Is Estes Park economic development an oxymoron?
How is our economic development, what is being developed, is our economy becoming more diverse, balanced, competitive, are there jobs being created, families moving to the Valley? At any point have our elected officials hired professional urban planners, consultants, experts in the field to study this vital component of our future? Have we been presented with a variety of scenarios to contemplate, studies and reports to approve, disapprove, or just read, concerning the healthy forward growth of the Estes Valley economy? If they are not doing this what else would our elected leaders be doing?
What is the economic future of Estes Park, what are the forecasts? There are hazards associated with the limitations to our single season/single industry economy; one indicator of our limitations would be the lack of any major corporate investment in the area, major hoteliers, retailers, or clean industry. They do not seem to be interested in investing in our community. Why is that? Why can’t we draw outside investment into Estes Park?
Other than sales tax figures there is no information available on our economy. It just happens, some old timers employed by the town as an economic development department cough up a few opinions based on traffic counts they get off of the internet, thats about it.
The 2017 committee, please that’s just a committee used by Tom Pickering to justify his existence. It’s no more effective than the group of retirees that meet every morning at the MacDonald’s over coffee.
Our singular anemic economic development engine is economic development through TIF, which is collecting property tax from the business community, buying property to develop more retail to compete with the existing retailers, tantamount to financing your own competition.
We can use the details of the school bond issue as one barometer of the health and direction of our economic condition. Economic development of the Valley, or lack there of and our schools are inexorably tied together. As we continue to age as a community (we are the oldest community in Colorado – average age 45) and no clear cut economic develop plan where are our future first graders going to come from? I do not see a lot of pregnant 45 year olds walking around Estes Park. The schools need money to patch up a campus allowed to fall into an unsafe state of disrepair. Look at the number of empty retail spots down town. We are loosing students at a rate of 100 per year, with 1000 students; will we run out of students before we pay off the bill to fix the buildings? We loose 85 % of all start up businesses every five years. If we further burden the business community with one more tax will that be the straw that breaks that camel’s back? If the schools close we will loose a major employer in the Valley? So do you keep the schools to keep the jobs despite the lack of students?
With so much turmoil and so many needs in such a small valley, it is very difficult to make sense of any of it. I have heard phrases describing us like; “Estes Park is a community that circles the wagons and then points all their guns inward”, I have also heard on more than one occasion, “Estes Park is a community that lacks direction and vision”. My observation is more akin to; “Estes Park has so many local people that want a piece of the action, there are few remaining souls to solve the problems.
How is our economic development, what is being developed, is our economy becoming more diverse, balanced, competitive, are there jobs being created, families moving to the Valley? At any point have our elected officials hired professional urban planners, consultants, experts in the field to study this vital component of our future? Have we been presented with a variety of scenarios to contemplate, studies and reports to approve, disapprove, or just read, concerning the healthy forward growth of the Estes Valley economy? If they are not doing this what else would our elected leaders be doing?
What is the economic future of Estes Park, what are the forecasts? There are hazards associated with the limitations to our single season/single industry economy; one indicator of our limitations would be the lack of any major corporate investment in the area, major hoteliers, retailers, or clean industry. They do not seem to be interested in investing in our community. Why is that? Why can’t we draw outside investment into Estes Park?
Other than sales tax figures there is no information available on our economy. It just happens, some old timers employed by the town as an economic development department cough up a few opinions based on traffic counts they get off of the internet, thats about it.
The 2017 committee, please that’s just a committee used by Tom Pickering to justify his existence. It’s no more effective than the group of retirees that meet every morning at the MacDonald’s over coffee.
Our singular anemic economic development engine is economic development through TIF, which is collecting property tax from the business community, buying property to develop more retail to compete with the existing retailers, tantamount to financing your own competition.
We can use the details of the school bond issue as one barometer of the health and direction of our economic condition. Economic development of the Valley, or lack there of and our schools are inexorably tied together. As we continue to age as a community (we are the oldest community in Colorado – average age 45) and no clear cut economic develop plan where are our future first graders going to come from? I do not see a lot of pregnant 45 year olds walking around Estes Park. The schools need money to patch up a campus allowed to fall into an unsafe state of disrepair. Look at the number of empty retail spots down town. We are loosing students at a rate of 100 per year, with 1000 students; will we run out of students before we pay off the bill to fix the buildings? We loose 85 % of all start up businesses every five years. If we further burden the business community with one more tax will that be the straw that breaks that camel’s back? If the schools close we will loose a major employer in the Valley? So do you keep the schools to keep the jobs despite the lack of students?
With so much turmoil and so many needs in such a small valley, it is very difficult to make sense of any of it. I have heard phrases describing us like; “Estes Park is a community that circles the wagons and then points all their guns inward”, I have also heard on more than one occasion, “Estes Park is a community that lacks direction and vision”. My observation is more akin to; “Estes Park has so many local people that want a piece of the action, there are few remaining souls to solve the problems.
