My favorite delusional kook can't help himself, self service and public manipulation being so profitable for so long, the appetite in Estes Park for seasoned political tripe apparently insatiable. What better poster child of Estes Park politics than David H., if I say it loud enough if I repeat it long enough my dilutions become your reality.
The Estes Parkian has written for years about the antics of David Habecker, who sought to become the national poster child for abolishing the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead, he’s become a childish crank, prone to twice-a-month rants before the Town Board about the evil of two words: “Under God.” Habecker will never achieve the status of an atheist hero like Michael Newdow, but keeps inflicting himself on the community that recalled him from office. Oh, the injustice and perfidy of the voters.
With the fourth anniversary of Habecker’s removal from office fast approaching, David has now anointed himself with the holy oil of Town Hall and re-entered the local political scene. David Habecker is a key member of “Friends of EPURA,” an organization formed to salvage the Town’s ability to skim money from all our other taxing districts. Now we can expect twice-a-month lectures to the Town Board on the topics of “there is no God” and “the blessed eternity of urban renewal.”
Habecker fancies himself a building designer, which sounds a lot like an unlicensed architect, engineer, and/or contractor. From that perspective, it is understandable why Habecker would champion an un-elected board of hand-picked community volunteers to plan Estes Park’s glorious future of tax-subsidized development. Trustee Dorla just wants to pick the color swatches on the next project.
Habecker might well be a secret proponent of Futurism. One hundred years ago, Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti wrote the Futurist Manifesto. Futurists wanted to obliterate the past. It was all up and forward for the Futurists. As I’m certain David knows, art and design in the past featured religious themes. Futurist artists discarded such cliches as the Madonna with child or the disemboweled Muhommed in Dante’s hell. Futurists favored the advance of technology and aviation, reaching beyond the limits of Icarus with his puny waxed wings.
Futurists opposed parliamentary democracy in Italy. Habecker opposes the citizen’s right to initiative in Colorado. Kindly Mayor Bill Pinkham keeps mumbling about the need to take the voters to court if they dare approve a citizen ordinance that would take away the Town’s favorite “funding mechanism.” Spoken like a futurist of the 2017 Committee. Hizzhonor operates under the illusion that courts, rather than the Town Attorney, seek the opportunity to foment conflict. We the voters aren't supposed to notice that the Town wants to sue us.
Under the Futurist guidance of David Habecker and the silent Trustees, we the voters are mere obstacles. Voters are to be bullied, cajoled, manipulated, sued, disparaged, and finally dismissed as the superstitious rubes and bumpkins David knows us to be.
If David can fool the voters, then his grand un-licensed vision for the Stanley Fairgrounds (a plan, by the way, that was rejected by Estes Park voters just a few short years ago) can become reality. Here’s why EPURA is the key to David’s plans. EPURA can issue bonds without a public vote. A “Yes” vote on the Ballot Question would end that gravy train. A “No” vote will be a green light to finance the Stanley Fairgrounds plans of Habecker & company. That plan was gathering dust on Town shelves until Blackhurst and his gang decided the cure for a global recession is flushing as much of the Town’s reserves as possible on capital projects.
The new Fairgrounds will be within eyesight of the Habecker compound/hotel, just across Lake Estes. A Multi-Purposeless Center and Indoor Just-Horsing around Arena will sit vacant much of the year. Cost estimates for these two structures alone top $8 million. Add in a Performing Arts Center with an outdated cost estimate of $5 million and you reach $13 million or even more. SOPA has raised about $1.5 million for their “private” project in the last few years. There’s no sign they’ll reach $5 million in the next 3-10 years. The big donors are gone or no longer reading the EP News. Keep EPURA, and the Town can finish the job with public money as a Tourist Attraction.
In the absence of God, man is prone to become a nihilist, believing that life is without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value. Fortunately, David has avoided the void by finding meaning in endless “urban renewal”—declaring our community still blighted after 25 years of toil. Instead of praying, we can bow our heads and thank David for stepping up to defend his vision of Progress.
As retailers continue to vanish like the hummingbirds headed to Mexico, Town Hall will build ever more shopper distractions called “destinations.” These man-made destinations can boast of attracting thousands of visitors each year, even as 3 million people per year largely pass by the earth-bound attractions of the Conference Center to revel in God’s great creation -- Rocky Mountain National Park.
Futurism began in 1983 in Estes Park with the creation of EPURA: the Estes Park Urban Renewal Authority. That future was paved with flagstones. Top songs of 1983 included Maneater by Hall & Oates, Come on Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and She Blinded Me with Science, by Thomas Dolby. Legwarmers were a hot fashion trend. Dallas, Dynasty and The A Team all graced the top-5 TV shows.
Twenty-five years later, our Town Board wants to continue EPURA’s Dynasty, convinced that EPURA remains their “A Team.” Come on Eileenlauer, we aren’t buying it. Votes don’t care about ensuring Trustee Eric Blackhurst’s ability to collect future listing and sales commissions from EPURA properties. Its taken EPURA 2 years just to figure out what to do with its last million. Giving $30 million back the the Town board was much easier.
Voters should care that our schools will be eliminating 12-15 teaching positions next year alone due to state budget cuts. Pat Newsom brags that EPURA doesn’t show up on your property tax bill. That makes EPURA the hidden tax. It’s a game of three-card Monty, where all our taxing districts lose out to “tax increment financing.”
By the 1940’s, Futurism was overtaken by the Future. Many Futurists placed their bets on the wrong future, supporting Fascism. In Fascist Italy, the trains and seasonal shuttle buses ran on time—right up until the Allied invasion. Futurist Filippo Tommasso Marinetti died in 1944 after numerous compromises with the Fascist regime.
In Estes Park, retailers are slowly dying. The Town Board played fiddle while the Park Theatre Mall burned. Now, on the eve of the election, EPURA touts all the ideas the Town Board rejected or neglected in the past, teasing desperate businessmen with what they have needed for fifity years. A downtown parking garage! New sidewalks along Moraine! They could have used the $30 million that went back to the Town Board. But like David Habecker tells us, it was the Town Board's money anyway.
That's the way they see all the property tax skim from the Schools, Larimer County and other taxing districts. Its our toy and the voters and other taxing districts can't take it!
Join the Estes Parkian in voting Yes on the citizen initiative. If you decide otherwise to vote no, at least have the decency to sell Habecker your vote in exchange for his pledge: no more Habecker rants about “under God.” It will save us the earache and him the embarrassment.
