lie n : an untrue statement made with intent to deceive
Are you familiar with the phenomenon of mass hysteria? In Estes Park we have our own version it is "the mass lie". For all Estes Parkians this will be a difficult read. Like grandpa, you love him, but a visual of him in the shower is to much truth.
Statistics tell us that 85% off all businesses in Estes Park turn over every five years. That is numbing information on several dimensions. Sue Doylan and Tom Pickering of the Town's Community development department provided this information, it is a direct quote. Town staff and elected officials have known this for years. Think about this for a moment...... Town staff and the elected officials know that the electorate of Estes Park, the vast majority of the population, will not be around to vote for or against them. The principles of the town will never see what happens in town hall they will have moved back to Omaha!!! That is the ultimate in supervisor free operations. Oh I got to get me one of those City jobs.
What sane businessman would invest in a business in Estes Park if eighty five percent fail. You cannot make money, you will not have customers two thirds of the year and it is one fight after another. No wonder it is so easy for town staff to keep the business community divided, they are the only constant. If 85% of businesses fail in five years then logic would dictate that about the same number of businesses come into town in the same time frame. It would seem that someone would notice that in the past five years there has been five new businesses next door. Go to any long time business owner on Elkhorn and ask how business is and he will tell you business is great up 30% over last year, LIE. If you go in and talk to a landlord about a lease they will tell you that the previous business was there for twenty years and made $50, 000.00 per month in tee shirts alone....LIE. If you down-loaded the Trail Gazette on the web you would have read an article quoting Randy Repola on how business was ahead of Aspen during the past quarter...LIE. Why would the whole town lie to these people? Well the property owner needs to fill the empty store, the town needs the sales tax, and the long time business owner needs other businesses around him ...LIE, LIE, LIE. What if there were 85% vacancies on Elkhorn? What if the general fund of the town was down 85%. Big reasons to lie and you have all done it.
The biggest liars of all is the town; they do all the advertising, marketing and public relations. Town hall has attempted to attract chain stores into the commercial district to no avail because these chains actually do traffic counts and count parking spaces and look at the year around potential. No Thank You. It is a lot easier to lie to the mom and pop operation. Sure they go broke move back to Omaha thinking it is all their fault. Town hall loves the big whooper lie because the ones they cheat leave and no one is around long enough to look behind the curtains of town hall and find the liar. Long time locals excuse the big lie as just being small town. I have news for you not all small towns in Colorado are like this, except maybe for Granby. The ends do not justify the means. The Estes Parkian.
