A recent article in Westword tells of a RiNo art gallery where a local artist and around 50 high school interns have collaborated on creating pieces centered around the theme of what it would be like if the Suncor refinery was not the Suncor refinery.

We think it’s great that this gallery is giving these kids something to do, and are intrigued by the theme – imagining a Commerce City without Suncor and its jobs, energy products, tax generation, and economic contribution. It’s an interesting thought experiment, and we figured we’d give it a shot!

Just to start, we imagine the pipelines that would have to be built to transport Colorado natural resources to distant refineries. Failing that, we imagine how many more oil tanker cars it would require on the the railroad lines that run through the city and through the state.

Then we imagine how much more expensive gasoline would be, with all those locally produced gallons gone.

With all of the important local issues facing Commerce City – crime, infrastructure, housing, economic development, and, yes, air quality – one would think that our City Council members would have their hands full dealing with these issues. Sometimes that may include a trip to the State Capitol to advocate for the city on important issues like local control, transportation, and so forth.

Back on Feb. 13, two Commerce City Council members, Kristi Douglas and Renee Chacon, showed up (Douglas in person, Chacon online) before the House Energy and Environment Committee – to oppose a bipartisan bill including nuclear as a clean energy source.

If Council members Douglas and Chacon hate nuclear energy enough to take the time to testify against it, more power to them. That’s what democracy is for.  But they should make very clear that if they do so, they are doing so as private citizens, NOT as official representatives of the City.

Improved transparency and efficiency in local government are among those things that we can all agree on, right? Not so fast…

Among other issues at the City, the increasingly insufferable lengths that some council meetings go to is, quite frankly, absurd. Hours-long sessions featuring public comment phases that reduce the proceedings to redundant and tedious political theater, are not what most people would consider conducive to the effective workings of good government, especially when several of the most time-consuming items on the agenda are slipped in last minute on the agreement of only two council members.