Normally, I appreciate the variety of perspectives published on Colorado Politics. But regarding Jon Caldara’s recent column on Xcel, he irresponsibly neglects key facts to the point of annihilating credibility (“Are our overlords normalizing power outages?” March 15). He neglects any discussion regarding the nuance of safety (or fiduciary responsibility) versus inconvenience, for example:

• The Marshall Fire — this raised concern among residents and businesses all along the Jefferson County and Boulder County Front Range and foothills, and Xcel Energy paid a substantial settlement to be absolved from liability — no mention.
• Pacific Gas and Electric’s bankruptcy filing in 2019 in the face of liability for the California fires then — raises concern for many western electric utilities — no mention.
• It’s becoming more difficult and/or expensive to insure property near/in the foothills because of fire risk, and that actuaries go by the incident data — no mention.
• And yes, high winds occur every year (shades and degrees) on the Front Range, but there are many more people here since the 55 years Caldara began witnessing high winds, so greater risk for electric utilities — no mention.

Is Jon writing too close to deadline to not be able to do supporting research?

Joel Neymark

Golden

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