If we don't take risks... if ambition deflates like a balloon popping off the helium tank and giving a loud flatulent bloop as it falls to your feet ... where does that lead? We are trapped between the virtues of low cost subsidized housing and the unintended consequences of Corporate Welfare.

 Replying to Roger Marolt's derailing of Aspen with opinions on the third rail of Aspen politics which is APCHA, the government subsidized housing where the majority of registered Aspen voters live.

There is no question that housing in Aspen is not affordable. There is no question high priced housing flows stronger than the Roaring Fork in thaw under Slaughter House Bridge all the way down to Glenwood.

One particularly thorny question is how much has affordable housing contributed to the housing/wealth divide?

The cost to maintain a free market rental is 3 to 5 times as much as APCHA charges for rent.

What is the personal price of APCHA price fixing?

If you live in APCHA housing how does that change you?  Would you pursue a pay raise if it meant exceeding APCHA income caps and losing your home? Could you pay fair wages to a plumber, electrician, or painter to maintain your home under APCHA income caps? Would you invest in capital improvements if your kids couldn't inherit? Would that deed-restricted sale cover the cost of assisted living?

If you live in APCHA housing do you feel secure? What happens if the RETT dips and those APCHA rentals start to approach the actual price of maintaining a property? Close the airport for a year, watch as we play Jenga with the bond market,  defund CDOT, defund RAFTA, defund firefighters, the list of economic threats is legion.

Don't believe APCHA will ever be defunded? Take a close look at the 2021 vote on the Wheeler WRETT.

The cold hard truth is that APCHA is not sustainable. Something has to give.

Tesla Hate?

Response to Lo-Fidelity in the Aspen Times:

https://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/lo-fidelity-teslas-in-aspen-shame-pride-or-ambivalence/

 Lo, Tesla hate? Sorry- nothing new.  It's almost as if I were driving with ZG plates through Summit County in the 1970's.

Having been a Tesla driver since 2015 I've gotten my share of single finger salutes and coal rolls.

There's only one problem.

These are great cars. I mean off the chart eyes roll to the back of your head bluebird 36" champagne first tracks doing bumps with teenage knees good.

Mom owned an Oldsmobile Tornado when we moved here and then she got a little used Porsche 912. If those two cars had a love child it would drive like a Tesla. Big American muscle car on the highway with an adrenaline junkie Bavarian corner hugger heart going up Indy Pass.

There isn't a safer car anywhere. The HEPA filter was good enough to keep out all the Lake Christine smoke. If you saw what was left of the Tesla from the Maroon Creek crash you wouldn't believe anyone could have survived. I've had a car spin out in front of me in the rain in Glenwood Canyon- anti collision stopped the car so smoothly the passenger in the back seat didn't wake up.

I love these cars. I love that I still laugh whenever I drive past a gas station. I love that I've saved over $60K in expenses in the last 10 years. It makes me giggle. I don't giggle often.

If you want some inside dope on Elon Walter Isaacson's biography is a must read. I'd add Asimov's Foundation Trilogy and the NYT April 4 opinion piece by Jill Lepore to that list. Executive summary: It's all about technocracy. The problem is "test till failure" does not work well with human beings.

If you want to protest Elon- buy low pick up some Tesla stock and lead the charge to ditch him as CEO. A 71% drop in profits isn't a great look on any company. Don't forget the Apple Board fired Steve Jobs.

Fear not Lo two old Aspen kids can find a way to skitch behind anything.

JMO

Walkability : Letter to the editor

 Do you want a main street strip mall or do you want a walkable city?

Lining Main Street with commercial buildings will not reduce traffic on Main.

Lining Main Street with commercial buildings will not reduce traffic on side streets.

Lining Main Street with commercial buildings will not increase walkability.

Want a walkable city? Each zone district has a restaurant, a grocery, and an ER within walking distance of where you sleep. 

If a city of 36 million can make that happen a city of 7000 should be able to make that happen. https://youtu.be/zysL_lkdtys

Vacancy Tax: letter to the editor

The vacancy tax plus the 1% increase in property tax are like trying to untie the Gordian Knot. You'll only get rope burn.

Don't untie a Gordian Knot. Use a big fat machete.

When I moved back to Aspen in 1991 from NYC my income dropped by 1/3+ but my net remained the same. Why? NYC has an income tax. Make an income tax for anyone claiming Aspen as a primary residence with a yearly income one thousand times+ the Colorado minimum wage. No Trumpian taxobatics allowed- tax the gross.  That should cool some real estate and renovation jets for a bit. Then do your Robin Hood $55 food tax rebate thing and redistribute on a larger scale - to the residents who don't make $3mill a year. 

Money Money Money letter to the editor

There are first world problems and then there are Aspen problems... we fall into a category unto ourselves. 

 In response to Mick's editorial: Why spread the blame so thin? The wealth divide is not new to Aspen it is as old as the town itself. 

The American dream is money. 

How much money do we need?

 Would more money for everyone cure this? Is it time for a billionaire's tax on the second, third, fourteenth home? Our $140,000,000 City budget for 7000 residents has not stitched up the wealth wound. If anything the spiderweb of budgetary choices at City Council meetings has grown more tendrils while staunchly guarding the prime directive of bureaucratic self preservation. It's a donkey carrot always out of reach. With all our wealth, all our leverage, all our good intentions, all our privilege, many still feel cheated. When the weight gets too much, when the alcohol or the cocaine won't scratch the itch of have and have not, when the mountain is not enough ... many make an irreversible choice. Suicides are far too frequent in "paradise".

 I'm often asked by visitors what has changed since I moved here in 1968. 

 "Vanity". 

 People used to come here so they would not be seen. You could sit at the Jerome bar and be sitting next to a rancher sitting next to a movie star, next to a cabinet minister, next to a taxi driver, next to a Nobel prize winner, next to a busboy. Nobody asked for autographs in the check out line at Tom's Market. Now people come here to be seen. They brag about who they saw coming out the doors of the Nell or who was sprayed with Veuve at Cloud 9. 

 We have become the fishbowl. 

 How much money does the fishbowl need? I could list the differences between 1968 and 2022 from the size of City Government to the size of that Cabin in the Woods, to the gobsmacking Gorsuch Doronin deal but "more" sums it up. It is human nature to always want "more". I think the only thing which hasn't increased in that time is the hourly wage (*arguably an unintended consequence of APCHA combined with Reagonomics in the candy cane spiral of "Social Good" waltzing with the event horizon of "Greed is Good"- but I digress). 

 More is never enough. 

 We have gerrymandered answers through the ages... and so far "I want I want I want" is still the mantra of our species. It is both our greatness and our curse. Arguably Social Justice and Corporate Greed spring from that same "I want more"well. Evolution has rewarded "I want more". Is there an answer to subdue the "I/We want more" drum beat? Spirituality? Altruism? (personal favorite) Stoicism? I don't know; but maybe it's time for us all to start the hard work of "enough is enough" 

After all, there are plenty of places on the planet where people would kill to have Aspen's problems.

Make the punishment fit the crime, letter to the editor

This is a response to our recent "bear incident" for which the restaurant was fined $500 and the bear was killed.

Make the punishment fit the crime. Fine $25,000 for each unlocked dumpster and double the fine for each subsequent infringement.

We've fined $10,000 per tree for illegal removal. How much is a bear's life worth?

Spinning into butter and the art of the possible, letters to the editor

Although I am a member of the Wheeler Advisory Board this is strictly a personal opinion and is not the opinion of the Board or the Wheeler.

The mission statement and the adjunct goals  for the Wheeler Opera House are like throwing spaghetti at the wall. It’s an everything list.

Everything lists are not mission statements.

Kennedy didn’t say we’re going to the moon to beat the Russians and build robots and computers and unify the planet in one event on one day…. no… Kennedy said we choose to go to the moon and other things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard” Now that’s a mission statement.

Mission Statements are more than aspirational - more than motivational - mission statements should embody the best possible character of those launching the mission.

The Wheeler? "The mission of the Wheeler Opera House is to monitor and ensure the preservation and viability of the historic venue and its property  through exceptional performance experiences for residents, guests and performers, and to support the cultural assets of the Roaring Fork Valley.” Exceptional world class performances at affordable prices and a meeting space, and an educational space, and a rental space, and sustain the historical building, and and and….  When you try and chase everything at once you chase your tail… in one spot…. spinning into butter.

"Arena Stage’s vision is to galvanize the transformative power of theater to understand who we are as Americans.” Now that’s a mission.

 Part 2:
Align each goal to the season which can support that goal. Practice the Art of the Possible.

Our most ignored population is the one which actually supports the Wheeler. Our “semi Aspenites”, our second homeowners buy real estate and pay the RETT. When this population is in the back of my limo and I ask them if they’ve gone to the Wheeler the ubiquitous response is “I’d love to but there’s never anything there I want to see”. As for our down valley locals what can Aspen provide which will inspire a trip above the roundabout? I get plenty of riders in my limo going from down valley to Belly Up but none going to the Wheeler.

If The Wheeler had high profile $$$ performances during season when our well heeled guests are here (and those of us of the working class are working) then perhaps  higher ticket prices could fund not only the running costs of the Wheeler but those high profile acts coming back to town during off season at “affordable” prices after the working class has had a chance to catch up on some sleep and might have the time to go see a show.



Part 3:
As I asked during the public comment portion of a recent Aspen City Council meeting- please align the Wheeler Advisory Board directive with the Wheeler Mission Statement so we may serve you better.

Choose the Arts, letter to the editor

Want a job and housing in Aspen?

We have 300+ employees of the City of Aspen (bennies! housing!)  but we aren’t teaching our kids to be bureaucrats we’re teaching them to be chefs and wait staff (no bennies! no housing!). The alternative to a  City job or winning the APCHA lottery is to be a real estate broker and sell as many 50,000’ mausoleums as possible. Who needs open space.. we don’t need no open space… we just need that one view from that one window.. and a plastic elk.

I can feel what’s trickling down… and it ain’t quality of life.

Want free market and a meritocracy?
I say, "Choose the Arts".

“The Arts don’t pay.” you say… I say… "Bull****".

Sit through all those credits at the end of a Marvel movie that’s the “below the line” credits the “little people” without the mansion or the stretch. Every one of those people has a job which pays enough for their home and for their kids to go to college. Every. Single. One. (that’s what collective bargaining can do folks) Do you think Food & Wine or X Games would happen without the air time? The Arts are not just paint.

We certainly have our share of artists who were born and raised here- successful professionals in their fields - they can afford to live here but they don’t work here - they don’t bring their business back home.  What would it take to fix that?

JMO

Marsha Marsha Marsha, letter to the editor

APCHA APCHA APCHA, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.

Yep, it’s human nature, find yourself in a deep dark hole… dig in deeper.

Why would government discourage real estate development when government is funded by taxes on real estate sales? Endless growth… that’s our economic model…that’s our vicious circle.  APCHA’s circa 1970’s rules are not carved in stone… time to smash them.

Solution 1: Stop being a real estate economy… foster other economic drivers.
Solution 2: Pay the servants more.
Solution 3: Tax the masters more.

We complain that APCHA should sustain itself and limit free market potential in the same breath. APCHA puts a cap on earnings for residents and a limit on tenure. APCHA restricts rentals and resale.  APCHA also cedes maintenance and responsibility for maintenance to those same residents. So, live below the Aspen poverty line if you want to keep your home, move or die at the end of your term, and don’t repair anything because you don’t have the money to do it much less the opportunity to recoup the cost on resale.  Local government gives lip service to lower priced lodging and slaps fines on APCHA residents who rent out a couch during Xgames which in turn facilitates the  highway 82 bumper car fun when our 100,000 new best friends rent homes below Basalt. The entire system is perched on the head of the very wobbly pin of the real estate transfer tax… so if we actually stop selling off paradise and leave room for trees, elk and a lion or two…. we lose the cash for “affordable housing”.

Solution 1: An Arts economy. 
Solution 2: Link wages to a percentage of profit. (or…ducking... muttering under my breath …. make what we pay City staff in cash and benefits the minimum required for all workers in Aspen….at very least give any company with an Aspen Business License the opportunity to buy into City health care)
Solution 3: A billionaire income tax… for those who claim Aspen or Pitkin County as their primary residence. It will still be cheaper than NYC or LA. This links our tax base to our wealth index instead of  build, buy, or die base.

Bonus initiatives? Want to slow development? Require net zero for every new building… including government buildings… including the lift 1A corridor. Want to reduce traffic? Restrict traffic to EV vehicles and subsidize EV purchases…(at very least stop subsidizing non-EV vehicles - like the Downtowner vans). Want to subsidize housing? The City could co-sign existing free market housing for residents and be a guarantor for the first, last and damage required for every long term lease  (It will be a long long time before that expense reaches the cost of one Burlingame bedroom).

Oh yeah, rumor has it we have an election coming up. Vote for the candidate who can stop digging a deeper hole and think themselves out of the damned box.

Think the Green New Deal  is radical? There is an alternative "little ice age" genocide.

Electing the election, letter to the editor

It’s not the first time moving the election day has been suggested but it just may be the first time a sitting City Councilman has come out against it. On Facebook it’s turning into a full out Bert vs Skippy rock ‘em sock ‘em. If you can get past the accusations of SkiCo liftie zombies casting votes for their Ice King overlord or upstart “kids” gerrymandering by dates instead of districts I ask my fellow Aspen voters to look at the science, specifically how your state of mind effects the way you vote.

We vote differently when we feel economically solid than when we feel strapped. March is when the majority of us who work in Aspen are feeling giddy and overwhelmed with work… when the cash is at least a plentiful as the snow. By May we’re in deep hangover phase. You’re wondering how the winter money melted so fast and if it will ever come again while spending all your time and resources to clean things up for summer. The short answer- when you’re feeling strapped you’re less likely to vote and if you do vote you're a lot less likely to vote smart. Seriously… there are studies… lots of them.. the 2013 study from Harvard springs to mind.."For an even starker example of how financial concerns can weigh on people's minds, Mullainathan and colleagues traveled to rural India, where sugar cane farmers typically are paid only once per year. "The month after the harvest, they're pretty rich, but the month before – when the money has run out – they're pretty poor," he said. "What we did is look at the same people the month before and the month after the harvest, and what we see is that IQ goes up, cognitive control, or errors, goes way down, and response times go way down.”



Sound familiar?

Simply put…

More voter turnout = good for democracy
Smarter voter = good for democracy
March elections = both of the above.

It ain't the skiing.... letter to the editor

"In Aspen you either have 3 jobs or 3 homes."

It’s not a skiing economy. It’s not an outdoor sports economy or an arts economy or a conference economy. It’s not about the skis, the bikes, the kayaks, the concerts or the think tanks.

Follow the money and you will find the answer.

It’s a real estate economy. (Follow "What's the Big Deal?")

Aspen real estate is an investment which is AAA with a phenomenal rate of return when flipped. The dividends are parties and networking.

Ask yourself what sustains the real estate economy ? Then ask yourself if that’s what you want.

Real Estate prices stay high as long as demand is higher than supply. There are other factors but that’s the economic foundation. All of our restrictions, our labyrinthian  permitting, our challenging terrain, our civic divisiveness, our remoteness,  - those all increase costs, increase the project timeline, and thus limit supply.


The same factors increase the divide between classes, the 3 jobs class vs the 3 homes class

The same factors decrease the amount of land for wilderness and wildlife- after all even an uninhabited monster home is an invasion displacing species of native plants and animals encouraging scavengers who are used to living off our trash and on our well watered lawns.

When did the real estate economy take off? In my opinion the rocket launch was  in the 70’s. Condos encouraging non-residential ownership combined with limited growth ordinances, and  height restrictions all combined to squeeze the supply.

Square footage prices alone are not what has made Aspen what it is today. Add to this Affordable Housing which helped keep wages artificially low (The entry level wages I received in the 70’s would translate into $55 per hour today.) and the J1 visa (multilingual *and* cheaper be still my beating heart).

Viola!  Ever increasing real estate prices and stagnant low wages. … and you wonder why the 1% of the 1% wants a slice of Aspen? It ain’t skiing.



Update: Follow the money.... 2018


"In the first quarter of 2018, the median sales price for a luxury home—defined as the top 10% of the market—in Aspen reached $18.34 million, an impressive 162.1% increase from the same time last year when the median was logged at a comparatively measly $7 million. 

“We’ve been seeing these big numbers because the backlog—what I call the ‘aspirational priced inventory’—is coming off the market, either expiring, or sellers are realizing they need to meet the buyers on price,” Mr. Miller said."'

https://www.mansionglobal.com

In the court of physics... you lose, letter to the editor

Dear bicyclists, I don’t want to kill you.. but you’re making that really difficult.

Please look both ways before you cross a street. I do when I'm a pedestrian, when I'm riding my bike or when I'm driving. 

You may have to slow down... I know that's inefficient ... I know you lose energy and you need to pedal harder to get that speed back... I know you hate to do that... but really... slow down ... look both ways... it's a good habit to get into.

Pedestrian crosswalks are not bike lanes.  Please do not ride in a pedestrian crosswalk. Please do not use your cel phone while riding in the pedestrian crosswalk.

 

Please do not assume I can see you on your electric bike doing 20 mph in the pedestrian crosswalk when the sun is coming straight into my eyes (hint- if every car has the sun visor down there’s a reason).

Even the bears move slow walking across Main street… be as smart as a bear.

and bears haven’t read the right of way in crosswalk law. 

News flash- turn signals do matter. There are some nifty bike helmets with LED turn signals now- buy one- it costs way less than that bike you’re riding.

While we’re at it… not all cars are equipped with backup cameras. A vintage truck backing out of an angled parking spot cannot see your 6 year old on a bicycle.

Wouldn’t the Rio Grande bike path be a better choice than the streets of Aspen when riding with your kids?  We desperately need to follow the German example of a “bicycle only” autobahn but even our excellent bike/pedestrian paths don’t keep bicyclists out of the roundabout. That is a tragedy waiting to happen. Of course there was the Lance wannabe who almost got clotheslined by my dogs' leash when he raced through the red light at Main and Monarch… but I assume he has a Darwin award by now. Dear bicyclist, please do not compete for a Darwin award.

Floppsy, Moppsy and Facepalm Letter to the editor

Just in case you don’t remember one year ago the  “one roof proposal” for City Hall was $20 million dollars cheaper and an estimated 10 years less time to complete and the Armory become a community center instead of a  shoe horn City Hall.

After a lot of shouting ”Taj MaHALL!” and finger pointing the more expensive more disruptive less efficient less “green” solution was adopted. The same anti-Taj contingent  are now complaining that we shouldn’t borrow money to build the new City Hall. Wellllll, we had a cheaper solution and that was considered too hubristic for “small” government. We had a more efficient carbon footprint under one roof but that was less important than square footage footprint. We had a less disruptive solution but that was…. horrors…. less disruptive. We actually voted that we wanted a community center more than an aging Armory wearing a skin tight City Hall spandex refurbishment onesie and that people’s vote was tossed aside (insert the word deplorable as you will).

Flip. Flop. Want to know why it’s so difficult to get anything done in Aspen? Flip. Flop. Flippety floppity flipperooni floppsy woppsy doodle all day. You can’t make this stuff up.

plus ça change.... letter to the editor

Traffic. Oh what do we do about traffic?

A modest proposal:  shut down 82, McLain Flats and Independence to all traffic for 24 hours. Shut. It. Down. No deliveries. No down valley workforce. No tourists.  No warning- just put up the barricades. Let’s just take a look at who is “local”. Then we can ask each other if the few who remain can sustain for more than 24 hours without deliveries, out of town workers, tourists- without the $ all of these bring. Pay the wages of everyone who missed work that day out of the City Coffers. Track the sales tax on that one day and extrapolate revenues for a decade of lean living. Put Dr. Baxter’s toll booth up on the Castle Creek bridge the day after. No charge to enter you just have to pay to leave.

Think I’m joking? Did I forget to add my $500K consultancy fee?

Traffic is a symptom. It’s a symptom of economic success. It’s also an indicator of our lack of sustainability, inability to scale, and lack of foresight.

1. Complete all roadwork during off season and off peak traffic hours. The prettiest curbs in the world don’t make up for potholes to China. A 4 hour trip from Monarch and Main to the Airport was due to the roundabout shut down to 1 lane during the XGames.

2. Stage equipment as close to the point of need as possible (Parks and Recreation I’m looking right at you when I say that)

3. A public transport shuttle direct from baggage claim into Ruby Park in Aspen.  Don’t mewl about not having a grant to cover this… we have the buses we just need the will to use our available resources to address an obvious need.

4. Restrict delivery hours... 3 am to 7 am. We do it with grooming the mountain we can do it with supplying the town. Offer white noise headphones to all downtown penthouse owners.

5. For pities sake- expand the bus service to serve the down valley worker.  This means buses after 2 am so restaurant staff can get home without driving. Better yet make these “quiet buses” and kick off anyone who is drunk, obnoxious,  and making any noise other than snoring.

Deal with it.

Who cares if Climate Change is man made?  That Diesel already left the barn. Regardless if you think humans changed the weather to our disadvantage the question remains can we change the weather to our advantage? Weather patterns which threaten the basics of breathable air, potable water, and fertile soil mean we need to adapt or die.  Sure, we all die, but a planet wide event means more than my death or your death - it endangers us as a species. Extinction doesn’t target by political ideology, nationality, or religion. Evolution doesn’t care about the deck chairs on the Titanic. Iceberg ahead. Deal with it.

We’re good at adapting.  I remember the threat of worldwide famine in the 60’s and 70’s- miracle rice got us out of that one. You can go into the DNA record and trace our current population to about 1000 individuals. We might be able to blame that on a super volcano. Pretty good comeback to 7 billion in mere 70,000 years if I do say so myself. The drought of 4000 years ago burnt walled cities to the ground but produced a lighter fast sailing society based on pillaging and global trade. Global trade facilitated pandemics from plague to influenza and yet here we still are with antibiotics and immunization systems. There have been a lot of “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” moments. 

Perhaps you think that weather is too large a challenge? After all adapting to weather is different than micro managing weather. We manage weather on small scale inside our greenhouses and homes but can we motivate the hive mind to tackle it on a large scale?

As a species we have a unique advantage.  We’ve sped up DNA the transfer of multigenerational memory with one spectacular invention : writing. Our knowledge, our observations, our successes and failures can be recorded and passed from generation to generation. Yes, we have destroyed libraries and wiped out databases but somehow we always search to rebuild that knowledge. It is a deep human need to learn from our past, imagine different futures, and pass that on to the next generation. Can we learn from our past to recognize a threat and use our imagination to craft a solution?

Cassandra or Chicken Little? I’d love to be wrong and the sky is not falling, the icecaps are not melting, desertification isn’t increasing, microbursts aren’t happening, February wasn’t a month of snowmelt, and the songbirds haven’t left my balcony.  Cassandra’s prophecies were spot on and her reward was to be mocked, ignored and murdered. Nope, rather not be Cassandra.  I’d much rather we thought of ourselves as  a team and worked together to sustain ourselves on our home planet.

(bonus podcast on evolution : David Sloan Wilson)

Car-mmonsense, letter to the editor

I attended Tony Dutzik’s presentation on transportation and mobility Wednesday. After a nod to Henry Ford and the first “transportation revolution”

 

This actually happened in a Hotel Pool on Main Street a few years back....

we heard about the usual suspects: self driving cars, bikeshare, car pooling, on demand apps…

 

RFTA's concrete eggs where the money went instead of developing a transit app 

or RFTA vending machines at bus stops.

and the final solution… ban the private car from the city limits.


The biggest bumps in the road to a car-less future were  “the service worker or other low income folks.” We were told that the social engineering was too broad a topic for the presentation.

Really??? Luckily there were no projectiles for me to throw and I haven’t body slammed anyone since a brief stint as a nose guard for a women’s football team in college.

Self driving cars are easy just try inventing a self repairing sewer line.  Ban everyone without a commercial license plate and you ban blue collar. You ban the construction worker’s truck. You ban the electrician’s van. You ban the maid’s car of cleaning supplies. You ban every independent contractor and freelancer who travels with their shop on their back.

Sure if service workers could afford to live in town it would be a different story but the average cost of a single family home in Aspen last year was $6.2 mill- not a lot of service industry workers can handle that mortgage. Sooo…. you ban the commuters who keep our “quaint little mountain town” running.

Terminal Täsch outside of Zermatt where you park your car

The intro to “transportation and mobility” was Henry Ford and the Model T;  but the Model T wasn’t just about car vs horse or an assembly line Ford also increased the wages of his employees so they could buy the car they were building.

Start there- improve quality of life and revitalize the community or all that vitality will find someplace easier and more welcoming to thrive.  Just talk to the Pitkin County workers in the temporary digs in Basalt- the new County offices which are being built in Aspen do not hold as much appeal as a short commute to Basalt. Our priorities should not be fewer cars. Our priorities should be more time with your family and more time enjoying this fantastic valley.

"Density makes all of these systems work better" but density doesn't make the quality of life in the Roaring Fork Valley better.  We need to find solutions which do not compromise the best of what we already have.

Rights or Right? Letter to the editor

Who knew water could be so complicated? (said with tongue firmly embedded in cheek)

Are the dam rights on Maroon and Castle for dams or for storage? Storage is the answer I’ve been given.

 If we give up rights to store available water- do we lose the right to water?  I’m no lawyer and I’m really not a water lawyer but let’s play the "what if" game….

Imagine a year with no water and a dam- we have a right to so many acre feet and we release it from the damn dam in order to have water which we can legally consume. We are left with a dry riverbed.
Imagine a year with no water and no dam- we have a right to so many acre feet but they don’t exist. We are left with a dry riverbed.

What remains the same in both scenarios? Everything dies. We’re part of an ecosystem which is interdependent no matter what the idiotic egocentric Colorado use it or lose it alternative universe water law decrees. That is what Colorado law says- drain it dry- or somebody else will drain it instead.

The threats of front range diversion are not paper tigers- they are real- read the 2014-2015 Colorado Water Plan. To quote Club 20 "In this February 3 letter to Governor Hickenlooper, seven West Slope Republican legislators wrote, “To protect the West Slope and the State’s economy, it is imperative that each basin exhaust its available water supply before planning diversions from another area of the State.” The letter goes on to say that, “An abundance of additional West Slope water available to the Front Range is an illusion.”’

Please note the word “exhaust” - that means bare bones dry. We should be working together to keep the water in the river and in the soil. Instead we’ve created a world where we urge others to exhaust their water before we exhaust our water. That's mutually assured desertification.

Don’t you dare think that a City Council vote will make one iota of difference in a fight about water. The City Council has told the State they want to keep the water storage  right and at the same time said “trust us we won’t build a dam”.  Irregardless of the City Council vote  this mixed message is  a hole wide enough to drill a diversion through. If you think no one will challenge this then I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

 

Let the Water do the Work

The tough political reality is that the people living in the Colorado River ecosystem have no political power. The Colorado River ecosystem is divided by State borders, Federal lands, Tribal lands and by a border with Mexico. We have no clout. We need clout. The sane solution is to create a coalition of the Colorado River ecosystem entities which transcends State and National borders and recognizes natural water flow. In this fight for water Native Americans, Mexicans,Republicans, Democrats and independents must stay united. Take this as an opportunity to create a coalition of the willing and fight it right up to the hilt against the Front Range and every blue grass water sucking municipality which wants to drain the rivers dry.  Take that pledge- make your candidate take that pledge- a pledge to restore our water sheds our riparian zones and fight to keep every drop of Colorado River water in the river.

Start by doing as India and New Zealand have done and declare Castle, Maroon and the Roaring Fork “persons” with all the legal rights a person has. The law needs to change.

Affordable Schmordable.... letter to the editor

If you have rules which are unenforceable maybe you need to take a close look at the rules.

I won’t argue about how much city sponsored (affordable, employee) housing is being sublet and rented. I have a pretty good idea since I’m ubering quite a few visitors to those units in high season- but that’s only anecdotal data.


Here's the "housing hustle" link.

How enforceable is the “no rentals rule”? Unless you want to go “full United Airlines” not a lot. Dumping residents out of affordable housing on the street is a photo op no local wants to see and the tabloids/social media would lap up like whipped cream on strudel.

Here’s the modest proposal- allow rentals with a cap- $100 per person per night. Rent through Airbnb. Airbnb already collects lodging tax off the top and it goes direct to the City/County/State. This increases our “low cost rental” base and gives our affordably housed a way to raise money to pay for maintenance and repair in the City built housing.

Don’t want to rent at “affordable" rates through Airbnb? You want to act like free market - fine- buy out the your “affordable” house at full market value.  We could call that the Appraisers Christmas bonus special.

Corvid City, letter to the editor

In response to Stephen Capra’s letter.

It started in the 80’s with pigeons. I don’t remember a single pigeon until Reagan was elected. Pigeons on the Mall. Pigeons above the Elks club.

I live in a place which faces Aspen mountain and used to be the “top of the hill” right at the 8000’ line where nothing was ever going to be built. It’s where the meadow and forest reclaimed it’s rightful place back from slides of slag miners left behind.  “Freddy” the first owner of #106 planted a pine tree at her back door. In 48 years I watched that tree grow- kissing my balcony and climbing past the roof. Hadid’s development came with the Pigeons and smashed the old boat tow shack leaving the 8000’  rule in the dust. Up went 15,000 sq foot homes between me and the mountain- unoccupied homes with pigeon spike rows  on perfectly oiled log pediments. I still had the tree between me and “dream homes”.   I watched generations of Steller’s Jays, Nuthatches, Chickadees, Juncos and Hummingbirds build their nests and raise families in that tree. Once there were 7 baby Steller’s in a row on my balcony rail. Over time the songbirds left.   By the time Obama was in office there was only a magpie nest in the  tree. By the time Trump was in office the tree had been cut down and my view of Aspens, Lodgepole pine, Blue Spruce and Queen Anne’s lace was replaced with an homage to Joni Mitchell….. a parking lot.

Now ravens sit in the trees  on either side of main street waiting for roadkill. Magpies chatter at West End diving after what your dog leaves behind.  Sparrows flock to Peaches and Paradise feasting on flakes of pastry. Gone are the pine siskins, the finches, the towhees… even the Camp Robbers stay far above us at the Sundeck or Maroon Bells. The last time I saw a Stellers Jay it was half way up Buckskin Pass.

People ask me what’s changed in 49 years. We used to be a town of humans living in a forest full of birdsong where bears stayed in the berry patches and watched us from a distance. Foxes were rarely seen and coyotes never. Now we are a town were the scavengers come to dine.

Charging ahead

We already have a formula for development funding affordable housing. Why not make car chargers a mandatory addition to all building permits?

When I’m driving my “uber tesla” I get a lot of riders from California. These are mostly people who already own a Tesla. Eventually the conversation turns to charging and the availability of charging stations. Simply put- the lines are long in the Eureka State.

Battery technology is undergoing a rapid and long overdue boost. Electric car prices are lower and will continue to be lower as the battery price goes down and efficiency goes up. The cost of electricity is not the issue- the issue is how many charging stations are there? Right now my plug share app shows 26 in the Roaring Fork Valley. “Good" you say? Take a look at our traffic and imagine 1/3 electric - then you’re getting a better idea of how many chargers we are going to need- the question isn’t “if” but  “when”?