Lies the government tells us

Back when the Nature Conservancy was pretending to have to lobby the town board for vendor space in the Estes Park Visitor's Center, one of their selling points was that once they were in place, a real live expert on Rocky Mountain National Park would be available to answer visitor questions. Previously, they contended, or our town administrator contended, all questions related to Rocky Mountain National Park had to be deferred, because the volunteer staff wasn't qualified or authorized to answer them.

Everyone who attended this sham hearing knew the town board would unanimously approve the Nature Conservancy becoming the sole vendor in the one place that gets ths highest guaranteed traffic every day of the year, so I hope they had to provide some type of sexual favors to staff, because otherwise this was an empty exercise all around, and the town bent over once again without having any feelings of self-worth to show for it: I entered the Visitor's Center today, and the lone Nature Conservancy staff memnber in the building resembled nothing so much as a cashier, unable to answer simple questions about the Junior Ranger program in the park, which would seem to be something a person allowed sole monopoly on providing RMNP information could quote in their sleep. Indeed, the only person able to answer any questions about the Junior Ranger program was one of the red-shirted volunteers, who, during the aforementioned town board discussion, was supposedly not allowed or not qualified to get anywhere near Rocky questions. So maybe this entry should be "Lies the Nature Conservancy tells us". They have the monopoly on local author books sold in the Visitor Center, and since the Nature Conservancy authors are unreadable, and things like the Abner Sprague book are available free of charge at Colorado Historic Newspapers for anyone who bothers looking, I'm really not going to get my panties in a wad about the nonsense spewed at town board meetings in order to sell something that had been decided long in advance, and would result in the same vote if the Nature Conservancy representative had said "We are going to be in the Visitor's Center and do nothing to justify you allowing us to be in the Visitor's Center besides sell a buttload of merchandise, and now you can vote unanimously to give us exclusive marketing presence at the Visitor's Center", because it is all a game and the current batch of trustees are just dolls with set phrases they repeat when you pull their strings anyway.