As a conservative, I often get accused of wanting to live in the past. And no matter who the accusation comes from, as I hear it from ALL sides, I have to admit my answer will always tend to be yes.

And I’d have to say, and maybe it’s all because while I know the future and progress cannot be avoided, we did so many things better in the past because of the conservative nature of our founding.

Maybe there’s another reason. There were fewer progressives in the past. Heck, in the past, we even loved the liberals. The classic ones, that is.

So without getting into conspiracies – although given the number of actors and machinations involved across the spectrum, many things now qualify as true conspiracies as everything in life that hits you involves government – let’s look at a couple of things that were much better in our lives not that long ago: City streets and the folks who supply our heat (and cooling and power for the appliances that make our lives so much better).

To begin, of course, I am talking about the Fourth and Fifth Streets ongoing debacle to which our city council originally took a vote to revert back to the old way, then took back the vote, then changed the plan on the vote it took, then took back and now just delayed the final vote to take another vote after taking the time to learn all about what the people want them to do about the debacle even though the only vote that mattered was the one by the citizens to end the debacle.

That sentence, by the way, is less of a run-on problem than the Grand Junction City Council is making of continuing this mess on Fourth and Fifth that the people have voiced in overwhelming majorities it didn’t want, doesn’t want and demand it be put into the dustbin of Grand Junction history.

The inaction on taking the final action tells me: This goes deeper than slowing down traffic so our spandex-ed friends feel safer, Fido can take a walk or kids can play in the park.

I drive those two streets several times a week, and my experience still says there are no commuting bikers on them. Heck, there aren’t even regular bikers on them. I don’t see folks out walking their dogs. Maybe that recent survey should have included how many of those folks actually own dogs? Then again, I walk Canyon View Park several times a week, and it appears that’s where the dog walkers go, and you can tell by what’s left on the sidewalks.

And let’s be honest, no kids are playing in that park, or any park bordered by Fourth and Fifth.

But I hear speeds are slower, and that’s a good thing according to Just Jason “The Boycotter” Nguyen, because that was the whole idea behind making Fourth and Fifth Streets the obstacle courses they now are. And to think, it took progress – and a lot of plastic pipes and paint – as the only way to accomplish this grand feat.

No wonder I long for the “good old days” when all it would have taken was some new signs (hell, there might even be some old ones in the back of the warehouse) with a slower speed limit and a local cop making his quota to sit there once a week for a few months to achieve that three-mile-per-hour slowdown Just Jason brags about.

Yet that’s how progress fixes things. First, it’s always creating problems to fix. That is, when it’s not making current problems worse to fix even more. Pray tell, when did you hear about the massive safety problems on Fourth and Fifth Streets? If you’re like me, it was right after the city council started solving the ones it made up.

Which brings me to what is now becoming a story that I believe is “fueled” by progressive and government demands that we get our energy from the sun and the wind. Did you know the Redlands has been experiencing brownouts the past few months? And now Xcel Energy is asking folks to conserve energy use during “peak hours?”

I could get bogged down in the whole peak hours are peak hours for a reason, but I’ll keep it simple. Those hours are peak because that’s when most folks who live in their residences are “living” in their residences, and they need their energy to live and take care of those they love.

Now what is Xcel’s job? To supply that energy. That said, why isn’t our energy more affordable and in massive supply? After all, Xcel brags about getting more and more of it from abundant and cheap wind and solar.

If you don’t think they are abundant, just walk outside any day in the Grand Valley about 3 p.m. Then again, that’s also the main reason we need the “peak hour” energy.

Now, I don’t need a “Jimmah Cahtah” in a cardigan national address (I don’t long for those good old days) to explain this, but I bet the people would appreciate some explanation from Xcel as to why there are brownouts and prices keep going up. After all, I’ve heard it’s not that interesting or malicious.

You’d think Xcel would find the energy to talk about it.

In Truth and freedom.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of The Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com