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Mountain News: Aspen government continues to cut staff

ASPEN, Colo. - Aspen's city government has laid off 12 employees and eliminated four other positions. This is the third round of reductions during the last year.

ASPEN, Colo. - Aspen's city government has laid off 12 employees and eliminated four other positions. This is the third round of reductions during the last year. While Aspen a year ago was expecting a dramatic downturn in revenues, the slowdown has been even more substantial. Sales tax revenues through July have been down 18 per cent, while lodging taxes were down 27 per cent, and fees for development were off by 46 per cent, reports the Aspen Times . City officials are projecting a 1.5 per cent increase in sales and lodging taxes for next year and no change in fees collected for building and planning.

 

Age no barrier to cheating

VAIL, Colo. - Nearly 300 cases of deceptive use of a ski pass were reported last ski season on Vail Mountain. And not all of them were adolescents or even twentysomethings. Vail Municipal Judge Buck Allen tells the Vail Mountaineer that he didn't tabulate the number of 50- to 60-year-olds, but they were conspicuous enough to be noticed. Some 170 people were prosecuted for trying to share their season passes with friends.

 

Shop-local programs sort of work

JACKSON, Wyo. - Shop-local campaigns have been underway in various mountains valleys of the West. They've had varying degrees of success - and also provoked some pushback.

In Colorado, officials in Basalt had hoped to drum up local business by offering $30 gift certificates to shoppers for each cumulative $300 they spent at participating shops and restaurants. Still, sales in restaurants and bars fell 29 per cent in July, and general retail was off 41 per cent, reports the Aspen Times .

Maybe the decline would have been worse without the program, town officials wonder.

Basalt's so-so success hasn't dissuaded Carbondale, a few miles west, from launching something similar. There, town officials have plunked down $30,000 toward a three-month program leading up to Christmas. Every $25 in purchases yields a ticket, making its owner a possible winner of various prizes. As Carbondale may be the centre of the green-thinking universe, the grand prize would be an electric car.

Included are businesses that cater to the town's substantial population of Latinos.

In Wyoming, Roger Hayden writes in the Jackson Hole News & Guide to issue a proposition to the shop-local campaigners. A 16-year resident, he says he has shopped locally the whole time, even though it always cost more. He promises to continue doing so - but only if the stores hire U.S. citizens.

"With so many locals out of work in this dismal economy, employers have the pool of labor from which to hire, an option many claimed they lacked during boom times," he writes in a letter published in the newspaper. "Now, employers have no excuse for hiring foreign workers, legal or illegal."

 

SAR on speed dial

BANFF, Alberta - The fur trappers of the early 19 th century had what some called a "possibles bag." The modern-day equivalent for hikers, climbers, and hunters would certainly include matches, a compass, and a bivouac bag, in case misfortune resulted in an unexpected night out.

But for a decade, search-and-rescue officials have been reporting hikers who carry little more than a cell phone, expecting that they can call for help if they get into a pinch.

George Field, head of alpine safety in Kananaskis County, says that the problem with this thinking is that a cell phone offers little warmth or shelter.

"People need to realize they're not in Canmore or the city," he tells the Rocky Mountain Outlook. "We can't get to them in six to 10 minutes."

Field says he's not advising against packing cell phones. But they shouldn't be the default option, he says.

 

Wrinkly and too remote

KETCHUM, Idaho - What's the difference between the Ketchum/Sun Valley area and most of the other destination resorts of the West?

First, it's remote. Boise is several hours away, and the great population centres are even farther afield. And second, the demographics have a decidedly grayer tint even than most destination resorts.

At a recent session in Ketchum, consultants Becky Zimmerman of The Design Workshop and Chuck Madison of East West Partners compared the Idaho resort with three other destination resorts: Beaver Creek, Whistler and Northstar at Tahoe.

Madison said the permanent population of younger people in the Ketchum/Sun Valley area has dropped for some time. "That's not particularly good and needs to change," he said. He also said the most successful resorts can be reached more easily and allow great mobility once people arrive.

Zimmerman, who is based in Denver, said she has been to Sun Valley 60 to 70 times in the last decade. "And it's not easy to get to."

On the Idaho Mountain Express website, where the story appeared, bloggers had much to say. Several seemed to wonder why Sun Valley had paid consultants to explain what was so painfully obvious. Others said that the difficulty of access is a virtue for a resort. "One thing I always tell people is that it's hard to get to, and people don't just pass through," said one blogger. "If you are in Sun Valley, it's because you want to be there, and made the effort to get there, and it will never be a Lake Tahoe, or a Jackson or even a Vail. That is one thing I love about the place."

 

Aspen has plan for March

ASPEN, Colo. - Like most ski towns, Aspen was profoundly quiet last March. The Aspen Skiing Co. reported that just 50,000 skier days were recorded for the month at its four ski areas, compared to an average 220,000.

In hopes nothing of the sort happens this coming March, the ski company this year is aggressively promoting its special package, called Kids Ski and Stay Free in March. Families that purchase a minimum of four days of lift tickets and five nights of lodging get free skiing and accommodations for kids between 7 and 12 years of age.

But there's a kicker - isn't there always. The package must be purchased by mid-January.

Although the company plans to increase marketing for this coming winter, the company's senior vice president, David Perry, says he expects business to be no better than flat for the season. "We're really going to have to work hard to achieve that, in my opinion," he said.

Bookings for the coming winter lag those of last year at the resort.

Hoteliers in Aspen also expect a tough winter, with stiff competition both from other resorts and with new hotels now opening in Aspen.

Park City has two new five-star hotels opening, both of them at the town's Deer Valley Resort. Northstar at Lake Tahoe also has a Ritz-Carlton on line. The Aspen area also has new lodging properties coming on line.

The new lodging is an irony, in that Aspen promoters had long bemoaned the loss of bed capacity. The new capacity has finally arrived - but in a time of soft demand.

The average daily rate in Aspen and nearby Snowmass dropped 11 per cent in June, and 13 per cent in July, to $213 per night. Winter rates are roughly double, notes the Aspen Times .

 

Real estate sales up, prices down

VAIL, Colo. - Is the real estate market bouncing back? Agents in Vail report being very busy, and statistics from the Vail Board of Realtors confirm their stories. During August, 277 residential properties went under contract, compared to just 22 contracts through the first six months of the year. As has been the case elsewhere, the lower-end - defined here as less than $500,000 - has been responsible for a disproportionate amount of the activity. But the sales that are going through involve properties that have substantially discounted their prices. The Vail Daily tells of one property owner in Avon who is expecting to get $590,000 - about what was paid for it nine years ago.

 

Solar panels becoming affordable

TRUCKEE, Calif. - The Truckee Sanitary District has been looking at erecting photovoltaic panels at its various buildings, potentially reducing electricity costs from $20,000 to $25,000 down to zero. Of course, the investment cost is considerable, about $1 million, and at current electricity prices the investment will take 40 years to pay off, utility officials tell the Sierra Sun. But if prices of electricity continue to rise, the investment would be paid off in about 20 years.

 

Farmers' market a hit

PARK CITY, Utah -The farmers' market in Park City has become very much the hit in its third season, drawing upwards of 5,000 people. Many make a special trip from the Great Salt Lake Valley, located about a half-hour away.

The market -officially called the Park Silly Sunday Market - has more than just fresh veggies from the fields. Booths located at the bottom of the town's winding, steep main street also offer assorted arts and crafts, while musicians float their notes between the century-old buildings.

But the Park Record says merchants located at the top end of the district seem to think that the rising waters don't necessarily float all boats. They felt left out of the action. Partly in response to their concerns, the city has hired a firm, Economic & Planning Systems, to formally analyze the benefits of the street market, and how the mix of vendors might better be arranged. Economic & Planning Systems, which has done similar studies in Vail, Breckenridge and Telluride, plus Anchorage, Alaska, is being hired at a cost of $30,000.

 

How to get rid of beetle kill

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. - With so many lodgepole pine trees dying in Colorado, the question has become what to do with all the debris at the ski areas.

At Steamboat, a process called mastication is being used to grind up the slash. As the name suggests, the process involves a great deal of gnashing, sometimes sending debris flying as far as 300 feet, notes The Steamboat Pilot. Forestry officials say the material - which is different than basic wood-chipping - leaves the forest floor in a condition that promotes regrowth.

At Beaver Creek, the Forest Service has announced a different challenge. The problem defined there is that roads built for logging or even ski areas don't necessarily accommodate the sort of 18-wheel trucks needed to haul out wood chips. Instead, a shipping container - such as you might see on a railroad flat-bed car, carrying trinkets form China - is mounted on the carriage of a conventional logging truck.

Cary Green, a timber management assistant, explains that technological tweaking allows the trucks on roads with tighter turning radii.

But Green also sees a broader need: "If we could economically convert these dead trees to wood chips and haul them out of the forest, they represent a very good source of biomass fuel."

A private developer is working with Vail town officials in hopes of building a biomass plant to produce heat in winter and electricity during summer.