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Vail Daily letter: A better sentence

Several years ago there was a best-selling book entitled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” One of those things learned in kindergarten was “clean up your own mess!” That can apply everywhere: At home, at school, as well as in the environment.

It angered me to hear on the radio news about the “trash dump” discovered in the national forest near Telluride. Seeing the photo in the Vail Daily of the large trash heap was sickening and even more infuriating. What a slob!

The six months in federal prison, plus one year probation, is an appropriate sentence for Benjamin Yoho’s setting-up his “home” illegally and dumping 8,500 pounds of trash in our beautiful national forest. According to the article, “48 volunteers and state officials removed the litter with the help of a helicopter,” yet Yoho’s been rewarded for his bad behavior with a six-month stay, with good food, at the comfortable and clean Crossbar Hotel, as Randy Wyrick would say, and at our expense!



Yoho got a good deal. The most obvious and appropriate sentence was not imposed by the short-sighted U.S. attorney, John Walsh; as any wise parent would know, that guy should have also been sentenced to clean up every bit of the trash himself!

Maria Minick


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