This is a small town and in the winters there is very little to do but nose into everyone else’s business, like any small town USA.
A lot of the people that get into public service around here have been around town a long time. These folks move from board appointment to board appointment; hospital board, to school board, to Chamber board, to Town board, to this commission, to that commission.
It is hard for me to understand the reason so many people came to the aid of a local long term creep that was found to be a pedophile. Town trustees and town officials wrote letters of support to the Larimer county court in support of this man ...this man that abused young boys. He had served on boards all over town.
Our superintendent of schools admitted to have stolen an untold amount of money from the school district. And parents and local town officials have gone to war for him, accosting the school board president over the ordeal. The present school board is uncovering more and more malfeasance in the district. A book-keeper admittedly took thousands and thousands of dollars from the school district. Her husband runs a small cubby whole deli next to the downtown theater. Now this lady stole money to pay the bills, the deli is seasonal at best, at what point is duplicity suspected? I do not know about you but thousands added to my budget would be noticed, especially in February when I search the couch cushions for beer money. Now the point here is since this all broke, town trustees and town employees have poured into this deli/laundry slapping each other on the butt , calling each other babe, yipping it up like a frat house. How many great sandwich shops do we have in this town, that are a lot cleaner and have valid food service licenses? What is the moth to a flame attraction here?
Now I come to the point to all this:
Paul Fishman
Paul owns the 14er's café. He is a new young business owner that is admittedly not from here, Jersey I believe. Now all winter he struggled - no one coming to town - few locals know him so do not eat there yet and he struggles. Paul is from a community where town administrators and employees are held accountable for their salary. Whenever the town was empty of visitors Paul called town hall (like he would in Jersey) and put the town community development coordinator on the spot, why no business? Paul got the Tom Pickering snow job, called Tom out in the papers. In response, Tom Pickering filed a police complaint against Paul. Paul wrote a second letter to the editor and the Trial Gazette would not print it.
So as a public service this is the letter, in his words, that the Trail would not print:
I recently wrote a letter to the editor (published) explaining my discussions with certain town official. I decided to see if Mr. Tom Pickering, head of the CVB, read the letter (Trail Gazette). He said he just glances over the letters. With no surprise I replied well that’s my point you don’t want to hear from the people of the community whose sales taxes pay your salary of $96,000.00 a year. I then put him on notice that I would be very busy this summer running my business. However come winter I will be coming after his job. Now most reasonable people would say he’s to get me fired. Well everybody, I have that right and so do you because these officials are suppose to work for us and in my opinion they are not (working). Now Mr. Pickering, in an attempt to intimidate me and make me back off, called the police on me filing a false complaint saying I threatened him. I am a very direct person so allow me to be very clear, Mr. Pickering I am not after you personally. I believe you are not representing the business community of our Town very well and should be fired from your position. Others in this town who are aware of this occurrence have warned me that if I go forward with this questioning of the town officials and hold them accountable for their actions that I could expect other attempts of intimidation. Well I say this to my fellow citizens of our town, I will not be intimidated and turn my head to the aggressive actions of our town officials. This is about the issues that face us now and in the future. What direction we would like to see our town go in. So Mr. Pickering either step up or step aside because I don’t think the people of this community should settle for anything less.
Thanks
Paul Fishman
14’ers Café
The tale of two deli’s: in one deli a hard working young man who expects accountability from town officials, town hall calls the cops on him.
The other deli spouse of a louse and the town officials hang out there.
You know what they say birds of a feather.
The Estes Parkian eats at the 14er’s
