Meanwhile, back at Nestle's $125,000 bar...
If the Trail-Gazette's reporting is accurate (I haven't seen the documents myself, and those responsible for this largesse are being mum), our VEP CEO left with an FUEP (figure it out) severance package of one additional year of an already-inflated salary, courtesy of our Lodging Association. I truly hope Curly can find it in her heart to give generously to various worthy nonprofits around town before her departure (or maybe she'll apply for the head of roads and bridges, given her guaranteed super-positive recommendation from Sean "Hand Lotion" Jurgens), because someone sure as hell charity-balled her $125,000 more than she deserved.
But good on her. All you need to do to succeed financially in this town is get appointed to a position you are unqualified for, have your board buddies inflate your salary, and then depart under the guise of being forced out. For this much money, why don't we just keep her on staff and encourage her to take a year-long vacation? Why pay her chosen successor's inflated salary on top of this? As has been demonstrated over the past six years, the office essentially runs itself provided the mountains remain upright. Travel editors show up and write articles without much prompting, print media will run just about any advertisement as long as you overpay, even if the graphics look as if they were assembled with elbow macaroni and a glue gun. Will the county or district get any of this back if she is foolish enough to apply for another job and get hired (good luck, Cripple Creek or Eagle - hope your due diligence was better than ours) before next December?
How about this suggestion for keeping our hotel room rates down in the summer, so more tourists will stick around a bit longer without being brainwashed by bad advertising to do so - How about doing away with VEP or LMD or IPEEMONEY or whatever acronym we invent to devise a position that pays someone more than most firemen, police officers, nurses, teachers, or dental hygienists make in two to three years, let alone one year (with four months of that spent shuffling paper and counting paperclips between the Parade of Lights and the on-again/off-again Winter Carnival)? How about not paying someone a $125,000 or more salary in Estes Park unless they are a professional athlete in a major sport, possess a skill that can only be obtained after 7-8 years of higher education, or write jingles about Estes Park tourism that consistently break into the hot 100 of Spotify?
How about actually cold-heartedly firing someone after it becomes apparent they are unqualified or underqualified for their position, rather than rewarding them for incompetence in everything except behind-the-scenes machinations?
On both ends, this was a mess that local government created because the taxpayers were too scared to recognize (or act upon, once recognized) who runs the show. Every time I see Frank Lancaster tooling around Safeway mid-afternoon, it is sporting a big shit-eating grin. For the $200,000 or so he's pulling down from the rank and file, I would prefer a town administrator who is so burdened with work he can't leave the office until late at night, or sends out for sandwiches, but more importantly, when he does venture out, I would prefer he carry a bit of the weight of the world on his shoulders, or at least invest some of his payola in a better disguise.
What did you really accomplish with this latest upending, muck rakers and whistle blowers? How much of this $125,000 do you feel obligated to kick in, because, once again, you had a plan, but weren't able to look far enough into the future to know how to respond, and keep stepping on throats, once it appeared you'd won.
Can we start a GoFundMe page to raise this money if the severance language doesn't specifically prohibit it? Because man, I'm tired of tourists being handed another bill of lading for something they would bring their family to each summer regardless, and especially tired of lodge owners (most of whom barely finished high school) lining each others' nests at the expense of allied (certainly not subjugate) business owners in town.
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| We're sorry things didn't work out. How, about, as a parting gift for a job not well done, we give you a Mercedes only Wall Street investment bankers and major league baseball players can afford? |
But good on her. All you need to do to succeed financially in this town is get appointed to a position you are unqualified for, have your board buddies inflate your salary, and then depart under the guise of being forced out. For this much money, why don't we just keep her on staff and encourage her to take a year-long vacation? Why pay her chosen successor's inflated salary on top of this? As has been demonstrated over the past six years, the office essentially runs itself provided the mountains remain upright. Travel editors show up and write articles without much prompting, print media will run just about any advertisement as long as you overpay, even if the graphics look as if they were assembled with elbow macaroni and a glue gun. Will the county or district get any of this back if she is foolish enough to apply for another job and get hired (good luck, Cripple Creek or Eagle - hope your due diligence was better than ours) before next December?
How about this suggestion for keeping our hotel room rates down in the summer, so more tourists will stick around a bit longer without being brainwashed by bad advertising to do so - How about doing away with VEP or LMD or IPEEMONEY or whatever acronym we invent to devise a position that pays someone more than most firemen, police officers, nurses, teachers, or dental hygienists make in two to three years, let alone one year (with four months of that spent shuffling paper and counting paperclips between the Parade of Lights and the on-again/off-again Winter Carnival)? How about not paying someone a $125,000 or more salary in Estes Park unless they are a professional athlete in a major sport, possess a skill that can only be obtained after 7-8 years of higher education, or write jingles about Estes Park tourism that consistently break into the hot 100 of Spotify?
How about actually cold-heartedly firing someone after it becomes apparent they are unqualified or underqualified for their position, rather than rewarding them for incompetence in everything except behind-the-scenes machinations?
On both ends, this was a mess that local government created because the taxpayers were too scared to recognize (or act upon, once recognized) who runs the show. Every time I see Frank Lancaster tooling around Safeway mid-afternoon, it is sporting a big shit-eating grin. For the $200,000 or so he's pulling down from the rank and file, I would prefer a town administrator who is so burdened with work he can't leave the office until late at night, or sends out for sandwiches, but more importantly, when he does venture out, I would prefer he carry a bit of the weight of the world on his shoulders, or at least invest some of his payola in a better disguise.
What did you really accomplish with this latest upending, muck rakers and whistle blowers? How much of this $125,000 do you feel obligated to kick in, because, once again, you had a plan, but weren't able to look far enough into the future to know how to respond, and keep stepping on throats, once it appeared you'd won.
Can we start a GoFundMe page to raise this money if the severance language doesn't specifically prohibit it? Because man, I'm tired of tourists being handed another bill of lading for something they would bring their family to each summer regardless, and especially tired of lodge owners (most of whom barely finished high school) lining each others' nests at the expense of allied (certainly not subjugate) business owners in town.
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