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Preliminary thoughts on preliminary results

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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
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election results from Tuesday, 8:00 p.m.

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mayor - gary hall trustees - frank lancaster, bill (2 year term), mark, cindy 1% sales tax - yes zoning input from neighbors - no
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Stanley Hotel - Joke of the (every) Day

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So the Arizona flim-flam nonsense joke-package non-profit proposal to give John Cullen back his spotlight fell through? Peruse a few posts prior to see how silly the whole thing was from the beginning, completely opaque and nonsensical and inexplicable and exactly similar to the following sentence: "Carol Burnett agreed yesterday to link Spotify to her power of attorney bookcover made from yak cartilage". Yet the press lapped it all up like Sam Bankman-Fried before the 25-year prison sentence. So the second installment of this nonsense is now a Colorado bond-licensing and car-repair conglomerate (two guys bent over laughing each other, or something) stepping up to the plate to give John Cullen more of what he wants. The Stanley is not for sale, was not for sale, and as long as John Cullen is in charge, will just be a running gag, or gag-order, or who the eff knows because here is how you actually sell something: List it for sale, and someone buys it. Until that hap
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Estes Park grows more sheeplike everyday

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The growing desire of our aging Estes Park population to yield all decision-making control to our local government and town staff becomes more apparent with every election. Estes Park has one of the highest sales tax rates on foods and other essentials in the state of Colorado, it is such a pleasure to travel to other communities where food items are not subject to sales tax. But whatever, once you vote something in as promise it is "temporary", it becomes easier and easire to make it permanent, because Estes Park residents are less educated and more subservient than their coevals in surrounding communities. There was a glimmer of hope in the most recent phone poll of 200 residents (4% margin of error) in that, despite the overwhelming campaign mounted against the town citizens by the contractors, realtors, and trustees as far as who belongs atop the pyramid, the current percentage of shooting the citizen-driven ordinance into space is less dire than some might have predic
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Unsurprising results of Friday telephone poll

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Ballots have been mailed, some people have already received theirs, so on Friday, with everyone snowed in, we called 200 registered voters in the town of Estes Park at random, based on a list or current registered voters provided by the Larimer County Clerk. The question was simple: Name two of the seven candidates for town trustee in the April 2024 election you are most likely to vote for, and two of the seven candidates for town trustee you are most likely NOT to vote for. Results below, with a 6% margin of error - these results do not indicate who will win (although the top two vote getters will almost certainly win, as the top four get a full or partial term) or who will lose (although the top two finishers in most likely to not succeed category carry high negatives, so these "weights around the neck" will have to be canceled out by a large contingent of buoyant supporters). These results just indicate who is ahead at this time, and who has some obstacles to overcome.
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Surprising results of telephone poll of 200 registered Estes Park voters

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Last weekend, we polled 200 random Estes Park residents by phone, asking one simple question: In the upcoming April 2024 election, will you vote for Barbara MacAlpine or Gary Hall? Results below, with a 5% margin of error (we called people from the list of registered voters provided by the county, we have every confidence they live within town limits, and absolutely no guarantee they will actually vote when ballots arrive. We did not allow for "undecided", we forced them to pick one or the other, or at least who they were leaning towards. If they refused to answer even this, they were excluded from the poll and replaced with the next respondent). Personally, I am disappointed, in that Gary Hall was at the helm of the IT department when our pretend hospital was attacked by ransomware hackers and caved in immediately to their demands, so I imagine more of this "What, Me Worry?" governance approach, which is definitely not Barbara MacAlpine's "hands on
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Countdown to the apology

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I'm guessing we'll hear some real remorse coming out of the mouths of our town trustees and town adminstrator(s) and town staff in about 10 nevers. Who runs this town? The answer at the top of the organizational chart is "a few old white guys, some of whom are probably verging on dementia, plus the big talking mounthful in charge of the Transportation Advisory Board". But, hee-hee, ha-ha, it's all funny when you waste millions of taxpayers dollars and look good doing it, right, Kirby? Trustees, town administrator, town staff, town newspaper of record, town citizens: Next Tuesday, a group of concerned citizens is going to congregate outside the town hall at 7:00 p.m., and wail and moan and blow whistles and light firecrackers and carry on loudly, knowing that the town has no enforceable noise ordinance and doesn't see continuous uninterrupted noise of 90 decibels or higher as something that could be monitored, enforced, or controlled. We are quite awar
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