Mayoral Candidates Need to Answer a few Queries
By Randle Loeb on Feb 16, 2011 | In Caring and Surviving, Citizenship and Stewards By Randle Loeb
These are a few of my questions for the mayoral candidates.
The governor has committed to homeless planning at the state level however what the governor would like and what is possible are diametrically opposed because of conservative fiscal constraints. What homeless people need is diverse housing stock. The metro Denver plan committed to 5,000 units in the next decade. The actual number of diverse housing stock is ten times that number. How do you reconcile the disparity?
Housing First works not because it saves money as opposed to doing nothing but because of intensive supportive services, how do we plan to provide a real chance for people who live marginally to live in sustainable housing who are ex-offenders, violent criminals, young adults, elders on fixed incomes, people who are disabled and families who make up the bulk of those who need housing?
Basic costs of services keep rising like transit, medical costs and day care. What are we doing to ensure that a) people keep jobs b) that people can go somewhere without a car c) people can decide whether to pay utilities or eat?
Cost cutting is the buzz word of the modern world. Is it important for us to consider major tax increases?
The economy for many people is turning around, but not for the most impoverished. For these people there is no room for training, education, opportunity, creating micro-businesses, people are fed up with being poor and blamed for their plight. What hope do we give to the newly destitute that they will ever have a basic living wage, when there are no jobs for 10% of the population in any sector?
It's an issue that the mantle of Democrat and Republican is antiquated and that we have to find a way for all sides to work together to solve these critical affairs. Respond to these questions based on the idea of us getting to work together and that for most of us the spiritual matter of our lives is the one that matters most, meaning how we regard one another as distinct and significant members of a clan.
Incarceration does not work. What plans do you have to do away with jails and prisons unless absolutely necessary? The same is true of Capitol Punishment?
Immigration rights for all citizens and the children of these families is a critical issue because most of the undocumented are doing work that Americans don't want to do. Is there a way in which immigration can be made a matter of care and regard for everyone as indispensable?
We still do not have equal rights for women. Why not and what will you do to effectively close the chapter on this issue that goes back to the beginning of the arrival of people from Europe here?
When I think of the slave trade and how it is thriving we think of why we cannot do anything to curtail the wanton destruction and subjugation of others. Can we do anything to live together in peace and sustaining a way of life that makes sure that no one is in harm's way ever?
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