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Mountain News: Jackson Hole welcomes Obamacare

JACKSON, Wyo. — It was standing room only at the Teton County Library in Jackson when a state insurance official explained nuances of the Affordable Care Act, what is commonly called Obamacare.
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JACKSON, Wyo. — It was standing room only at the Teton County Library in Jackson when a state insurance official explained nuances of the Affordable Care Act, what is commonly called Obamacare.

Jackson Hole, as Teton County is more commonly called, is among the wealthiest places in the United States. Still, many residents will qualify for the subsidized health insurance.

The Jackson Hole Daily says applicants qualify if they earn between 100 and 400 per cent of federal poverty income levels. That's up to $46,000 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of four.

"It's high time we had some sort of government program. It's long overdue," said Liz Goldsmith, a former emergency medical technician.

"Health care costs have skyrocketed," she said, "and we're the only advanced country in the world that doesn't have some sort of program for health care."

Government shutdown crimps yuletide cheer

VAIL, Colo. — What does the shutdown of the U.S. government have to do with drinking beer? Plenty, it turns out. An agency of the U.S. Treasury regulates new labels and recipes at breweries such as Crazy Mountain Brewery, one of several in the Vail area.

Brewery representatives tell the Vail Daily that they have a December beer called Bridge St. Holiday Ale ready to brew, but the labels can't be processed by the agency because agency staff members have been furloughed until Republicans in Congress allow the debt ceiling to rise.

Beer at the Gore Range Brewery flows only to customer tables and not in packages to be taken outside. As such, the brewery has no concern about federal agencies. "The more beer and the less government you have in your life, the better your life will be," said a company representative.

Banff sewage creates income source

BANFF, Alberta — You can't entirely call it "waste" when it's yielding revenue of $15,000 a year. That's the assessment in Banff, where sewage is being used as the core ingredient for a fertilizer and soil amendment. Food waste and lime from a nearby cement factory are also part of the mix, which the Rocky Mountain Outlook says is mostly free of pathogens while retaining other useful microorganisms.

A hotel for Snowmass? But not at other places

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo. — From Colorado to Montana, there's talk of hotels in ski towns of the West. The most clear-cut story comes from Snowmass Village, where the Aspen Skiing Co. wants to build a 103-room hotel.

Snowmass is the big ski area for Aspen, the place for intermediate-skiing destination visitors. However, as Aspen's lodging base eroded, the ski company a decade ago found itself losing ground to Beaver Creek, Deer Valley and other resorts with newer hotels.

Finally, a decade ago, Aspen Skiing Co. teamed with Intrawest to put together a massive redevelopment plan, ultimately called Base Village. After being spun off to a third party, called Related Westpac, the project delivered a major hotel, the Viceroy. However, other projects got caught with their pants down by the recession. Concrete foundations and rebar remained when the financial collapse occurred.

Now comes the Aspen Skiing Co., known locally as SkiCo, with intent to buy a lot on which free-market condominiums had been planned. By expanding the building footprint, Aspen Skiing Co. figures it can create short-term rentals with the type of price point — high, but not nosebleed by Aspen standards — to draw destination skiers.

"The unfinished condition in Base Village is damaging our brand, our customers are losing patience, and local businesses and taxing districts are struggling," says a memo from the SkiCo to the Snowmass Village Town Council.

The company wanted an abbreviated review process, and the Aspen papers indicate that Snowmass is likely to give it. Construction is planned to be completed in late 2015, or a little more than two years from now.

In nearby Aspen, the new owners of a property in the downtown area are reported to be considering their options for a mixed commercial and lodging property. The key is that Aspen's new zoning allows three stories high, but only if the property is located on the north side of the street, to avoid putting too much of the street into shade. This property fits that bill.

But the story of hotels cuts both ways. In Ketchum, nobody seems able to scrape up the financing for construction of hotels. Town officials there began revising regulations early in the last decade to allow a new generation of taller buildings to accommodate for-sale real estate. Such real estate has been seen as necessary in ski towns to defray the short-term beds for rent that are needed in a tourism economy.

Five different hotels were subsequently approved. Not one has been built. One of them, Hotel Ketchum, originally got approvals in November 2008. Developer Jack Bariteau notes horrendous timing for his 73-room Hotel Ketchum. He got approval in November 2008. "I didn't foresee this difficulty in finding capital," he told the Ketchum Town Council. He said he's worked in real estate since 1976, and this was the fourth recession he's lived through. "Nobody could have predicted the depth of this, or the destruction that it's caused."

Bariteau told the Idaho Mountain Express that he is reviewing several offers for the $52 million he needs to build the hotel. Most intriguing is the potential for foreign investment. Under the U.S. government's EB-5 funding that was created 25 years ago, foreign nationals may obtain green cards in exchange for investing money in projects in the United States.

That funding formula was the vehicle for Chinese investment in a project in Vail.

Finally, in Whitefish, Mont., plans for a $70 million hotel and convention center have been scrapped after the unnamed developer had to withdraw because of personal health. The hotel, reports the Whitefish Pilot, was to have had 150 rooms, a year-round ice rink, a 4,200-square-metre water park and a convention centre large enough to accommodate groups of up to 1,500 and banquets for 2,000.

Was this ever real in the first place? That's a large conference space. A study conducted by Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International concluded that a large-scale destination convention centre as was planned was unlikely to succeed. The problem: Whitefish is just too isolated and had inadequate air service.

Vail, less than two hours from Denver and with a good flight schedule at a nearby airport, also came to the same conclusion about a big convention centre.

That same study for Whitefish does recommend an upscale hotel with 100 rooms and a smaller conference center serving up to 500 people. One such hotel was proposed but then scrapped when the developer couldn't secure financing. Another boutique hotel in the same downtown area also has gotten nowhere.

Life-and-death drama in the rocks

JASPER, Alberta — It was a matter of life or death. This drama, however, was long ago, during the 270 million years when the marine creatures called trilobites existed in Cambrian seaways. These animals, with segmented bodies and many tiny legs, had to defend themselves against predators.

How did they do so? By rolling up, according to a new discovery at one of the trilobite fossil beds in Jasper National Park. Dr. Javier Ortega-Hernandez explains that in rolling themselves into balls, the early trilobites were able to protect their vital areas with a tough outer carapace, or shell. Later trilobites were known to defend themselves in this way, but the fossil evidence for the earlier trilobites was lacking, explains the Jasper Fitzhugh.

Want to go get your own rolled-up trilobite fossil? You won't get any help from Ortega-Hernandez. He was tight-lipped in his interview with the Fitzhugh, for fear that fossil hunters would plunder and pillage the site.

Breck now charging for bags

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Although the decision was made many months ago, Breckenridge this week instituted its ban on free disposable shopping bags. A 10 cent fee is to be charged for most disposable plastic and paper bags.

The fee is intended to encourage the use of reusable bags. Fee revenues will be used to promote the use of reusable bags.

Research found that an estimated three million disposable bags are handed out by retail and grocery stores in Breckenridge annually.