Salida City Council will host a regular work session at 6 p.m. on September 14 where the agenda includes the 2021 budget. Some major projects on the budget, that will be discussed during the October 5 work session include the soaking pools and the Highway 50 Phase IV streetscape work. To preview the budget, click here.
Upright signage defines social distancing, blue tape indicates open rows and yellow X tape shows no seating areas in Salida City Council Chambers, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Merrell Bergin photo
After the Council’s last meeting where many members of the community spoke out on the vandalism happening throughout Salida during the public comment, the council plans to update residents on what it is referringto a Civility Invocation to better match current conditions.
The Council will discuss adding the words; “We commit to the City of Salida being a hate-free zone and declare and affirm a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of a person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, gender, gender identity, marital status, military or veteran status, political affiliation, socio-economic class, medical condition, or physical or mental disability” to the civility invocation as well as a proclamation that celebrates diversity and encourages tolerance and respect.
The proclamation would declare Salida a “hate-free zone and condemns acts causing fear, intimidation, harassment, and harm motivated by bias or prejudice, and furthermore, declares and affirms a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of a person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, gender, gender identity, marital status, military or veteran status, political affiliation, socio-economic class, medical condition, or physical or mental disability.”
The Council will also receive an update on Colorado Mountain College. Due to COVID-19 and health regulations, the work session will be held via GoToMeeting. To preregister click here.
Anyone paying attention to the actions of this city council and our local gov’t in general knows that this is bull to quiet those complaining about social injustice that has been built in and legislated by our local gov’t. They have no intention of making things equal for residents here. They have spent vast sums of lawyer money and time assuring that this is a town that only the privileged have rights and only the privileged may protect those rights. They are actively legislating and approving actions that harm the poor and are intent on running us out of our homes by making our neighborhood unbearable to human life. This is the same city council that is on record stating that they only care enough about the million dollar homes to do an impact study. They have gutted our entire community by allowing 1/4 of it to be owned and operated for profit by outsiders for short term profit. Everything our town does is against the poor. What makes anyone think they are doing anything more than lip service and business as usual? They are continuing their decisions that harm poor by making more neighborhoods unlivable with more dust from more construction and more noise and stink from a pot grow that is torturing us in our own home and has been since it moved there. This hate free zone does nothing to protect us from the largest discrimination problem we have and that is our local and county government who hires all of the lawyers so you can’t have one should you decide to try to protect your own rights. I won’t believe a word unless they prove it and fix our neighborhood and give us back the hope they stole from us over a decade ago. As long as they allow businesses and wealthy to trample the poor here and violated rights of anyone who can’t afford a lawyer their intentions are suspect. It would be nice, but don’t believe their words designed only as a pretense. Without real and honest action across the boards they are empty words and we will still be left in our home turned torture chamber waiting to die at the hands of our rotten neighbors.