Imagine my surprise when I heard from my brother in Grand Junction that the local paper there was quoting Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland as being apoplectic about “talk-radio stereotyping.”
As the sole proprietor of “Con Games” on KNFO 106.1 FM, the one and only local talk show heard every day in Aspen, I knew for sure that Hizzoner must have been razzing me. Not so.
The newspaper reports:
Americans For American Energy’s Greg Schnacke criticized ‘billionaires in Aspen and liberal politicians like Aspen’s Mayor Mick Ireland” for opposing development on the Roan, while Aspen’s “growing number of mountaintop mansions burn more natural gas in a day than most Coloradans use in a week.’
Schnacke had responded to a letter from mayors in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys and former Steamboat Springs City Councilman Ken Brenner, now a candidate for the Colorado Legislature, to the group that objected to “repeated attempts to equate any questioning of your industry’s agenda to abetting terrorists.”
“It appears to the mayors … that you have decided to make the sacrifice of the Roan Plateau an example of your political influence and the ruthlessness of your effort to secure every advantage for your industry supporters,” the mayor’s letter reads. “So, you have mounted a smear campaign that insists anyone who suggests we balance our need for energy with our obligation to protect our communities is unpatriotic or interested in a ‘weaker America.’ Gentlemen, this is not true and you know it. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Americans for American Energy has got Aspen’s Mayor Mick all wrong and rightly so. Anyone living beyond the roundabout can be excused for thinking the Mayor of Aspen simply has to be a card-carrying liberal, the kind that conservative talk shows blame for all our problems. How were they to know [type in sterotyping here] that Mick Ireland, who may once have been an actual liberal, is now a card-carrying communist who dedicates his politcal career to re-distribuging income from the rich to the poor, building housing for the people, ”master planning” a State vision of the city into oblivion, and fighting capitalism like the plague.
If anything, I have stereotyped Mick Ireland as a Bolshevik, a Leninist who distrusts the will of the people above all else–though I’m not sure I’m sterotyping any more. What started out as a joke–I even wrote a parody of a meeting at “The Bath Party”–has been picked up by local writers and seems to have some legs in the real world.
So is Mick Ireland a victim of sterotyping from the Left and the Right. Maybe so–but I prefer to think of him as Socialism With A Human Face.
Mick is an interesting human oxymoron. He was elected on a platform of limited growth. We all want that, so consider his slow growth concepts a big plus. However, our Mayor quickly evolved into an advocate of almost no growth at all. Unless of course that growth is to build additional “affordable housing,” (another oxymoron in Aspen.) As an aside, I always wonder why building a hotel is unacceptable “growth,” but building a Burlingame is somehow a God-given green venture. They both require trucks, cranes, movement of earth, pipes, sewers. You get the idea.
An interesting statistic, frequently bandied about , is that 80 percent of Aspen’s econonomy is based on real estate and construction and development. It’s not Sushi. It’s not belt buckles and it’s not pocketbooks. Why should we be concerned? Simple math would tell us that in some way, 80 percent of our “employees” derive their income from real estate or construction. They might not work for a developer, but do they toil for an architect, a law office, a realtor, a land planner or a restaurant that feeds these people?”
If we shut down almost all development, where will these employees work and how will they pay their mortgages on their affordable housing units? You might say that we have plenty of work in town right now, but this is the result of projects that were planned and approved 2-4 years ago. It will be interesting to see what happens with Aspen’s economy once the no-growth policies kick in. My concerns about the employees and how they will pay their bills always seem to fall on deaf ears.
Ironically, our current council’s policies won’t hurt Aspen’s rich, but they sure could put a ding in our “middle class.” Isn’t that who they are supposed to represent? Be careful what you wish for!
If 80% is close to correct that’s wonderful because cutting it to 40% will eliminate 40% of the traffic, parking problems, noise, congestion. Those that live close will have jobs and others may have to work in the mid valley or drive the other way. It will happen gradually so you might even find that a wide range of housing gets less expensive. That might be a nice side effect, sort of the way Aspen was before it became a real estate economy. Some things are good, others are bad but making a profit is not the defining ingredient of what good.
Steve is correct that the quality of life in Aspen would improve if we had less construction. It certainly would improve for people like Steve and me who no longer have to work to pay our mortgages, However, if our economy shrinks at the same time we are building more and more employee housing, something has to give. By definition, employees need a job. This isn’t about just making a profit. It’s about giving our workers the means to pay for the employee housing units we just sold them.
Moreover, if the residents of Aspen’s employee housing have to commute downvalley to work, (I agree with Steve this is a real possibility) then the “raison d’etre” for the employee housing has been lost. We shouldn’t forget that our community development plans suggest more employee units for the specific reason of housing our “work force.” The idea is to limit the number of commuters, not increase them! Whether they are driving up-valley or down-valley, commuters cause traffic congestion, carbon emissions and pollution.
[I prefer to think of him [Mick Ireland] as Socialism With A Human Face.]
Perhaps that characterization comes from the same void that defines religion as the art of fantasy.
Cheers,