Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Let's go back 10+ years ago, to March 2014, when Kirby Nelson-Hazelton was a Visit Estes Park staff member, Scott Webermeier was on the board of directors, and Elizabeth Fogarty had been selected yet had still not replaced the retiring Peggy Campbell as CEO. Even back then, the CEO was pulling in over $100K per year. Scott Webermeier, who left the school board under something of a cloud in 2003, and failed a re-election attempt in 2007 (this all relates to Richard Kastendieck, the superintendent of Estes Park School District R-3, who was convicted of embezzling more than $60,000 from the district) was a big Fogarty supporter, and was not a big fan of some of the other school board members who witnessed his interactions with Kastendieck. These folks not only remained in Estes Park, but began running for various board positions in other fields.

This is all water under the bridge, but the rift in the current Estes Park political scene relates to which side you were on in 2003, when Kastendieck retired and accounting discrepancies started coming to light, and then whose side you remained on in 2014 to 2017, when Elizabeth Fogarty was the victim of a putsch or had to face the music for her spending extravagancies, again the interpretation depending on which side you were on. The actors in the various dramas in Estes Park that have unfolded since that time [since 2003 (!), all those on the sidelines, or those who arrived later, being held hostage to something that occurred 20 years ago!], can be traced back to where you fell on the Kastendieck problem as it unfolded (or on which side you chose to align if you weren't in Estes Park in 2003, but heard the stories from someone who was), which was replayed though the Fogarty problem as it unfolded in 2014-2017, and the Cody Walker/Todd Jirsa election/recall and Eric Blackhurst/Wendy Koenig conspiring to replace Cody/Todd problem in 2016-2019 as it unfolded, and the Wendy Koenig choosing not to run again "problem" in 2023-2024. This is a fight that, even if you weren't directly involved in any of the various Executive Sessions surrounding all of the intrigue, are still judged for and categorized by, depending on whether you are a Kastendieck/Webermeier/Fogarty/Blackhurst/Koenig side of the argument supporter, or a Pesses/Dickey/Jirsa side of the argument supporter. The meaningless VEP liason (actually board appointment, but who the frick cares) brouhaha precipitated by the inagural board meeting last week was really 20+ years of warring factions played out all over again, same crap seventh verse, this time through direct or descendent proxies. Jason Van Tatenhove, another late arriver who is not at all apologetic about stepping into the fray and stirring shit up, has just cast the battle lines afresh by asking one of the newly elected board members for public comment on how they saw the April 2024 smackdown take place from their courtside vantage point, with this individual all too willing to provide it. One doesn't even need to await the editorial tomorrow to see how it is going to be framed, and how it is going to be responded to. This will undoubtedbly escalate, because Kirby H. (a Webermeier/Fogarty graft) likes to see herself as the iron fist in the iron glove, and has been combat trained and indoctrinated into which side is the right side for more than a decade. Calls will begin (after the six month grace period) to recall various newly-elected trustees (guess who will be behind them, not directly, of course, but through less divisive stand-ins and rugrats, a la "Wolf of Wall Street") which will either be answered by or pre-emptorily precipitated by petitions circulated to recall various incumbent trustees. I can't wait for Restorative Justice, the toothless non-entity keeping various former sorority sisters occupied after their Garden Club duties have been fulfilled (Estes Park's version of the United Nations), to step in and attempt to mediate yet again this never-ending war, which threatens to cloud Estes Park's ability to make meaningful change (hospital-wise, school-wise, recreation-wise, town-wise) in either direction for the remainder of this century. Objects in motion tend to remain in motion, and objects propelled by emotion tend to go back and forth, back and forth, like Newton's Cradle (those fidget-spinner clacking balls every business desk and upscale living room in the 1960s was occupied by), until enough people in the warring factions die out or intermarry, otherwise, there will be no end to the "See, I was right all along" bitter reprisals.