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Mountain News: Aspen ‘building a retirement community’

ASPEN, Colo. — Most Aspenites are a few pickets short of living the American dream in a white-picket fence on the edge of town. Their housing is cramped, their expenses high.

ASPEN, Colo. — Most Aspenites are a few pickets short of living the American dream in a white-picket fence on the edge of town. Their housing is cramped, their expenses high. Still, they say, Aspen is worth the aggravations, they tell The Aspen Times.

“I pay $1,000 to live in a box,” said a bartender named Kevin Gadow. But I live here because it’s a small community, and it’s eclectic, and everyone is from somewhere else. I love living here.”

“I’m 48 and I have a roommate,” said Mikey Wechsler, a 28-year Aspen resident. “But hey, look around: Aspen Mountain is right in our face. For me it’s all about the outdoors.”

“You are constantly weighing whether it’s worth it,” says flight attendant Lisa Gonzales-Gile, who lives with her husband, a certified public accountant and their 8-year-old child in a house so cramped that “I have to squish myself to the end of my bed to get out of it because my room is so small.” Looking out the window, “It does make it all worth it,” she added.

Heading the list of aggravations is the constant stream of newcomers, especially affluent retirees or part-timers. The polarity is described by one bartender as that of the “grunts” and the “gazillionaires.”

Still, there is the underground economy, the barter system, that makes the cost of living more bearable.

And, in the face of housing prices that have increased 15-fold since the early 1980s, there is the community’s housing program. The deed-restricted affordable housing program provides homes, if mostly cramped ones, to 1,400 people, or 23 per cent of the local force. The community goal is 62 per cent.

Some 592 people own homes through the program, and 909 people rent.

But therein lies a problem. People are permitted to retire into their affordable housing, and many have indicated that’s just what they intend to do. As such, the number of retirees living in affordable housing is projected to jump from 207 today to 1,142 in little more than 20 years.

“We’re building a retirement community without knowing it,” said Michael O’Sullivan, a resident since 1976.

The city government in Aspen recently released two reports, the “State of the Aspen Area,” which attempts to document the area’s living environment in a less anecdotal way, and a “White Paper” that reviews the economy since the 1970s. Both documents, says Times reporter Carolyn Sackariason, deal essentially with the failures and successes over the last decade in keeping the community sustainable, and the government’s role in maintaining Aspen’s quality of life.

 

Energy costs hit Banff

BANFF, B.C. – Because of flat and declining revenues, Banff’s municipal government is trimming allocations for everything from fireworks displays to summer jobs for students. As well, a property tax increase is being studied.

A major background issue is the big jump in energy costs. Five years ago, the municipality was paying $53 per megawatt hour for electricity. The current rate is $88. Most of that electricity in Alberta is produced by burning coal or natural gas.

Ironically, notes the Rocky Mountain Outlook, the town had planned to shift its energy use to 100 per cent renewable sources. However, while the gap between fossil fuels and renewables is narrowing, renewable energy sources still cost more.

 

Dirty tricks alleged

I-70 CORRIDOR, Colo. – During the presidential campaign this year, supporters of Barack Obama strenuously objected to letters, e-mails and other campaign materials that included his middle name, Hussein. Their argument was that using his middle name was a sly attempt to link him in the public mind with Saddam Hussein, the late dictator of Iraq.

But something of the same thing occurred in a state legislative race in Summit, Eagle, and Lake counties. There, the Republican candidate, Ali Hasan, was targeted by a so-called 527 group unaffiliated with his opponent. The mailed fliers from a group called Accountability for Colorado included his first name, “Muhammad.” It is not a name he used in the campaign or on the ballot.

Christine Scanlan, who defeated Hasan, said she was nonetheless disturbed by the mailers. “What it shows is that we need real campaign-finance reform.”

Reward posted for anti-freeze dumpers

ASPEN, Colo. – We’re accustomed to just dumping everything down the drain. Isn’t that what it’s there for?

But in Aspen, sewage treatment plant operators have offered a $500 reward for information about whoever dumps banned substances, such as paint thinner, anti-freeze and other petroleum products down the toilet.

The Aspen Times explains that these substances can destroy the bacteria, which are crucial to effectively treating wastewater and allowing its discharge into the local trout fishery, the Roaring Fork River.

Sewer plant operators believe that a major source of problems are the lodges and hotels that this time of year flush anti-freeze from boilers in preparation for winter operations.

 

Sixth year of daily turns

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. – Rainer Hertrich continues his skiing streak, now at five years and counting, reports Summit Daily News sports columnist Devon O’Neil.

Hertrich has skied every day since Nov. 1, 2003. The 47-year-old Hertrich estimates he has spent $10,000 a year to maintain his five-year streak. From October to June, it’s done from his home at Copper Mountain, but during the other months he has traveled to the snowfields of Oregon and Chile, sometimes living out of a tent, and at other times enjoying the comfort of a hotel room. “The most dedicated skier in the history of the world,” asserts O’Neil in describing Hertrich.

 

Higher turbines proposed

GRANBY, Colo. – As homeowners begin to study wind, solar and other renewable energy sources located literally in their backyards, local governments are increasingly confronting that balance between private property rights and aesthetic tastes of neighbourhoods.

That question of balance has come up frequently in the matter of solar collectors. To some people, the collectors are unsightly. The issue is also arising in regard to wind turbines.

Consider Grand County, home to Winter Park, Grand Lake and other communities. Wind turbines are currently restricted to a maximum height of 35 feet. But the higher the better, says Guy Larson, who operates a Granby-based alternative energy firm called Simply Efficient.

“Every 10 per cent increase in wind speed, you get 30 to 40 per cent more production out of the turbine,” he told the Sky-Hi Daily News.

To accommodate that, Grand County officials are considering revised regulations to allow turbines of up to 65 feet, or a maximum of 20 feet above the tops of trees. This would be applicable on lots of 5 to 35 acres. Taller towers yet of 80 feet would be allowed on large properties.

If taller, is this still too low for wind turbines. Larson suggests so. Turbines are best located “twice the distance of the tower from a home or other structure” to lessen the likelihood of damage from gusts.

 

Don’t see that train a-comin’

INTERSTATE 70 CORRIDOR, Colo. – High-speed rail transit for the I-70 corridor between Denver and the mountain towns of Summit County and the Eagle Valley? Not anytime soon, says Michael Penny, the Frisco town manager and a leader of an I-70 task force. A study to examine the feasibility of high-speed transit was launched recently, with an expected completion midway through next year. Whatever that study concludes about the technical feasibility, however, the over-riding issue remains how do you pay for anything, says Penny. He projects smaller highway improvements could begin no sooner than 2011, and more significant highway improvements in 2017. As for a rail system, he sees a potential start somewhere from 2015 to 2020.

 

Mining company makes its case

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – It was a superb irony. Officials last week from one molybdenum mining company were purring into all available ears in Crested Butte about their compatability — and getting little encouragement. At the same time, officials from another molybdenum mining company were preparing to tell Leadville, which has eagerly been anticipating the reopening of the Climax Mine, that the deal is off indefinitely.

Crested Butte has heard from a long list of suitors during the last 30 years. The newest is Thompson Creek Metals Co., which recently acquired the lease to the giant body of molybdenum ore adjacent to Crested Butte within the bowls of Mt. Emmons.

The new company has shed the name for the project, Lucky Jack, assigned by the previous company, a Vancouver-based firm, as having too much of a gambling connotation. It wishes to portray exactly the opposite to Crested Butte, which has long feared that mining will impair or ruin the economies of tourism and real estate, which are based upon scenery and recreation.

Kevin Loughrey, the chief executive officer, told the Crested Butte News that his company already mines molybdenum in a very pristine area of Idaho — without problems. “It sits probably… as close to the Salmon River as Mt. Emmons is to the town of Crested Butte, and you can float the Salmon River and never know a mine is anywhere in any kind of reasonable distance.”

Local opponents aren’t buying any of this. “They told us nothing new, nothing that we hadn’t heard before,” said Bill Ronai, a board member of the Red Lady Coalition, an opposition group.

“While we respect our heritage in Crested Butte, we don’t want to go back to mining,” said Ken Stone, chief operating officer at Crested Butte Mountain Resort. “Sustainability as we see it revolves around a recreation economy. A mine doesn’t fit into that.”

Leadville, unlike Crested Butte, has never satisfactorily created a tourism-based economy since the Climax Mine was closed in 1981, throwing 3,000 people out of work. But as world commodity prices several years ago rose briskly, Freeport-McMorgan Copper & Gold Inc., began a long, measured study of the potential of reopening the mine. Finally, it announced it would do so in 2010, but only after a $500 million investment in more efficient mining equipment.

But now, after $150 million in investment, the reopening has been delayed indefinitely. The difference, explains the Rocky Mountain News, is that the market for molybdenum ore is $12 per pound, or about one-third the price from a month ago.

 

More of the same, but more

THE WEST, Colo. – Despite the backsliding economy, voters in ski town-anchored mountain valleys across the West last week agreed to continue many existing special taxes and also approved several new taxes.

In the Steamboat Springs area, for example, 77 per cent of voters agreed to extend a half-cent sales tax for schools to 2019. By a much narrower margin, the Aspen School District won a property tax increase. Crested Butte and Gunnison school propositions also won.

Sales tax and real-estate transfer taxes collected for affordable housing in Aspen were renewed. More broadly, a new sales tax to be used to purchase water rights — a hedge against increased transmountain diversions — and other water-related improvements was approved by Pitkin County voters.

Voters from Aspen to Rifle also approved an increase in taxes for mass-transit bus operations operated by Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. The agency hopes to add more buses, as current buses are increasingly crowded, while also making improvements to bus stops and other infrastructure.

In Colorado’s Summit County, voters overwhelming approved a property tax increase dedicated to a grocery bag of purposes, but notably open space and operations to manage local forests of lodgepole pine, which have been hit heavily by bark beetles.

Some tax-increase proposals failed, however. Pitkin County’s increased tax for county roads was defeated. Telluride voters rejected bonds for a new medical clinic, a school addition, and reconstruction of the highway leading into town.

It was also a good year to be an incumbent county commissioner. In Eagle County, where Vail is located, all three commissioners will be Democrats, as had previously been the case. Peter Runyon, espousing a slow-growth agenda, somewhat narrowly was re-elected. Joining the board will be former Eagle mayor Jon Stavney, who argued that the market left to its own devices will not build badly needed affordable housing, as Republican candidates had argued. Stavney, 40, told the Vail Daily he should know — he’s a builder, and all he builds is high-end second homes.

Gunnison County also stayed the course, reports the Crested Butte News, in re-electing Hap Channel and Paula Swenson to second terms.

The story was much the same in neighbouring Pitkin County, where The Aspen Times reports no substantial change in the governing philosophy of county commissioners, although long-time commissioner Dorothea Farris was term-limited out of office.

In Summit County, all three commissioners are now Democrats. The only Republican previously, Tom Long, was term-limited, and his wife, Peggy Long, a Silverthorne town councilman, lost in her bid to replace him.

In Jackson Hole, voters seemed to endorse the current attitudes toward development. Two incumbent county commissioners in Teton County were re-elected, as was Mark Barron, the mayor of Jackson.