Colorado Department of Transportation is spending $91 million to correct the Bridge to Nowhere – plus what has already been spent on a roadway change that is a replacement for a route that already works? And much the same could be said for the money spent on other roadway projects here: the intersection of 15th Street and Third Avenue, which is now more dangerous and less functional that ever. Now, there is a proposal to spend $143 million for a new airport that Durango doesn’t need?

So what if La Plata County airport doesn’t have a Starbucks? And why is the baggage belt supposedly inadequate? No new airlines are coming into Durango, and 200,000 passengers a year amounts to fewer than 550 a day. For the many times I have flown in and out of Durango, I have never had a problem of any kind other than a pilot not showing up for a flight. Whose palms are being greased to spend dollars that we don’t have – without a big tax increase, that is – on projects that we don’t need? Where is the open checkbook that leads to such unnecessary proposals?

If that many dollars are just waiting to be spent, $234 million could better be spent on helping Durango residents deal with our unaffordable housing – 4,980 renters could buy a home if given help with the 20 percent down and, thereby, become a part of the mainstream instead of living as transients. Or we could provide better health care for many whose premiums are still unaffordable.

Sounds like we are taking too many lessons from our national politicians who can’t even come up with a balanced budget and put us through a periodic crises to increase the debt limit.

Lynn Holton

Durango