Letters – Reader responds to ‘Peace and Harmony’

To the Editor:

In response to the article (Dec.15) by Ms. Bliss in regard to Peace and Harmony during Commissioners’ Court, I agree with her father’s adage of “Measure Twice… Cut Once,” whether you are planning and/or build

ing; be it in construction or in officiating policies.

Another adage for our court officials should be: “All that glitters is not gold.”

We were led to believe that we were so very fortunate to have a man of Mr. Heggemeier’s background to be appointed county administrator. It now appears that Judge Bonn failed to do a background check on Mr. Heggemeier’s mayor’s position held in Great Bend, Kan. According to a short newspaper article found in the archives of a nearby city newspaper (The Lawrence Journal World, Dec. 21, 1980, ‘Judge halts recall effort’), the people tried to obtain a recall election of Mayor Heggemeier (within his first year) when 800 of the 15,440 county population signed a petition requesting permission to hold another election for the mayor (and two of the councilmen) due to their misdeeds in office. The petition was denied by the DA on the grounds that the misconducts cited were not specific enough.

Needless to say, Mr. Heggemeier was not re-elected. Add to this, the questionable behavior that ensued when Mr. Heggemeier, (now a subdivision developer building 5,466 new homes in Parker, Colo.), was cast into the center of controversy when he pushed his land development on the people in Parker. (http:// frontrangetollroad.blogspot.com/2007/01/toll-road-warrior-column-11107.html), www.westword.com/related/to/Ron+Heggemeier, www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4534155)

These revelations have led many of us to question if Judge Bonn did any checking on his appointee or did he believe that D.A. Tray Hicks had done so when he hired Mr. Heggemeier as Assistant D.A.? Was the ball dropped or ignored?

Ms. Bliss stated that “a significant chunk of our citizenry…show up …to take a swipe at every decision…and move the court makes.” When the residents trust that the people they put into power ARE representing them; there is little need to attend every court session. (I sincerely doubt that the residents attending these sessions have nothing better to do with their time than to hear the everyday business of the county for 3 – 5 hours, three times each month).

As these policies being passed are felt to be detrimental to our lives, disruptive to our local government’s departments and to the lives of our friends and neighbors who are employed by the county and that these policies being passed will most likely cast our county into debt; I believe that we, the citizenry, are duty-bound to express our displeasure. Not to mention the fact that it is extremely difficult to sit quietly in court month after month listening to these onerous policies (anti-resident subdivision ordinance, bloated budget, dismantling of our county departments, unnecessary hirings, voluntary tax money local multi apartment complexes, exorbitant salaries, erroneous Plum Creek Protection Plan information, et.al., being constantly passed by the BBC Trio (Bonn, Buchholtz, Cyrier); while the voices of the residents are being ignored and recently squelched in court by the trio’s new “no comments unless preapproved” policy.

Susan Modrall

Dale