Santa Fe River is on the right track

Iwant to compliment the engineers and construction crews who have been working on the Santa Fe River these last few years. Most of the rock structures survived this week’s huge flood, and the cottonwoods and willows and grasses look great. Sure, some rocks moved, but all it will take to put them right is a bulldozer or two. I’ve walked the riverbed for almost 30 years now and have seen previous generations of concrete and steel structures utterly fail in storms like this, leaving ugly, dangerous and expensive messes behind. Of course it’s disheartening to lose recent work, but the river is on the right track.

Katherine Bueler

Santa Fe

No direction home

The good and bad news is that Santa Fe has grown exponentially in recent years. It is nice to see long-overdue street repaving being done. But the traffic is now such that the city also appears long overdue for a traffic planning study, especially on main streets such as Cerrillos Road, St. Francis Drive and St. Michael’s Drive. It also appears that many of the traffic sensors embedded in the pavement are not working, nor are the few traffic-detecting cameras at major intersections. Timing of traffic lights is horrendous at most intersections.

The increased population along with the thousands of people visiting from what seems to be other “states of confusion” create traffic jams and safety issues everywhere. It might also be a good idea to complete the lane striping of newly paved intersections to inform those who are not familiar with which lane to use for turning or proceeding straight through an intersection. Help, New Mexico Department of Transportation.

Tommy Thompson

Santa Fe

Flags of our new fathers

The recent news events give pause, uncertainty and the need for an antacid. What was said? What was not said? “Did I misspeak?” “If I did, I meant to say …” “Let me correct what I said a minute ago.”

What deals/promises were made in the secret meeting?

When are the Republicans going to stand up for the country, for we the people, as opposed to the party line?

Have they forgotten their oath of office to preserve and protect our country, or were those only words, said in order to obtain the paycheck and perks? Oops, I left out the free haircuts. Vlad, “Is it OK to make a small correction?”

The future is not very clear, or perhaps it is quite clear.

From my point of view, the future is not that inspiring. Rather, it is disturbing and disgusting.

Maybe it’s time for us to invest our hardearned individual dollars in all of the major flagmakers’ businesses.

For it seems quite clear the shapes, forms and colors of our flag are about to change drastically. And not for the better!

“Oh say, can you see … ?” David LaPlantz Santa Fe

Boxing champs

It was a pleasure to read that the International Folk Art Market has recovered from the downturn of a couple of years ago.

When I read the 2018 news story, I was reminded of the first market 15 years ago, when we were pleased that our business was invited to do the shipping. We set up our tent, and over the two-day show, shipped two packages. In the course of the 13 years that we were the shippers for the market, the number of packages shipped increased to approximately 150.

We continue to ship packages from our store for many of the folks we have served for years, and it’s always a pleasure to see the exciting new ideas and traditional pieces from artists all over the world.

Del Mulder

owner Pak Mail Santa Fe