ASPEN, Colo. - The Great Recession has had even the well-heeled grabbing for the railings. That has had no small impact on the upper-crust ski towns.
Now, reflecting on the decade that was, many voices see the need to reposition themselves.
In Aspen, Mayor Mick Ireland continues to push for a return to the tourism that he found when he got there in the 1970s, working first as a dishwasher and bus driver. His vision of Aspen includes lower price points and less real estate carved out for the exclusive use of a few.
"I think we've gotten the community talking about economic future in a way that wasn't done in the past," Ireland told the Aspen Times in a year-end interview. "We need to build an economy that's not so boom or bust, but one that has more flexibility and a broader base."
One way to create affordability, he said, is to ensure that city-approved developments include short-term accommodations. "When you look at development, you have to make sure you aren't creating cold beds. You have to have an access point for people to come here."
He also wants to see more affordable housing. "If we are serious about housing our workforce... the time and place for that is not when you are in crisis mode, but when there is competition (for construction work)," he said.
In Jackson, Wyo., there was a backlash to the mansions of the last 20 years. In a letter published in the Jackson Hole News & Guide , John Pistono says enough is enough. The last four houses he worked on "were simply too much: too many resources used for too few people," says Pistono, who identifies himself as a construction worker of some sort.
Yes, he says, some of the folks who owned some of the houses worked hard and made clever decisions to make money. "They deserve to be comfortable," he adds, "but ..."
In an editorial, the same newspaper takes a somewhat broader view: "Given the past year's economic tumult, it is clear Jackson Hole has a choice: continue to embrace material excess or find a sustainable socioeconomic model."
Jonathan Schechter, also in the News & Guide , argues for the need to transition to a "new, humbler economic reality." He sees the next decade as an opportunity to foster a new sustainability ethic.
Alas, sustainability is a pickle of a term to define. Schechter sees the need for environmentalists to recognize that economic health is part of true sustainability, while dyed-in-the-wool free-marketers must recognize that unregulated markets invariably collapse under the weight of their own greed. And, he adds, environmental health is the basis for all wealth, so it cannot be trampled.
It might be worth noting that many of these same individuals and newspapers were saying much the same thing before the economy discombobulated.
Sales edging higher
ASPEN, Colo. - Both the real estate and tourism economies seemed to be improving in recent months in Aspen and Pitkin County. The Aspen Times reports increases in sales volumes in September, October and November compared to the previous year, and while December was down once again, the number of sales actually was about the same as last year.
Jacobson Kopf, with more than 35 years of real estate experience in Aspen, told the Aspen Times that she believes the market will return to "normal" in 2011 and for appreciation to begin in 2012.
For the year, total sales sagged to $1 billion in Pitkin County - about what it was in 2003. The market reached its zenith in 2006 and 2007, with sales of about $2.6 billion.
Retailers in Aspen were also finding more good cheer over Christmas. The Aspen Times notes that storefront windows a year ago were plastered with "SALE SALE SALE" signs. They are mostly gone.
"People are opening their wallets, finally," said Mickey Palper, owner of a fur shop. "It seems like the general attitude is much better."
Western-wear purveyor Tom Yoder said the vibes are different. "It feels busy and we're having more fun," he told the newspaper. "I think that's the main thing. We and our customers are having more fun. Last year, we were all just a little puckered."
In the I-70 corridor, there were also reports of an uptick. Paul Connelly, owner of a reservations booking service in Frisco, told the Summit Daily News that reservations are higher, if price points are lower. Two flagship lodges, one in Vail and the other in Breckenridge, were filled for New Year's.
Green vows for 52 weeks
PARK CITY, Utah - Diane Foster, the environmental sustainability manager for Park City's municipal government, has come up with a novel idea. In an effort to promote awareness of an individual's environmental impacts, she has launched something called "My Sustainable Year."
Think of "My Sustainable Year" as being like a New Year's resolution, but more like a sampler. Instead of an onerous year-long commitment, there will be 52 possible actions, to be executed for a week each.
For example, one week's vows call for an individual to live on 20 gallons of water per day. Another would have somebody try to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet for a week.
A third week might be to go without indoor lights at home. That, explained Foster, can make a person aware of the easy habit of flipping a switch.
"I have no idea how this is going to go," she said in late December. She said the idea is based loosely on the One Book, One Community program. In the case of Park City, she has no illusions that everybody will participate from day one. But, over time, she hopes that enough people participate that it becomes a conversation topic and spreads virally.
Park City would seem to be receptive of the program. When a meeting about global warming was held several years ago, 1,000 people showed up.
More recently, Foster solicited ideas about what steps might be taken to make the local community more self-sufficient and with fewer environmental impacts. Some 90 people showed up. Colorado-based Brendle Group, a consultant in energy matters, said that turnout was as large as one in North Carolina with four to five times the population.
"For a Tuesday night in November with the only bribe being cookies," that was pretty good, said Foster.
That meeting was part of a community envisioning process. Foster said a draft action plan is tentatively scheduled for April release. That plan will sort through the potential action steps, the costs and other challenges to their implementation, and the expected return on investment.
Sun Valley goes dark
SUN VALLEY, Idaho - For years, Idaho Power had been warning that Sun Valley, Ketchum and other towns in the Wood River Valley were at risk of failing power. Late on Christmas Eve, it happened.
Very little was unaffected. Some people thought to flee, but the gas station pumps weren't working. Similarly, tap water was unavailable in places, because of the lack of pumping. Homes that were electrified rapidly got cold. Albertsons, the community's largest grocery store, opened the door to the cold to prevent frozen items from warming.
Sometime the next day, the electricity returned to portions, but not soon enough for the ski lifts at Bald and Dollar mountains to begin operations. At Sun Valley Resort, guests were slipped notes under their doors during the night to advise them that staying in bed was the best recourse for the time being. At some point, though, gas grills used in the summer were fired up to heat coffee and cook a make-shift buffet.
There were a few exceptions. The local hospital has a backup generator able to sustain operations for up to two weeks. And one bar in Ketchum had anticipated just such an occurrence with its own backup generator, which kept on the lights and doubled the business. Not so down valley in Hailey, where actor and bar owner Bruce Willis and his band were cutoff in mid-song by the loss of electricity.
The Idaho Mountain Express, after reporting all this, observed that local officials had failed to use new technology, the Internet, which remained accessible to people with smartphones, in informing people where they could get warm if temperatures in homes and lodges continued to drop, and where to get gasoline if they needed to leave, and where to get water or food.
The outage was caused by a combination of cold, iced power lines, and high demand.
Lots of earaches
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. - Crested Butte's council has settled on how it will handle the matter of medical marijuana dispensaries, at least for now. Five permits will be issued, and no more. The town studied what Aspen, Breckenridge and other Colorado towns had done before coming up with their own, unique approach, reports the Crested Butte News.
In Colorado's Summit County, Sheriff John Minor said while the landscape has changed rapidly, he has problems with some of the changes. Medical use for people in chronic pain he understands, but it seems suspicious when young people are able to get a license for marijuana use for an earache.
Blanning indeed remembered
ASPEN, Colo. - On New Year's Eve in 2008, long-time Aspenite Jim Blanning closed down the town's commercial core. First, he dragged his handmade bombs into two banks and demanded money, and then when the sirens began wailing, left two other bombs in an alley.
Those bombs - bladders of gasoline with detonators formed from cell phone parts and mousetraps - were capable of going off, experts later determined.
Blanning later went to a Nature Preserve and shot himself. Whether he actually intended to kill anybody else is still being debated.
"The main part of the killing was to make a statement and make sure I'm remembered, but it seems I've done that," Blanning said in his suicide note.
But in interviews with The Aspen Times, some of his acquaintances insist he wouldn't have wanted to kill anyone.
He did cause a loss of business that was estimated at several hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some restaurateurs tried to shake down his estate for damages, but they discovered that he was virtually penniless.
As for police in Aspen, they learned from the experience that they were unprepared for such things, mostly in internal and external communication, although an internal review found that the department had handled the bomb scare well.
Since then, though, planning for other calamities has been improved.
Telluride chills with no power
TELLURIDE, Colo. - For years, some people in Telluride talked about the community's vulnerability to aging transmission lines. On New Year's Eve, that vulnerability became evident when a breaker tripped, ending power for about an hour. Some people were stranded on the gondola, which ferries passengers between Telluride and the slope-side town of Mountain Village, for 16 minutes. A blogger on the Telluride Daily Planet remarked that all in all, this wasn't such a bad problem to have - it indicated lots of people were in town. Sources in Telluride, however, said the lodges were filled to about 80 per cent, not the filled-to-the-rafters like the holidays of old, but an improvement over some times of the last year.
Hospital goes cold turkey
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. - The Yampa Valley Medical Center went cold turkey on Jan. 1. Joining more than 600 hospitals across the country, the facility ruled that no tobacco will be allowed - no cigarettes, no pipes, no snuff, no nothing. And that includes in parked cars. Patients who insist on using tobacco will have to check out of the hospital and then go through the rigmarole of getting readmitted.
More big boxes planned
SILVERTHORNE, Colo. - With a Target already in operation, Silverthorne has been entertaining a proposal from The Home Depot to build one of its big-box hardware stores. Now comes a new plan from Lowe's, another big-box hardware retailer, which has purchased land and has assembled plans for a 125,000-square-foot building. A representative from The Home Depot tells the Summit Daily News that his company is sticking with the game plan, despite Lowe's arrival.
