Colorado “Roads and Bridges” Fee

I recently received a renewal notice for my trailer in Adams County Colorado.  The trailer cost $300, but my license renewal is $44 (that’s 15% of the value of the entire vehicle –and I have to pay it EVERY year!).

I called the Title and Registration office to see if this was a mistake, and the nice lady told me this is one of the cheapest renewals she’s seen in quite some time. (!!!)

Evidently several years ago the legislators put a tax in place called the Roads and Bridges Fee.  It’s a straight $30 fee for all trailers.

What the what?

I have a very small trailer that I use every once in a while to pick up something from Lowe’s that doesn’t fit in my car.  Most of the time the trailer is folded up (yes FOLDED UP) and stored behind my garage.

I can understand charging someone with a good size trailer for the extra damage/wear/tear that is happening to roads and bridges, but a blanket fee to everyone with any kind of trailer, even people who use their tiny, tiny trailer three or four times a year?  That’s crazy.  There should be weight/size categories for different levels of fees.

I’m all for pulling my weight (check out THAT pun), and I have no problem paying a little extra if I’m using something more than others (like extra wear/tear to the roadways), but this is absolute nonsense.

Getting a License Plate for Your Trailer in Colorado

It should be noted that in conversations about politics, I generally take up the “side” of pro-government.  However, anytime I have to actually interact with government agencies, I quickly understand where those in favor of smaller government are coming from.  However, it seems strange that people would argue for more “local government” in favor of making government “smaller” when local government is generally the most frustrating to deal with. Any whoooooo…

I recently bought a small flatbed utility trailer at Harbor Freight to haul drywall (to finish the studio) and maybe haul off yard waste every once in a while.

In typical government fashion, it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find a straight answer on the Colorado.gov website about what you need to do to get a license plate for your trailer.  I’m not sure why this is such a closely guarded secret.  It’s actually a fairly simple process (as government processes go).  The trouble I find is that all the information on the website is cyclical.  If you click on a link that you think will give you some information about titling your trailer, you are directed to a different (but similar!) page with a LOT of information.  You have to dig to find the tiny piece of information you’re looking for, then “click,” and BOOM you’re starting all over again.  I spent about 45 minutes on this wild goose chase before giving up and calling someone (at one point I did see a tiny little blurb about home made trailers needing to be inspected by the State Patrol, but nowhere did they give any information about the temporary plate you’ll need in order to drive there). The person I spoke with put me on hold several times (asking others for the answers), and I was transferred around a couple of times.  I spoke with people at several offices and also the Colorado state patrol.

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD THEY MAKE IT THIS DIFFICULT TO GET INFORMATION ABOUT OBTAINING A FREAKING LICENSE PLATE FOR YOUR TRAILER?!

So as I mentioned, I had purchased a trailer kit from Harbor Freight; therefore I had to assemble and wire my own trailer (which evidently classifies it as “home made”) and thus needed an inspection from the Colorado state patrol before being able to title/register my trailer.

Once you have assembled your trailer, you need to get a temporary plate, but these temps only last ONE DAY (as opposed to the ones for a car which last a month or two).  Thus, on the day you have your inspection appointment at the State Patrol office, you must first go to the DMV and get your one day temp tag.  I actually asked the lady on the phone, “Do these temps last 24 hours, or just for the day you get them?”

She said, “Twenty-fours hours.”

“Great!” I said, “So I can come in and get it today around 3pm, and it will be good until my appt. tomorrow morning at 10am?”

“No,” she replied, “It will expire tonight at midnight.”

I SOOOOOOO wanted to ask, “Um, so, do you work for the government?”

REMEMBER: I wrote “DMV” above, but it’s actually the titling office.  In Colorado, you get your driver’s license at a COMPLETELY different place than where you title/register your vehicles.  This is incredibly stupid but nonetheless the case.  Every time I’m at one of these offices, there is inevitably some poor schmoe who has waited in line for nearly an hour only to get up to the desk and have the clerk yell at them because they are in the wrong place.  It doesn’t seem fair (or even reasonable/acceptable) for the clerk to yell at the person for thinking the government would be efficient enough to put all functions of the DMV in ONE PLACE, but this is almost always the case.

It should also be noted that the Colorado State patrol office where I will be having my trailer inspected is nearly THREE TIMES the distance from my house as the Titling Office.  Thus, I will have to drive (technically illegally) all the way to the DMV to get my temporary plate, then drive to the State Patrol, then drive immediately back to the DMV to get my “regular” plate.  Brilliant.  What sense does this make AT ALL?!  I have to drive ILLEGALLY to the Titling Office to get a temporary piece of paper to drive somewhere else and then drive back.  WHY NOT JUST ELIMINATE THE FIRST STEP ENTIRELY (other than the fact that the state gets some paltry amount of money for the temporary title –and I have to sit in line for an hour).

Argo is a Remake (why is no one talking about this fact?)

When I first saw the trailer for Ben Affleck’s new movie Argo, I thought, “Huh, they’re remaking that.”

Later, as Ben Affleck was getting more and more press and praise for this “original” film, I began wondering why no one was talking about it being a remake.  I was positive I had seen the film, and remembered enjoying it quite a bit (the plot, at least).

Then when Wired magazine started taking credit for breaking the original story as if it was all theirs, I started getting really annoyed that I wasn’t hearing anything about Argo being a remake.

When I tried to research the original film, I found that it was incredibly difficult (well… at least by today’s standards) to find any information on the subject.  Was I crazy?  Had I imagined this entire film?!

Finally, however, I found some answers.  Argo is a remake of the 1981 film “Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper” (brilliant title, no?).

Here’s an image from the original movie that I found via the webpage of some guy actually selling a homemade DVD of the made for television movie!

Here is the Wikipedia page highlighting the actual events upon which this film was based.

To the right is the actual (fake) movie poster created by the CIA for the fake movie Argo.

So… while I think the film is going to be fun, and I’m REALLY excited about the art direction and production design, I wish people would quit talking about it like Ben Affleck is the Lord Almighty reigning down from on high, and that wired is responsible for bringing the (admittedly very cool) story to light, especially since this is ABSOLUTELY a remake of a made for t.v. movie from 1981.

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If You are Eating Chocolate, You Are Probably Eating Lead

Turns out most cheap, American chocolate contains lead.  Not only that, apparently it contains quite a bit.  During the production process, things like lead solder in the grinding machines falls into the chocolate, and thus you eat it when you consume chocolate.

Evidently Mexican chocolate, where production oversight and regulation is more lax, is even worse.  In addition to the lead in the wrappers, Mexican chocolate is most often made with tamarind and chili peppers which are often grown in lead-laden soils.  When the peppers are dried, the lead becomes even more concentrated.

Even low levels will: reduce IQ, cause learning disorders, stunted growth, impair hearing, and cause kidney damage. Lead exposure in childhood has also been linked to higher absenteeism in high school, lower class rank, poorer verbal skills, longer reaction time, and poor hand-eye coordination.  Also, the uptake of lead is increased when certain other metals are present. It was found that there was a higher absorption of lead when calcium was ingested at the same time.

The above is excerpted from:
http://faculty.virginia.edu/metals/cases/sheehan1.html

Thus, if your kid is drinking his/her milk or taking their one-a-day vitamin like a good like tyke, they are likely upping the amount of lead that gets absorbed into their bloodstream.

Fact sheet from the West Coast Analytical Service website:

LEAD IN CHOCOLATE:
THE IMPACT ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH
American Environmental Safety Institute
Fact Sheet – May 2002

On May 8, 2002, the American Environmental Safety Institute will petition the Director of the California Department of Health Services to ·  adopt regulations under the California Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act to list any chocolate products containing more than 0.02 parts-per-million of lead as “environmental lead contamination,” and require the chocolate manufacturers who sell in California to pay the Act’s required fees to help fund the public education effort to fight lead poisoning; and find that any chocolate product containing more than 0.02 parts-per-million of lead is “adulterated” within the meaning of California Health & Safety Code §110545, California’s Food and Drug statute.

In concert with filing suit on the same day against the major chocolate companies under the consumer health protection provisions of California’s Proposition 65, the Institute will take these administrative petition actions based on the results of its recent research into the health effects of a wide variety of chocolate products in California. A well-respected analytical laboratory performed the Institute’s testing, and found that
significant amounts of the toxic metals lead and cadmium are present in virtually every chocolate product tested. The following facts demonstrate the extent of this lead in chocolate problem and its significant impact on children:

1. Significant levels of lead were found in a wide array of chocolate products (including syrup/toppings, milk chocolate products, dark chocolate products, and chocolate products that contain nuts, rice and other “inclusions”), with the levels ranging as high as 0.105 parts-per-million (“ppm”), 67 times as high as the lowest amount of 0.00157 ppm. These results show that the amount of lead in chocolate products varies dramatically. Clearly certain manufacturers have found ways to reduce the amount of dangerous lead in chocolate – why can’t the rest?

2. Americans eat an average of 12 pounds of chocolate per year. Chocolate is marketed intensely to children under the age of 12, those most susceptible to the dangers of lead and cadmium exposure, with chocolate candy sales growing more than 7% per year in the late 1990’s. Chocolate candy sales grew the most for afternoon favorites such as fun size and snack size bags of chocolate candies, which grew at a 12% per annum rate, according to the Chocolate Manufacturers’ Association.

3. The Institute’s research shows that daily lead exposure from many chocolate products violates the Proposition 65 “no significant risk” limit for lead of 0.5 micrograms per day. (California Health & Safety Code § 25249.6 and 22 California Code of Regulations §12805(a)).

4. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control considers lead poisoning the major environmental health threat to children in the United States, stating in 1991 that:
-Lead is ubiquitous in the human environment as a result of industrialization.
- It has no known physiologic value.
- Children are particularly susceptible to lead’s toxic effects.
- Lead poisoning, for the most part, is silent: most poisoned children have no symptoms. The vast majority of cases, therefore, go undiagnosed and untreated.

5. The impact of daily chocolate consumption on children is to increase dramatically, often by 100% or more, the amount of lead in the child’s diet. For example, a 5 year-old child consuming as little as the 1.44 micrograms in a typical snack pack of M&Ms consumes more lead than he or she would get in the entire daily diet of the average 5 year-old child in America today – this exposure also violates Proposition 65’s “no significant risk” limit for daily exposure to lead.

6. The increased lead in a child’s diet from eating candy increases the lead in the child’s blood system, which in turn adversely affects their neurological development, meaning lower IQ scores and the like. In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control reported that the average blood lead level for children ages 1 to 5 in America was 2.0 micrograms per deciliter (“ug/dl”) of blood; for children ages 6-11, the number was 1.3 ug/dl.3 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
determined that for every microgram of lead that a child consumes, their blood lead level is increased by 0.16 ug/dl,4 and that a sustained 1 μg/dL increase in blood-lead concentration results in a loss of 0.257 IQ points in an average child.

7. Based on the blood lead level data developed by the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the consumption of just one of these typical M&M chocolate snacks results in an 18% increase in an average 6 year old child’s blood lead level.

8. The consumption of a typical Kraft Chocolate Fudge Pudding (2.7 micrograms of lead) results in a 33% increase in an average 6 year old child’s blood lead level.

9. The consumption of a typical Nestlé’s Double Chocolate Meltdown Cocoa Drink (3.67 micrograms of lead) results in a 45% increase in an average 6 year old child’s blood lead level.

10. The consumption of a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Easter Bunny (4.93 micrograms) results in a 61% increase in an average 6-year-old child’s blood lead level.

The Institute – and, more importantly, California’s consumers and its young people – needs your help. Please contact the Director of the California Department of Health Services and indicate your support for the Institute’s petition to call on the chocolate industry to get the lead out of chocolate. You can reach the Director as follows:
Diana M. Bontá, R.N., Dr.P.H
Director
California Department of Health Services
714/744 P Street
Sacramento, California 94234-7320
Our basic slogan says it all: “They Can, So They Should – Get the Lead Out!”

For even more scary, check out Lead Contamination in Cocoa and Cocoa Products: Isotopic Evidence of Global Contamination on the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences website. 

Good thing I’m not that big a fan of chocolate.  Viva la savory!

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Colorado Periodic Report Filing Scam

Attention Colorado business owners:

I have an LLC for my business in Colorado.  Colorado requires a business’s information be kept up to date with the State with yearly filing.  The fee for this service is $10, and can be done entirely online (you can do it with physical copies on paper, but it’s more expensive).

This year I received forms around tax time stating that I needed to pay a $225 filing fee.  The form looks kind of official, so I did a little research to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

So you know “Corporate Controllers Unit” is a Nevada based company.  They have NOTHING to do with the state of Colorado.  If you read carefully, you’ll see that technically they are offering to help you file your paperwork.  Thus, what they are offering is a “service.”

Just above the signature line at the bottom of the page is this sentence: “This product or service has not been approved or endorsed by any Government Agency and this offer is not being made by an agency of the Government.  U.S.C. 39.6.3001(d).  This is a solicitation for the order of services, and not a bill, invoice or statement of account due.  You are under no obligation to make any payments on account of this offer.”

However, they are making it look like they are agents of the Government, and you are required to pay this fee.

Don’t fall for it.

 

Just a few sources on the subject:

The Ripoff Report

Steamboat Pilot & Today

Rocky Mountain Real Estate Law

Unfair Language on Election Ballots

I am APPALLED by the wording on my Colorado mail-in ballot.

All of the amendments to our constitution make things sound like a cut-and-dried "no brainer." Listen to Amendment 60:

"Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning government charges on property, and, in connection therewith, allowing petitions in all districts for elections to lower property taxes; specifying requirements for property tax elections; requiring enterprises and authorities to pay property taxes but offsetting the revenues with lower tax rates; prohibiting enterprises and unelected boards from levying fees or taxes on property; setting expiration dates for certain tax rates and revenue increases; requiring school districts to reduce property tax rates and replacing the revenue with state aid; and eliminating property taxes that exceed the dollar amount included in an approved ballot question, that exceed state property tax laws, policies and limits existing in 1992 that have been violated, changed, or weakened without state voter approval, or that were not approved by voters without certain ballot language?"

"Well hell yes! Why wouldn’t I lower my taxes, especially when things 'aren't fair?!'" one would think after reading the above. However, what is failed to mention is that these MASSIVE tax cuts (when the state government can already *barely function* on their existing budget) will cripple not only our state, but most importantly our school systems. Colorado has already been slashing school budgets like nobody's business, and this amendment would cause 92% of the state's general fund to go to schools. Not only does this leave only 8% for EVERYTHING ELSE, but it will hurt schools by drastically cutting their funding.

How about "fairer language" on election ballots? I realize you can't explain everything in that little tiny space, but writing things out as if they are one-sided no-brainers is irresponsible and unacceptable.

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