How does one measure the health of a town? One measure is surely the attitudes of the people that live there. Another measure is the standards of a community, looking at such issues as schools, roads, activities, health care, environmental, parks and recreation, financing and a myriad of other common elements that make up a community.
Let’s look at some of these things singly:
How are our schools? Apparently not too good, as there is constant turnover in personnel, supervision and teachers. The total student population is dwindling and there is a move for consolidation of classes which would eliminate one of the buildings. The board has a difficult time with former board members who still think they run things, or should do so. They have a history of employee embezzlement and they want more money. All this for fewer students, who some say are weighted to strongly with our Hispanic population. If this state immigration program takes hold the school population will immediately drop by 30%, the estimated number of illegals in Estes Park. Then they could hold classes in one building and talk about the good old days.
How about our parks and recreation? It seems that the rec district can’t run the pool, the fair grounds are a mess with unsafe stables that no longer attract, or soon won’t attract, shows with expensive horse flesh. The rodeo is a shambles, another mess run by former trustee Barker, who shows no more sense than his delinquent kid that tortured the raccoon. The rodeo committee absorbs the money raised for their friends and doesn’t re-invest in the program. They shouldn’t only be fired, they should be jailed.
Activities? Well, there are surely lots of activities, but mostly in the summer for the amusement of the tourists, but not enough to keep people here year-round. In the winter we get wind.
Financing is the one thing that the Town uses to measure our success, and theirs, and it is the most obscene imaginable measure that they could use. Why obscene? Because this Town has way too much money. They have MILLIONS! They measure their success by how close tax collections are to their projected budget, with no thought to WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO! The Town likes to brag that we have a $28 million, or as Repola says, a $30 million budget. In this little berg with no sense of how to spend the money, except to use it up.
There are dozens of communities of our size that thrive and grow on budgets of less than $5,000,000. Money in this town gets shuffled from committee to committee, drain one and put it into the general fund to use for our inflated salaries and personnel. This is shear lunacy and the voters need to hold them accountable.
If the money was properly budgeted we’d have a performance center, healthy rec district and creative year-round activities for locals and visitors alike. But, that won’t happen here. The money that goes to the Town gets absorbed and is not returned to the people. The people get in the way of re-modeling Town Hall four our five times, building a kayak course, starting a transportation district that is obscene! Next they’ll have people park downtown and drive them out to the Y. Those folks at the Y are beginning a complete restoration to make them a great resort. All without paying a lick of tax dollars to the Town or to the County. And Baudek and crew kiss their asses. They are out of towner’s John. They shouldn’t sit on committees John. They don’t pay their way, or that of anyone else’s, who the hell cares what they think John?
Then the idiots, without one iota of information as to what the social or economic impact of becoming a Wilderness area would be, complain because the Park is just a National Park. We want wilderness designation! We want wilderness designation! We want wilderness designation! Why? DUH! Don’t know, not sure, sounds good, why not?
It is time for all new people!
When will the voters get a clue and fix this. You’ve got work to do people. And don’t anyone say “sure, but what do we do?” It’s been spelled out on this site time after time. Your homework for the day is to re-read prior blogs relating to this issue and then to ACT!
