Thursday, May 10, 2007

Household income and hunger

The Face of Hunger in Southern Colorado…Part 2
                                    The Working Poor

Income and Poverty
In Pueblo

When you talk about hunger in a municipality, you need to consider the associated factors that contribute to the issue. One these factors is income. Income plays a vital role in whether a person or family can afford to purchase food for the table and influences the quality and nutritional value of the food that is brought into the house.

The median household income in Pueblo, after adjustment for inflation, has declined approximately 2.7% when compared to the year 2000. Pueblo ranks 215 of 233 metro areas when analyzing the decline in household income across the nation. This would place Pueblo in the Medium/High area of the poverty scale.

With a 3.6% increase in the poverty rate in Pueblo since the 2005 Decennial Census, one would wonder WHY Pueblo is lagging behind the rest of the state and country in regards to household income. People are working, the local unemployment rate is approximately 5.0% at this time. It would seem that a great many of those working in Pueblo are “working-poor”. I don’t have the answer, maybe you do.

Data: U.S. Census Bureau Census 2000
Decennial Census 2005
http://www.ecanned.com
http://www.bls.gov

 

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

The Pueblo Chieftain Gives a Dam…

...a good rep.

It’s good to see the Chieftain giving a dam on the Fountain a good write-up this morning.

Monday’s little New Orleans in Pueblo, vis-a-vis the break in the old levee. Reminded me of the old levee in New Orleans that failed when they had their storm problem.

And we can all be thankful that this problem manifested itself now, while it was relatively small, instead of later, when it could have been so much worse….think 1921.

Global warming is a fact. [Note: Human contribution to it is an issue, to be discussed in a different venue/thread.] The effects of it are up for considerable discussion. But it seems we’re getting a bit more water here, along the Front Range.  And, with all the construction that has gone on in Colorado Springs, we’re getting more flow down the Fountain than we had some 50 years ago.

As a result, we certainly need to pay more attention to the way the Fountain is ‘growing’ and the levees we have in place to manage that growth.

However, the articles and editorials in the Chieftain are highlighting an interesting train of thought on that management. A dam on the Fountain.

I’ve thought this to be a great idea since I mentioned it to the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy meeting a few years back. This, during their public forum period. I think it interesting that one of the impanelled subject matter experts started scribbling notes when I mentioned the idea.

At any rate, a dam on the Fountain, between here and C’Springs would serve a multitude of purposes.

[1] Flood prevention.
[2] A settling pond for effluent form C’Springs.
[3] Back-up water supply.
[4] Reuse of water.
[5] Recreation.

These are obvious. However, less obvious are the additional benefits.

Take, for example, what happens to the water coming out of such a dam.

More...

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

The [Parkview] Plan (Part 1)

Parkview’s plans for expansion….Revealed!

I have seen the future! And I’m somewhat perplexed.

However, as I understand it, ‘all will be revealed’, a week from tomorrow; on Wednesday, 16 May 2007.

Parkview has plans for their Northside campus. BIG plans as I understand. They want to describe those plans to the interested parties a week from tomorrow. The presentation will take place in the Parkview-Rosemount Conference Room of Parkview Hospital, starting at 5:00 pm.

That’s all we have for now, as I am pressed for time. More to follow, tomorrow morning.

Monday, May 07, 2007

A Katrina of Our Own

Fountain Creek Levee Breaks

We’ve been hearing concerns about the levees along the Fountain for some time.

Now the inaction has come home to roost.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

We’re ‘In’ the Money (Part 1)

The new property tax appraisals are in! The new property tax appraisals are in!

Apparently Pueblo’s housing market is doing a LOT better than most of us were thinking.

Yesterday, we were informed that our home appreciated in value by about 10%, according to our friends in the County Assessor’s office.

Today, I’m informed that a LOT of other people are equally MUCH better off. Some of them even more so than we are, around 14%, according to some report.

Considering what I understand about how the our friends in the County Assessor’s office are supposed to evaluate property tax base, around five years ago must have been a VERY good year for Pueblo properties. Or I could be wrong.

Either way, I’d like to know more. I’d like to know exactly how our friends in the County Assessor’s office perform their arcane magic to come up with these figures. Secondly, if I’m correct in my understanding of the process, what made 2005 or 2006 so great for home owners in Pueblo. [CORRECTION: I had 2002 in there before; 5 years ago, as opposed to the last year.]

If you’ve got information to help in this, please post a comment to this entry.

UPDATE Asking the Subject Matter Expert [021436 May 07]: I’ve dropped an e-mail request via their on-line ‘Contact Us’ form (PHPSESSID: 5a48c0e40b29bb3a1705ab3483a362a6) to our friends in the County Assessor’s office to come by and explain what happened to us here on Pueblog. Let’s see if they honor the request.

A New Feature — an Events Calendar

Activities at a Glance….or something like that.

In our effort to continue improving the way information is disseminated here, we’ve added an Events Calendar to the blog.

You’ll notice a new button in the navigation bar under the banner. It says “Calendar”. Clicking on it will take you to the Events Calendar portion of the blog.

In this area, organizations and groups can show people dates, times, locations and agendas for events or meetings that they feel would be beneficial for their organization, group or the people of Pueblo.

Dates with events scheduled for them will appear in red with the title of the event listed in that day. Clicking on the event title will take you to a screen with information about the event. Clicking on the date will take you to a screen showing all the events scheduled for that date. Clicking on the arrows to the left and right of the month name will take you to the previous or next month.

If your organization has an individual registered with Pueblog as a co-author, they can make entries to the Events Calendar.

For details on how to use or publish in the Events Calendar, contact the BlogMeister by clicking on the Contact button in the navigation bar under the banner.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Planting Trees in Mineral Palace Park

Doing things for the ‘hood.

Aquila has donated 10 trees to be planted in Mineral Palace Park.  We need at least 2 volunteers per tree to help with the planting of these trees.  The City will dig the holes so we will just need to place the trees and fill the holes. 

We will planting these trees on Saturday, May 19th and will meet at 10:00 near the swimming pool. Jean Latka with Trees Please will give us instructions.  Please bring a shovel and rake.  We hope to get more than 20 people to show our support for this project and Mineral Palace Park. 

Please pass this information along to anyone you know who didn’t get this e-mail.  They don’t need to live in the OHNO area.  Also, please give me a call if you’ll be able to help out so I know that we’ll have enough volunteers.