Isn’t it interesting that whenever the Town starts getting pressure they send out the fish?
Some locals are questioning their motives for the visitor center, their marketing practices and the lack of parking. All of these things need attention and the Town refuses to deal with any of them to our satisfaction. How could they do better? Well, the visitor center should never have been built and should have had several public hearings prior to its construction. It is a monster building that is too close to the river (code says 50 feet) and is definitely not a visitor center, it is an office building with a big front room; an office building to house a staff that is illegally hired, against State Statute.
As to marketing, they haven’t done anything new in 20 years. They are incompetent and should be shut down. Let’s put the obscene $600,000 in salaries to better use.
Speaking of salaries, the Town salaries are nearly as high as they are in Highlands Ranch; another insult that you locals don’t seem to care about.
As to parking, this Town will never deal honestly with the lack of parking. They conduct phony studies and make excuses. “Well, you say we need 500 to 1,000 parking spots but we just put in 25 spaces. That should be enough.”
Now to the fish: A red herring, as you should all know, is a diversion. The most recent Town red herring is tying they ribbons on the old pine tree. Let’s all be good to one another, say kind things, and let’s form focus groups to determine how we can be nicer. Have an issue; don’t bring it up because it could be nasty.
How did it get this way? It got this way because of the very foolish retiree’s that don’t vote and don’t support the true tax base in this town. The tax base of businesses keeps property taxes and utilities low and allow the retirees a great standard of living. If the retiree’s get their way we won’t have any visitors. That’s a really ignorant position. If the tourists go away we lose tax dollars and it will be made up from the retiree’s with new property taxes and utility increases.
Retiree’s should, therefore, be fighting for more business success. They should fight for whatever brings more tax dollars into the community, but the Town has learned that the retirees are to ignorant to get it and that they don’t vote anyway. What does all of this portend? In the very near future, without any major changes to Town policies, we will be just another crappy little mountain town with nothing to offer visitors or citizens. Stores that are boarded up don’t attract anyone. This is such a shame because we have a great base of retirees that are well qualified to serve and they choose not to. What a waste.
