NOTE: Due to staff
and budget limitations, beginning December 2005 we will no longer be making
transcripts of Western Skies available. Transcripts of previous
editions remain available online.
Show Summary – Western Skies #139–
August 17, 2006
DARK CLOUDS OVER COLORADO SPRINGS' STORMWATER RUNOFF FEE
On Tuesday Colorado Springs' city council is set to vote on whether to charge
property owners a “storm water enterprise fee.” The idea is to raise money
to repair what the city says is a backlog of urban drainage projects. In
the last couple of years, the Springs has come under fire from Pueblo for
failures of its drainage system, which have washed out sewer lines and sent
raw sewage down Fountain Creek, but the new fee is being greeted with skepticism,
mistrust and anger in Colorado Springs. [LISTEN]
VOTERS IN CONGRESS' "MOST COMPETITIVE" DISTIRCT SPEAK
Analysts say Colorado's 7th Congressional District race will be one of the
closest most expensive house races in the nation this November. Both parties
are vying for the seat and the candidates, Republican Rick O'Donnel and
Democrat Ed Perlmutter, are gearing up for a tough battle. Our Denver reporter
Bente (BEN tuh) Birkeland decided to check out the district and talk to
the people who live there about their neighborhoods and the issues they
care about. [LISTEN]
SOME NATIVE CULTURES ALREADY ACCEPT SAME SEX UNIONS
Whether or not the war, immigration and health care bring people to the
polls in November, there's another issue that activists on both sides think
will motivate people to vote - same sex unions. Colorado's crowded ballot
will feature two proposals, one that would enshrine the definition of marriage
as being between one man and one woman in the state constitution, the other
would legalize domestic partnerships. But same sex unions haven't always
been a big deal in the west, at least not among some native American cultures,
as Alise Widmer reports in this story from Phoenix, filed as part of NPR's
“Next Generation Radio” project. [LISTEN]
COMMENTARY: LIBERATION FROM THE EVIL BEAN
In the world of journalism, there are many different points of view, slants
and ideas about what is and isn't news. But there's one thing most of us
can agree on, a special respect and reverence for coffee -it'll see you
through all those dull government meetings, get you to work in the morning
and push you past any barrier between your smoldering wreck of a story and
deadline. Commentator Barry Smith is trying to quit coffee, we think he's
insane. [LISTEN]
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