EDITOR’S DESK: Off in a cloud of dust

       Things have started happening quickly here in 2010. I'm dead certain the Fairview Cemetery eco-graves proposal will prove popular with many. We'll find out down the road what will happen with the Centennial Boulevard extension. I think the idea of a community garden outside the Westside Community Center will grow on us in time.
       OK, I'll stop with the puns (although I could do this all day). Maybe it's a defense mechanism against the less amiable news that's out there. For instance, in City Council's latest zig-zag on the homeless issue, they have woken up to something we everyday citizens have known for quite some time, which is that those folks by the creeks make atrocious messes, and when you factor in that there's more and more of them and they're camping next to waterways that lead to Pueblo... Anyway, there's nothing to wake up City Council like potential liability. At least that's the battle cry as our leaders, at the urging this week of Tom Gallagher, are looking at putting more porta-johns and dumpsters by the "campgrounds," at a cost of $200 a day, theoretically to encourage the tenters to be more sanitary. Vice Mayor Larry Small even delivered a stern lecture at the Jan. 11 council meeting that they'd better comply, or he might do something "drastic" (like maybe vote for a no-camping ordinance?). Of course, another way of looking at the dumpster/ porta-let plan is 1. that it pretty much tells those folks it's OK to stay there (which would seem to create a liability in itself, and what council member would later be so non-compassionate as to seek their removal?), and 2. that the city, which has told us home-have citizens the budget is too tight to open restrooms in the parks this year, can somehow find such money for the creekside crowd. What's wrong with this picture?

- K.J.