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Trustee Kirby H., the Estes Park town board member who is modeling her career after the character Tracy Flick in "Election", has asked for a special session tonight (Tuesday, April 30) to challenge the recent appointment of newly-elected mayor Gary Hall to the Platte River Power Authority (PRPA) board. "This is an outrage", Kirby proclaimed, pullling out a pocket notebook and flipping to a page where she had written the word "outrage" in blue and yellow magic markers, heavily underlined in green. "I have lived in this community since 2014, and served on every committee, including the Yogurt Rehab Committee, that was available for me to serve on, and while I am happy to mouth the words "I would be happy to serve wherever" that is definitely not what I believe or deserve, which is that I deserve to replace Gary Hall on the PRPA board. I want to make it abundantly clear that, while I served on the Platte River Power Authority board in a pu

It's the end of April, and Estes Park is going to suffer through another weekend of paltry tourists, snow-covered sidewalks, and the abandoned road construction nightmare. Half the town is without power, and while that is not necessarily the town's fault (underground lines, anyone?), it might have been smarter to spend our $5.4 million and counting on something other than a two-year project involving tearing up the entire downtown with the goal of restoring it slightly differently. Luckily, the Safeway was still open at last check this morning, and while all of their day-old product will go to Crossroads, whose patrons eat way better than those working to earn a salary, at least your favorite off-brand tuna and chocolate-chip cookies from Mexico are on special ($3.79 rather than $3.99), if you are a Safeway Club member and have a digital coupon and go through self-checkout and donate $2 to Crossroads. Four months of 2024 are nearly past, and the sales tax numbers are going

Last night, as the new mayor demonstrated (volubly) he is not the old mayor, and Patrick wept while Wendy said her good-byes stone-faced, empathy for anyone not sharing at least 50% of her Viking DNA rapped tightly under a layer of cold till the end, the newly elected non-incumbents got a lesson of how things are going to be run over the next two years, courtesy of Kirby H. throwing a snit about what she wanted and what she deserved and how she will be happy to serve wherever she is appointed but she deserved to be appointed to Visit Estes Park. She will naturally contend that Bill B., as a newby, should not get what he wants, and, let's be honest, VEP is going to do whatever they want regardless of how many trustees fake monitor them, even if all six trustees were appointed as voting members, so the vote was meaningless, but set the stage for every future significant vote, and that outcome is 4-3. Grumblings will start among the three about why Marie C. is such a turncoat, but

43% voter turnout during a mayoral election cycle is pathetic, although useful when recalls are undertaken in the next two years (less total votes = less signatures needed to recall). The town needs to look into changing things to increase citizen participation, because at the present time, it couldn't be easier as far as mailing out ballots so the amount of work required to participate is minimal. My guess, without talking to people who didn't vote, is that the results were pretty much already known, the two venues for learning more about the candidates (the hopelessly biased and completely useless LWV forum and the incredibly biased and now toothless Trail-Gazette editoral board interviews) teach the unfamiliar or undecided absolutely nothing about the candidates, and the town realizes nothing will change when the staff runs the town instead of the trustees running the staff through the town administrator. The results for mayor versus trustees are, per usual, schizophreni

mayor - gary hall trustees - frank lancaster, bill (2 year term), mark, cindy 1% sales tax - yes zoning input from neighbors - no