Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Casinos and Jobs

So if a casino set up shop in Pueblo, what would the jobs really be like?

Working in a casino looks pretty cushy. They’re air-conditioned, have soft carpeting, and the customers are there to have fun, generally. While casinos usually serve alcohol, getting drunk is not the point.

In a casino you’ve got people who run the games for customers (dealers, croupiers), you’ve got their supervisors, you’ve got food and drink servers, people who are constantly picking up and cleaning up after the customers, a security guard or two, and you’ve got bookkeepers and accountants.

Nothing looks difficult, except maybe the bookkeeping and accounting jobs. However, some years ago I took some training to deal blackjack for a charity casino night. The man who trained us had worked in Nevada for a number of years and now rented equipment and gave training for charity casino nights. Gambling was just starting in the old mining towns of Blackhawk, Central City and Cripple Creek, and a couple of people were really curious about part-time jobs in the casinos.

This man told us some things which made us think twice. Dealers and croupiers have a surprising number of health problems. They’re generally on their feet a lot, so fallen arches, bunions, etc.,  are common. Dice tables and roulette wheels are not ergonomically designed (maybe they can’t be), and the result is back problems. He told us female croupiers have a higher than average rate for hysterectomies.

It’s surprisingly fatiguing. If I remember correctly, he said dealers generally work only 45 minutes, then get a break because of the intense mental focus involved, as well as being on your feet.

So, while promoters are dangling 400 jobs in front of Puebloans, how many are full-time? How many would pay a living wage, not just minimum wage? If many are part-time positions, would a benefit package including health insurance be part of the deal? Many casino workers would probably be dependent on tips to have a living wage. And how many of the higher-end management and accounting positions would be back in Oklahoma, not in Pueblo?

A certain school board member here in Pueblo raised a furor when she said the schools were only teaching Hispanic students enough to clean toilets for a living. It takes a little more book learning to deal blackjack (you have to be able to add in your head) but is it really a classier job? In Las Vegas, Nevada, I’m sure teachers and other parents are used to children announcing that Mommy is a blackjack dealer (what every parent wants for their daughter) or that Daddy is a pit boss (elegant job title),  but is Pueblo really ready for that?

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Casinos and Quality of Life

Would a casino give Pueblo the sort of quality of life it has and wants?

“Yu-u-uck!” That was my reaction as I read in the paper yesterday that some folks want to establish a casino here in Pueblo.

Okay, so I don’t like playing slot machines. They eat my money and they never give me any gum. And I don’t get any big thrill from winning a blackjack hand, probably because I’m not gutsy enough to bet more than two dollars. And I have memories of abandonment as a small child when my brother and I were left standing on the sidewalk with one parent, while the other went into a casino to play a few games. (Games? and they don’t let children in? What sort of place is that?)  Then the folks switched places, and we still didn’t get to go in. And we couldn’t figure out why, because there weren’t any naked ladies or anything like that that kids weren’t supposed to see.  And there was nothing to do out on the sidewalk. (Of course, at age six it’s very difficult to understand why you can’t do everything you want.)

So my first concern about a casino being set up in Pueblo is quality of life and quality of the Riverwalk. I have visions of children camped on the sidewalk, getting sunburned, while the custodial adult is inside pulling a lever. I can see dogs tied to lampposts for hours at a time while the owner plays for “just a few more minutes.” I see upset drivers who have just lost a bundle screaming out of the parking garage without noticing pedestrians, pets or bicyclists. I have visions of not finding parking because the parking garage either won’t be big enough, or will cost money.

And somehow, the noise and bright lights of a casino don’t jibe with what I thought was the desired image for the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk Promenade. I thought it was supposed to be about splashing fountains, floating boats, sno-cones al fresco, and strolling along sun dappled walks. In other words, I thought the HARP was supposed to be more or less family-oriented. Rated G. Suitable for all ages.

I’ll admit that a lot of my prejudices come from visiting Central City and Blackhawk. Gambling in those towns was billed as an atmosphere thing, something to re-create the ambiance of those towns in the heyday of mining. A tourist draw based on history, not the gambling itself. Something like what I experienced in the Yukon in the ‘70s. Instead, it ended up being a mini-Las Vegas, with flashing lights and endlessly circulating cocktail waitresses. If you go to the Central City Opera, you can’t find parking. What residents hoped would give them an income that would allow them to stay in their quaint little mountain towns, instead gives them a reason to leave.

Is that what Pueblo really wants?

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Talk About Gluttony Run Amok (Part Deux)

As usual…the proverbial plot ‘thickens’.

Interesting editorial in the Pueblo Chieftain today.

It seems that people are continuing the ancient tradition of hiring and retaining people in taxpayer positions based on little more than blood-lines. And, according to the Chieftain, as I read it, it’s fairly rampant right here in ‘river city’. At least with District 60 school board and system.

In one instance, the Chieftain blasts a school admin type for trying to get his wife on the payroll. In another instance, the Chieftain looks rather askance at a school board member for wanting to sit in on a relations “evaluation preconference”, whatever on God’s good Earth THAT is.

In the former case, it seems pretty obvious that there was something going rather ‘odd’. In the latter case, I’m curious as to what the heck an ‘evaluation preconference’ is and who is, in accordance with regulations/procedures/union-rules/whathaveyou, eligible to attend such a confab.

Bottom line…at this point, for me….is this looks like a really serious mess. And we should do something about it. The question that comes immediately to my mind is WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THIS GOAT ROPE??!??! And WHY HAVE THEY LET IT GET TO THIS POINT????!?!!!!!

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Life In the Suburban Jungle

James Lileks needs a GPS system.

James “the bleat” Lileks has problems trying to get around in one of the newer branches of the Minneapolis-St Paul metroplex. And, from the sounds of it, we’re WAY ahead of him, vis-a-vis trying to find ones way in Pueblo West. Here’s his comment, taken from yesterday’s Bleat

This morning I had to get Gnat to an event in a distant suburb, one of those newer places with an utter absence of parallel or numbered streets. Nothing but serpentine roads, cul-de-sacs, and the occasional main drive hewn from an old path laid down 140 years ago by farmers ekeing their careful way to market. I planned the route yesterday, and since I knew the area a little I figured it would be easy. And indeed it would have been easy if the streets had intersected where I thought they would. They did not. When I reached the intersection and noted that my street wasn’t anywhere in sight, I had that aw-crap moment get when I’m off the map. I hate being off the map. I like to know where I am at all times. This is why this feature rarely originates from, say, Pantagonia.

I feel extactly the same way, every time I contemplate a foray into Pueblo West. It’s as if they deliberately planned to confuse anyone who wasn’t born and RAISED there. I imagine that their pizza delivery people must come from special schools where they are fed the minced brains of deceased native residents so that, like planaria, they can learn the lay of the road-net. Either that or three months later they check into a mental institution.

Everytime I have to go to Pueblo West, if it’s more than a quarter mile off US 50, I take the laptop, connect the GPS and fire up the tracking system.

I hear that Pueblo West is planning to change its name sometime in the future. I suppose this is part of an overall plan to keep the unwary confused….

Lost Motorist: Is this Pueblo West?

Convenience Store Clerk: No.

Lost Motorist: NO?!?!?!?? Where the hell am I?

Convenience Store Clerk: Exactly…..

Where is Rod Serling when we REALLY need him?

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

ICE—In Case of Emergency

An idea from Britain: list your emergency contacts under ICE on your cell phone.

I don’t usually pass on stuff from mass e-mails, but this seems like a reasonable idea. After the last round of bombings in Great Britain, emergency workers found a lot of cell phones on people, but had no idea who they should be calling from the long lists of numbers. Some of them came up with the idea of listing emergency contact information under the acronym ICE for In Case of Emergency. Since I’ve heard that health care people will not got through a purse or wallet looking for information, and since a lot of cell phones are carried in a separate holster or in a pocket so someone would not have to enter forbidden territory to access it, this seems like a reasonable idea. If your cell phone has some sort of note field, you could add information like “Diabetic” or “Penicillin Allergy.”

These folks suggested that if you have more than one contact, then they could be listed as ICE1, ICE2, etc.

Thanks to my friends J.N. and J.T. for passing this along.

Trash Talk

Improved techniques allow dumps to keep ‘piling it on’.

An interesting report on the trash business.

It seems that because of some of the new and innovative processes being used in the modern trash industry, we’re using less land-fill space than we had expected.

I think this is great news. I always get a kick out of efficiency and I congratulate the guys who came up with these ideas.

I know we’ve got issues with trash ourselves, right here in ‘river city’. But they do not relate to a lack of land-fill space. They are more involved with just cleaning the place up and everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, bearing their own share of the responsibility. Personally, I’m disappointed with the City Fathers’ inability to act on this and I often wonder just WHY they have failed so often, of late, to put into affect what most reasonably prudent individuals would call sensible municipal ordinances to affect keeping the city and the citizens, not to mention the property, reasonably clean and uncluttered by extraneous refuse.

And yet….this month opens the gate for the City Fathers to inact mandatory recycling??!??! This makes no sense….at least to me. Recycling is secondary to just getting rid of the pestiforous trash. And this report, that we are not running out of land-fill space as quickly as some people here were suggesting a few months ago, makes the recycling plans even more specious.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Chieftain, My Chieftain I

Observations on the Pueblo Chieftain. Today, “You call THIS ‘vacation stoppage’? Can we, pulease, come up to current time/technology?”

This will be the first in, what I am sure will be, a long series of suggestions on how the Pueblo Chieftain can fulfill it’s ‘duties’ to the citizens of this city and county.

So, I was going out of town for a few days and didn’t want the papers to pile up on my front porch, advertising to all, NOBODY HOME. COME BURGLARIZE THIS HOUSE!!!.

I registered with “MY CHIEFTAIN”; the online Pueblo Chieftain, which touts in some advertisement, a way to stop my deliveries for a period of time. However, after registering, I can’t seem to find the place where I’m supposed to exercise this hi-tech, with-it, capability. I was perplexed. So I called the Chieftain. And asked around.

Come to find out, they are practicing what could be called ‘false advertising’. There is no such thing as online delivery stoppage for vacations or other out-of-town situations. Nor, can I find anywhere up on their online edition, guidance how to do such a thing. So I sent an e-mail to their circulation manager, Matt Butorac using his e-mail, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), as provided in their online edition. I thought that would do the trick. And awaaaayyy, we go!

Come back several days later to find a stack of newspapers.

No mail. As the United States Postal Service (USPS) has apparently caught up, and surpassed, the Pueblo Chieftain, in terms of tech. Online service stopped my mail delivery and resumed it in accordance with my expressed wishes.

The USPS serves HOW MANY people? Compared to the Pueblo Chieftain? And I seem to matter more to them than to my local paper.

If the Chieftain has the wherewithall to have an online edition but can’t seem to get its act together to employ it so as to be inter-active with its subscribers, I’d suggest they see where the bottle-neck is in their realization of their full potential and ‘throttle’ it until it stops being a problem and becomes part of the proverbial world of tomorrow.

We all have expectations of a better world, tomorrow. Technology can be a great tool for achieving those expectations. Someone who apparently hinders achieving those expectations should be (1) counselled and, if that fails, (2) replaced.

Talk About Gluttony Run Amok

We’ve surely got troubles in ‘River City’ D60 School Board.

Today’s Pueblo Chieftain brings out how much trouble there is in the D60 School Board. And, from the last years antics of the various members, I get the distinct impression we need some serious re-assignment of people holding positions thereon. This latest article is just another indication of how bad the situation is becoming.

So, what on EARTH has prompted Christian Piatt to try to put HIS ‘hat into the ring’?

Yesterday, my e-mail included THIS…

Hello All:
I wanted to let everyone know that I have decided to run for District 60 School Board. Please don’t feel any pressure to do so, but if you would be willing to sign my petition for candidacy, I would appreciate your support.
I am required to secure 50 valid signatures of registered voters who live within the boundaries of the Pueblo District 60 school system. I am hoping actually to secure as many as will fit on my petition pages (84), in case any are invalidated.
If you’d be willing to sign the petition, please let me know. I’ll have it with me over the coming week or so.  You can only sign two petitions (one more in addition to mine) since there are only two seats open, or else your signature is deemed not valid.
Thanks for your help, and again, please don’t feel obligated. I promise I won’t get my feelings hurt if you’d rather not take part.
Peace,
Christian Piatt

The man must either be a masochist or something more fearsome….to want to get involved in THIS mess. Maybe it has something to do with the two-year old dynamo running around the yard, challenging any of the taller folk to charge down the sidewalk with him.

I see the kid do that over-the-shoulder “FOLLOW ME!” Or maybe merely “COME ON!” It’s hard to tell as he doesn’t quite speak English just yet. And I’m reminded of the Benning School for Boys motto. He’ll go far, unless someone keeps and eye on him.

And therein is probably the primary motivation for this move on Chris’ part. Something like a ‘vested interest’ in fixing something that DEFINITELY could use some serious fixing. Someone responsible needs to keep an eye on him, and all the others, in these formative years. And, in my honest opinion, the public education system has been failing US by the proverbial numbers.

We’ll have questions for Chris, if he gets the necessary signatures to get his name on the ballot. If we’re lucky, he’ll respond properly.

You never can tell….

Thursday, August 11, 2005

I Felt the Earth Move, Did You?

Some of us in Pueblo felt the earthquake yesterday, did you?

The Chieftain announced today that that weird vibration I felt yesterday afternoon was an earthquake. I was in my second floor office, sitting in a five-point office chair, when this strange vibration like a truck rumbling past bounced me around slightly. Except there was no truck and this house doesn’t vibrate over things like normal vehicle traffic, sonic booms or artillery fire. I thought maybe it was an upset stomach. I’ve never felt an earthquake before, so I had no idea.

The newspaper said some people are blaming oil-well drilling and that sort of thing. I’m wondering about that explosion in Utah. Seriously, the crater looks to be the size of a city block, or two or three. It’s much more impressive than a little six-inch diameter hole in the ground.

Or we could always blame terrorists, global warming, the coming ice age, continental drift or space aliens. Somebody’s got to be to blame, right?

Competitors, Start Your Ovens!

The entry form deadline for the State Fair is tomorrow. So it’s time to decide: heat up the house and prove who’s got the best chocolate chip cookies this side of the Kansas border, or stand around at the fair, lamely saying “I bet mine are better than that.”

It is now, as they say in some circles, time to put up or shut up. The deadline for submitting your entry forms for the Colorado State Fair Open Competitions is Friday, August 12. If you’re the type of Fair-goer who eats chili dogs and cotton candy and then rides the Zipper ‘til disaster happens, this post won’t interest you.

If, however, you’re the sort of Fair-goer who has wandered into the Creative Arts building and wondered where all that stuff came from, this post is for you. It came from people like you and me, who decided to risk a few bucks on entry fees and ingredients to see if they can claim state-wide bragging rights on their quilts, their biscuits, their jams and jellies, their ceramics, doilies and leatherwork. Just go here and download the desired .pdf file. It will include an entry form, instructions on where to pay entry fees, where to take your entries, and when and so on.

Last year I observed part of the pantry judging, and it was very educational. The judges were very nice in giving out baking tips as they critiqued the various items. (And no, I don’t know how you become a chocolate chip cookie judge, but I suspect a degree in home economics helps.) I have the following advice if you want to enter pantry items:

1) The most entries were in chocolate chip cookies and banana bread, so I wouldn’t bother entering those unless I was going after “Queen/KIng of the Kitchen” where you’ll basically want to enter everything in order to increase the odds of getting enough ribbons.

2) Unless the category calls for nuts or raisins, don’t bother adding them because the judge will just pick them out. It seems they can’t hold a bad nut against an entrant, so they’re removed so that they don’t distract from the flavor of what the cook did.

3) A jelly is supposed to be firm, but not so firm that the judge can’t get a plastic spoon into it.

Have fun!

 

 

When It Rains, It Pours

And they say that Thursdays are a slow-news day?

Today’s Pueblo Chieftain has all KINDS of news. Mostly in the category, I’d describe as ‘environmental issues’; earthquake, (sewage) flood, etc.. But something of interest in terms of politics as well.

Admittedly, I should have written something on the DA’s threat to sue our friends in C’Springs over the recent series of sewage spills yesterday, but I was out of town and the cell-phone/laptop couldn’t find a strong connection up at Pueblo Mountain Park. Someone ought to set up a tower to support Beulah. I know they could camouflage it to look like a tall pine tree. They did that with two towers at the high-point of Monument Hill. Look to the west side as you are approaching it from the north. They’re almost impossible to see coming from the south. At least if you want to keep you car on the road.

At any rate…

This Stuff Stinks

I was beginning to wonder what had become of our vaunted new DA of late. All the sewage rolling down the Fountain and nar a peep from him. Glad to see he’s actually working. Let’s see what transpires.

Also glad to see Sierra Club is getting involved. I’d heard they were in the area. But never saw much of what they were doing. I suspect that the threat of their law suit may have got our DA to do something of his own. And he managed to get his into the paper first….how nice.

As for what our friends in C’Springs think of all these people waving writs in their face, we’ll have to see. Sure, they’re disappointed. It means they’ll have to ‘clean-up their act’ [tongue firmly in cheek]. And that will cost money. Money they were probably hoping they wouldn’t have to spend.

Personally, I think the lawsuits should go forward. It will be nice to see our DA in action on his first, as far as I can tell, major effort in his new job.

My current question, which will never be fully answered, is would his predecessor have acted sooner?

Speaking of Politics

We’ve got a race!!!!!

It’s Steve Narwocki vs. Judy Weaver; for Pueblo City Council First District.

I know a bit about Steve. I know NOTHING about Judy, except for what is written in the Chieftain.

The next Quarterly General Meeting of OHNO will be Tuesday, 6 September, 2005. Place and agenda to be determined. However, we are seriously looking at having Steve and Judy, and anybody else who has thrown their hat in the ring for first district, speak to us.

We’ll keep you apprised as to what happens about that idea.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

PNP Meeting August 2005

Thoughts on the latest meeting of the Pueblo Neighborhood Partnership (PNP)

Yesterday’s meeting, held at the Hyde Park center, was informative.

For some reason the City and County Public Health Department was there en massè. I guess it had to do with the fact that both of the items on the agenda, teenage pregnency prevention and the proposed property maintenance ordinance, touched on areas they are interested in. But they outnumbered the reps from the neighborhoods. Not that their interest in PNP isn’t appreciated. And they all had something useful to add to the discussions.

At any rate, nothing unusual during the course of the round-table. So, on to the two topics presented.

Pueblo Adolescent Pregnency Prevention Program

First was Kirsten Townley from the Public Health Department. She’s honchoing the effort to reduce the incidents of teenage pregnancies in the city and county from their perspective.

It IS a serious problem. And as with all things that touch on this subject, people get a little squimish when the topic comes up. It’s considered ‘impolite’ and becomes the elephant in the living room that nobody wants to talk about. Unfortunately, the elephant won’t go away and keeps damaging the living room. But, until the people start not only talking about it, but doing something about it as well, the problem will remain and the quality of life in the proverbial living room will continue to diminish. Unlike the weather, which everyone can and does talk about, but nobody can do anything about it, this is a situation we can all do something about.

Kirsten seemed to be focusing on the importance of the family in this matter. I agree with her in the most vehement manner. Contrary to popular books, it does not take a ‘village’ to raise a child. It takes a family to raise one. The family is the most influential part of a child’s life enroute to being an adult. Especially in the younger years. But it doesn’t stop there. It’s a full-time job requiring both parents’ attention all the way from B’day to Immacipation Day. And, if you’re lucky and did it right, beyond. WAAAAAY beyond. And you never really know how well you’ve done until you see your grand-children. As some wag put it, “You know you’ve been a good parent, if your grand-children turn out okay.”

That’s a hard test to plan for. And you only get one chance at it. Unless your Rupert Murdock….

If you want to help Kirsten or would like more information, she can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), via e-mail.

Proposed Property Maitenance Code

The next topic was addressed by Mike Smyth, from the City Land Use Administration office. Due to the burgeoning number of properties that seem to be going slowly to hell, the city has been working on an ordinance to address minimum standards for maintaining properties.

The current situation requires someone to complain about a situation before the city can do anything. And even then, for some strange reason, the city has managed to understaff the group that is responsible for dealing with complaints. That is as of the last time I looked at the matter, which was a couple of months ago.

So we have a problem in the first place that we cannot enforce the codes that are already on the books. Someone pointed this out right off the get-go at the meeting. They made a point that if you can’t or won’t enforce the current codes that these new codes, if adopted, won’t do anyone any good either. Especially if they require four times the staffing that the current situation calls for.

To be fair to the proposed plan that they have worked so diligently on, they do have a good point that mandatory inspections WOULD alleviate one problem they see in the current system. And that is a situation where tenents are afraid to call in a problem with the property they rent because of possible retribution by the landlord. It’s a reasonable concern. And I think worthy of implementation of the ordinance all by itself.

But without adequate staffing of the department necessary to carry out the duties incumbant upon them, it’s just another waste of time and makes the City Fathers look ineffectual. And that can’t be good.

There are some questions that Mike would like to hear from you regarding the proposed ordinance. They are in the extended text area. Just click on “MORE…”, below.

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