 7th grade. The school has been in operation since the Sisters built this lovely facility at right in 1901. Just to the right of this building is an indoor swimming pool and locker rooms.

The ground level of this building housed 1st through 8th grade boys, many of whom
were boarders, when I started 1st grade here in 1966. The upper floors were a girls' high school until the following year, when those girls and other students formed the initial class of Quigley Catholic High School, on the hill above Mt. Gallitzin.

This left the remainder of this huge building for the establishment of a co-ed school for 1st through 8th graders, and while we were exploring the huge classrooms and hallways with high ceilings and Victorian-era woodwork, we had the new dynamic of girls to deal with.

In 1968 and 1969, the Sisters expanded MGA's facilities to include a new gymnasium, music and band facilities, and a walkway over the driveway from the old building. On June 5, 1968, my mother woke us up with the news that Bobby Kennedy had been shot. I went into school and sat with about 30 other kids from all grades, watching the news reports for the entire morning. The room was silent.

I played the French Horn in the school band, and was the only Horn player until the 6th grade. During that school year, over a long Veterans' Day weekend, several of our teachers (mostly nuns) were on the way to Edinboro, PA for a conference when the van they were riding in crashed.

The Principal was killed, at least one teacher was seriously hurt, and the remainder suffered some form of physical injury along with emotional scars. We had an extra week off, returning to class with mostly substitutes until after Christmas break.

My parents pulled my brother and I out of MGA after one more year, and although I kept in touch with some friends I had made there, they unfortunately faded away with the years. This included the first girl I ever slow-danced with, and of course never forgot.

Four years ago I responded to an alumni survey, and participated in a "Making Lifetime Connections" presentation that highlighted the whereabouts of former students and their chosen professions, along with their thoughts on how their experience at MGA helped shape their future education and life.

One featured alumnus was in the 8th grade when I was in 1st or 2nd; I remember seeing a series of photographs of his Bar Mitzvah on a school bulletin board. Would we see something like that in a Catholic school today, or Confirmation photos in a Yeshiva? I hope so...

I made contributions to the school in recent years, and was truly saddened when the news came out last week that this would be the last year of the sound of children in those large, ominous hallways. As it happens, the school's fate was sealed by declining enrollment, an aging population, and the loss of a major benefactor that contributed over half a million dollars to MGA, and over $4 Million to Catholic schools in the area.

The benefactor was later identified by the media as a charitable foundation established by the late founder of a Pittsburgh-based housing construction company. As their business went, so did the money. Chalk up another casualty of subprime lending and financial chicanery. So it goes.

The Sisters of St. Joseph also operate a skilled nursing facility on the expansive campus. Perhaps these rooms and facilities will see new life as our generations become even older.

At the end of 7th grade, as I packed my stuff out of the building and said goodbye to MGA for the last time, I was struck by the silence of those hallways and classrooms when they were empty of children. The silence of empty rooms has haunted me ever since, from the one last look at our empty house in Pittsburgh before the drive to Colorado, to locking the door of my late wife's condo on Cape Cod for the final time last summer.

Growth, transition, and loss. In essence, reflective of the constancy of change in all of our lives.

Good night, Lisa Delbene, wherever you are.


Photo Credit: Beaver County Times - Lucy Schaly