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From February until May 30, this is the only significant recording of Estes Park's history for the year 2020, reduced to a few anonymous numbers.  Not local elections, not state supreme court decisions, not grants received or rejected.  This table, and how it is interpreted, and what predictive value it possesses, has a stranglehold on our future.  Three individuals on this list have been identified (well, two, the third just by profession) by newspaper accounts or press releases, and one Estes Park resident not on this list, whose case was grouped with Boulder County, self-identified. Some people know the names of all eight individuals, most people do not.  Some people in Estes Park have access to this information, most do not.  This is also Estes Park's history in a nutshell, where status and pecking order is conferred by information - Who has access to it, who is left in the dark. How can the Jane Doe public, provided with this table, make in informed...

Of the town board coming to a decision and "speaking as one". Transcription:  I do agree with your disgust with the majority of the board, however, I do want to clarify the vote was 4 to 3, so please do not group us all... Perhaps during that training session Ms. Youngland sat through two weeks ago, the one on how to behave as a board member, her brain was on mute the entire time.  Elected in April, going rogue in May.  Cindy, Cindy, Cindy.  I'm guessing that's not short for Cinderella.  Maybe Prima donna.  Magic 8-ball says:  "Recall in your future".

Enact a mask ordinance during the slow month of May, then discard the mask ordinance (or rather, yield to Larimer County, which essentially requires no masks, just "encourages" them, which means they won't be worn) for the much busier month of June.  Do I have that right?  Not a great start, and not a great way to mobilize the four votes you always have in your back pocket. And Ken Zornes voted in favor of this, took a 180?  Ouch.  And Cindy Younglund is way out of her element when it comes to liquor ordinances.  No, that wasn't a question.  Cindy, just a hint - You just got on the board, and you have never been a fixture in the audience at town board meetings.  Not sure you have ever attended one, unless it was because you stumbled into town hall looking for your knitting class.  Let other, more experienced board members, make the motions on quasi-judicial matters.  Unless you are a genius, or know a lot about liquor ordinances. But I...

When I posted the link to this article on Instagram, the number of comments from people who believed vaccine distribution was being held up by an advertising campaign ran into the high 70s.  Another 15 comments were from people who swore they wouldn't get the vaccine even after Pfizer settled on the proper roll-out in the press. Folks, there is no vaccine yet not to vaccinate yourself with.  Hold off on the tin-foil hat talk until after the phase III trials.

Gerald "Jerry" Sloan, passed away this morning, age 78, from Lewy body dementia and Parkinson's disease. Was the only decent thing left in Salt Lake City, besides Saltair and Doki Doki

in the United States, which is tragic.  However, when that artificial milestone is passed, it is important to recognize the source of the majority of those deaths.  Twelve states, either on the east coast or the high population "four-corners" of Florida, Texas, Illinois/Michigan, and California, are contributing 75% to the count.  Thirty-eight states contribute the remaining 25%, and six of these states - Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota, contribute less than 0.2%.  The virus circulating in all these states is the same, barring some inconsequential nucleotide changes, but the impact is vastly different, largely, if not entirely, because of: (1) lower population densities, thus keeping SARS-CoV-2 smoldering instead of blazing into wildfire infernos, and (2) ability to keep outsiders out, and keep insiders from going out and bringing SARS-CoV-2 back.  So every state and every community should approach reopening differently, and Estes Pa...

by local hotel occupancy rate.  From April's anemic 7% occupancy, my guess is, given the power of the Estes Lodging Association, this mask ordinance will be reversed two weeks ago, with another week removed prior to that for seasonal adjustment.

This will start to be old hat.  Odds are, the age of the most recent case indicates another person on the front lines, perhaps someone employed as an EMT.  Let's just figure 2% of Estes Park's permanent population has been infected since March 15.  1% of 6500 is 65, double that for 130.  That is likely how many Estes Park residents have COVID-19 antibodies currently, so anything less than this is just a catch-up.  From 5 to 130 is going to be a long, slow, painful road if we perform a few tests a day based on symptoms or first-responders. I would think the mask ordinance, if we are actually doing a proper job of monitoring increases in cases, will remain in place throughout the summer.  However, if we just got over ourselves and gave every local an antibody test, we could remove the mask ordinance immediately, and those who tested negative could avoid the downtown area, and those forced to work downtown could wear a mask if they had underlying concern...

Here are two problems with an otherwise amazingly well-written and researched article, given the circumstances: First two confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Estes Park First, it relies on one source, admittedly the source best acquainted with particulars, provided particulars were properly recorded and nothing was overlooked - For example, according to his own Facebook page, son Richard flew back from a massive "Spring Break"-type party in Texas in mid-March, about the time that everything began shutting down as cases started appearing in large numbers around the United States, but prior to masks being required on airplanes, or attendance at events like Spring Break-type outings surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of people, started being actively discouraged.  Was this question asked:  When did son Richard first visit his parents, either in Denver or Estes Park, after returning from Texas?  And was this follow-up question asked:  Was son Richard tested for SARS...

So is the kid in the back the one peeing in the pool, or the business owners getting the shaft? The following institutions have been essentially closed for business for the past two months: Estes Valley Library Estes Park Museum Estes Park Health clinics Estes Park town staff Yet none of the more than 500+ employees in these four institutions have suffered job losses, furloughs, or, as yet, any reduction in wages.  Wonderful for them.  Except that money is not coming from any particular service they are providing (and the library and museum and the hospital and most of the recreations and events provided by the town lose money anyway), that money is coming from the taxes of those that have to eat and have running water, some of whom are not working. These four institutions depend on property taxes and sales taxes and, in the case of the hospital, which loses money year after year, subsidies from the federal government plus insurance and out-of-pocket reimbursement...

Right, Belle Morris?  You and Tom "Get Rid Of Every" Street are going to turn Estes Park into your own private mezzanine.  Great, but what was the point of the Loop again, if you are going to turn Elkhorn into a walking mall?  Seriously, why are we tearing down buildings if Elkhorn is not even going to be used for automobile traffic? Hey, while your at it, turning everything west of the library into a footpath, install a couple of pedestrian roundabouts, just for the hell of it.  It's not like you're elected officials or anything, or responsive or responsible for the human experiments you conduct at business expense. Maybe one of the beer gardens could be in your back yard.  You wouldn't mind that daily clean-up, would you?  Oh, and do you wear masks in your home?  Well, thanks for making all of the downtown a crawling cesspool of COVID, not just the sidewalks.  We can always spray "Round Up" or something on the streets.  And by "we" I...

You're the next contestant on the "I'm Talking Completely Out Of My Ass" show. Don't eat this.  I KNOW it is runny diarrhea.  Many more of us believe it is runny diarrhea than buckwheat pancakes. Here is the concluding statement of what Fred R. Mares wrote to the town board recently: "As I am sure your decision will meet with some dissension, please know that many more of us are in favor of the masking requirement than are opposed." Please KNOW that MANY MORE OF US ARE IN FAVOR of blah blah blah THAN ARE OPPOSED. Fred R. Mares KNOWS this, and wants the town board to KNOW this as well. Question is, how does Fred R. Mares KNOW this?  How does he know this as a factual piece of valid, scientifically reproducible information?  Did he personally communicate with 6500 people in town?  Did he conduct a telephone poll?  Did he pay an outside firm money to conduct a legitimate telephone poll? Reverse this statement for a second, and see why some...

Then Google Dick Colin of Estes Park. WTF is going on with our local news media?  Why is a story that should have broken two weeks ago still not being reported locally?  Following the deaths one after another of two long-time Estes Park residents, husband and wife?  This is not one of those "The Notebook" style happy endings.  This is two people dying well before their actuarial prediction. How is it that public citizens are forced to put the pieces together, and how is it that grieving children have to suffer more from Facebook pointing out the connection between two cases of SARS-CoV-2 in 84-year-olds in Estes Park, followed by the death of two related 84-year-olds in Estes Park? If ever Estes Park needed a shoulder to cry on and a newspaper comfortable with asking tough questions, now is the time.

Supposin, during a mail-ballot election, the company in charge gave the current board members or the senior leadership team a little "sneak preview" of the ballots that were returned by mail or dropped off at the ballot box a week before the official election date.  Nothing wrong with this, the early ballots come in and have to be processed, right? Now, supposin the current board saw a trend emerging from these early results, such as:  One of the incumbents, maybe two of the incumbents, were not going to have any trouble getting re-elected, but the third incumbent was running neck and neck with a non-incumbent candidate who was acceptable to the board, with the remaining candidates, unacceptable to the current board, further back. Supposin one of the incumbents who had access to this information contacted a close friend, say the current mayor, and asked that individual for a favor, supposin something along the lines of, "Hey, you are the current mayor, and it would ...

It was intriguing that selected Estes Park residents knew an 84-year-old man from Estes Park had died of SARS-CoV-2 infection two weeks before the rest of us.  This is not osteosarcoma, or AIDS, or tuberculosis, all terrible things to die from, but for which the public's right to know is not deemed critical. But how Estes Park moves forward depends very much on knowing how many cases of COVID-19 there are, and how many deaths there are, in the surrounding community.  Immediately upon a positive result coming back.  Immediately upon a death from someone who had a positive result, whose death was temporally related, and not due to other causes, like a car accident or self-immolation. Does Estes Park Health operate on a different ethical standard from other hospitals?  Has Governor Polis granted the leadership team a special right to hide statistical information from the public if it is deemed "troubling"? How patronizing.  How wonderfully overlordly of ou...