While the Bridge appreciates that so many community members are concerned about the increasing number of homeless people in Cortez, a recent letter to the editor referred to our community having “corrupt officials.”
This comment is certainly not an opinion shared by the board or the staff of the Bridge Emergency Shelter.
Throughout the 11 years of our existence, both the Montezuma County and City of Cortez government officials have been supportive of the Bridge in many ways – through cost-free use of a facility for over a decade, to cash support from both the city and county, and to other income opportunities.
Without this support, the Bridge would not have grown from a grassroots organization staffed only with volunteers and open only a few months each year to an entity that now employs 13 people and is open seven months a year.
While many people have suggested that the old high school could be adapted for the homeless, inquiries to the school district regarding the monthly utilities yielded startlingly high costs for heat and electric.
On top of that concern, the inability to adapt an old, contaminated building evidenced that the building was not appropriate for our purposes.
Even if we don’t personally agree with all of the positions taken by local officials, it is important for all of us to remember that civil servants of all stripes are pulled in many directions simultaneously.
They do not have easy jobs.
Laurie Knutson
Cortez
Editor’s note: Laurie Knutson is Executive Director of the Bridge Emergency Shelter in Cortez.