Dear Editor,
The Alamosa Mosquito Control District is meeting Tuesday,
October 9th, at 6pm in the district office 511 4th Street
in Alamosa to discuss the 2013 budget.
In this meeting, the board will discuss how much to tax the
district and on what those tax revenues should be spent: targeted larvacide vs
diffused aerial spray, for example. Larvacide
may be upwards of 90% effective for killing baby mosquitoes, while the aerial
spraying is moderately effective at best and is shown to be too broad of a
killer, threatening the health of non-target species such as honeybees and
humans.
I personally do not wish to have tax dollars spent on aerial
spraying operations and urge the district to allocate the majority of their
mosquito controls dollars to larvacide which is specifically applied to areas
where mosquito larvae are present and which targets just the mosquito
larvae. Other districts in Colorado have
moved their mosquito control efforts in this direction as well, abandoning
aerial spraying because of its unproven effectiveness and prohibitive cost.
This summer, the district purchased an airplane which sits
unused. Purchasing decisions like this
one show that the district is collecting much more revenue than it needs, and
perhaps it is time to reduce the tax rate to 3%. If you are interested in how
your property taxes are spent, I urge you to learn more about the proposed
budget for 2013 and express your opinions in person, by phone or by email to
719-589-5409 or moscasa@mosquitobytes.org.
Thank you,
Karen Lemke
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