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Paul Hughes: Great Uninformed

I think Omar Campbell is on to something. In this week’s letter (“Public vote on TDR?” April 4 Steamboat Pilot & Today), he asks for a public vote on the TDR (transfer of development rights) issue because he doesn’t trust the county commissioners and city councilpersons elected by voters. And why should he? Whoever said that some people should get to make momentous decisions just because they study the issues and learn a lot of stuff about them? Where does that leave the rest of us?

I don’t know a lot about TDR, but I do know one thing: I like to vote. So why shouldn’t my vote count for as much as those know-it-all elected officials? Think about it: if those of us whom I like to call the “Great Uninformed” hadn’t been allowed to make decisions, we’d have missed No Child Left Behind, the Iraq War, TABOR, the Gallagher Amendment, the Patriot Act and the Iron Horse Inn. Where would we be then?

So I say let’s vote on everything. Sure, we’d want to offer incentives to vote, such as vote-once-get-a-second-vote-free, double airline miles, Voter Appreciation Day, and so on, but then we’d have the really big decisions being made by the most important group of all: people who show up. I’m just saying.



Paul Hughes

Steamboat Springs




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