I couldn’t help but notice the color photo on the front page of the Gazette Tuesday morning, showing John Hickenlooper and Jared Polis giving each other the “thumbs up” at their phony little news conference celebrating the early completion of the I-25 project. (I also noticed that Michael Bennet was there, too; he can’t pass up a chance to stick himself in front of a news camera.)

They were all celebrating something they should have gotten done 10 years ago if they were any good at their jobs. And if they’d done it right, there wouldn’t be a toll lane, and it would be four lanes wide, not three — just like it is in Denver. Hickenlooper had the money to complete it during his first term as governor; instead, he gave to money to CDOT for a new office complex in Denver, and Colorado Springs had to wait — even though I-470 around Denver got widened to four lanes. If anyone thinks that the Democrat governor in Denver didn’t do that on purpose to the Republican stronghold of Colorado Springs, they’re naive.

I also noted that Gov. Polis insulted the taxpayers by referring to the newly-widened stretch of I-25 as “a gift.” Hey, governor, it’s not a gift: we paid for it. John Lariviere

Colorado Springs