Thanks for the merriment and memories, Dark Horse

There was a new restaurant in town and our family was eager to go! I was sixteen when we first walked through the doors of the Dark Horse. Once inside, I saw a rocking chair dangling from the ceiling, and a bicycle, too. My eyes darted here, there and everywhere spying quirky artifacts plastered on the walls and raining from the ceiling like kooky confetti.

Little did I know what a special place the Dark Horse would become. For it would host a parade of good times that marched around every corner of my life. It became a haunt for college fun, and get-togethers well into my twenties, thirties, forties and beyond (and I don’t even drink).

And then there was the serendipitous night in 1987 that began with a tap on my shoulder. The Dark Horse was hopping, and a band was booming on the stage. “Would you like to dance?” rang a deep voice. And such were the first words spoken to me by a stranger who became my husband and father of my three children. I guess that makes me a Dark Horse Wife. And my kids know they owe their very existence to the place.

When my son graduated high school, he chose the Dark Horse for his after-ceremony party. More recently, my daughter and husband presented me with a gift there — a tiny box cradling a figurine of a baby clad in a pink diaper — their way of announcing I would become a grandmother in eight months plus change.

Yes, the Dark Horse with its welcoming doors, spirit and signature aroma of burgers and beer, marinating homey wooden bars, booths and tables will be missed. Thanks for the merriment and memories, World Famous Dark Horse — Boulder’s diamond in the rough!

Barbara Miles, Boulder

Erie needs transparency on mineral rights deal

What would you do if decisions that could affect your home’s value, your neighborhood and millions of public dollars were being made behind closed doors?

Erie residents may soon face exactly that situation.

The Town of Erie recently received a bid for mineral rights that could allow expanded gas drilling on town property. Instead of informing residents and opening a public discussion, the town quietly hired a consultant to help pursue the bid. That consultant is a former executive of the very company — Civitas — making the offer.

The consultant reportedly helped write his own contract and was hired without the town seeking competing bids from other firms. Even more concerning, the town has already committed up to $4.5 million to this consultant before residents have even seen a final proposal.

Much of this work is occurring in executive session, where the public cannot attend. Residents are being told they won’t see the details until the town already has a finalized bid in hand — when the most important decisions may already have been made.

The stakes are significant. Expanded fracking near residential areas can affect property values and the long-term character of our community. Under Colorado’s pooling laws, homeowners may have little say if drilling occurs beneath their property.

Erie residents deserve transparency before millions of public dollars are spent and irreversible decisions about our community’s mineral rights are made.

A decision with consequences this significant deserves an open, competitive and transparent process — not one conducted largely out of public view.

This process should be paused and brought out into the open.

Tonia Sharp, Erie

Iran war is a windfall for oil industry

The president and the Republican Party’s Middle East War has directly caused a global increase in oil and gas prices. With market prices up $25 per barrel, our U.S. industry has daily revenue increases of over $537 million ($5.37 billion every 10 days). Introduce legislation like the Revenue Act of 1942, when U.S. government drastically increased taxes to pay for WWII.

Increase taxes should be on revenue, not profits to oil and gas and all industries that are experiencing increased profit per unit because of the Middle East war.

Timothy Larsen, Erie

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