Stan?

Driving back from the old Fitzsimons today (a very depressing place, except for all the life in bloom around the chemo center, especially in the cafeteria - Man, is Estes Park devoid of interesting varieties of the opposite sex, or what?), I noticed a bustling business at the MJ dispensaries in Lyons.

So now we have three new board members, one of whom is decidedly against weed, one of whom is almost certainly for it, one of whom says the majority of people, in her opinion, are against it.  Here's an idea, new board members, which with your enthusiasm and a fresh-faced approach just might work:  Rather than do what you THINK the public would have you do, or what the voices in your head tell you to do, let's do what Berthoud just did, and put it to a vote.

Let me be very clear:  I have never smoked or ingested marijuana.  I once participated in a study (if you haven't already heard this) using one of the active ingredients in marijuana, street name marinol, to see if it could improve appetite in chemo patients.  I can't speak for people with a depressed appetite, but over the course of the trial, it certainly increased mine.

Let me be even more clear:  In addition, I don't condone the use of marijuana by others, in fact, I think it is a waste of time and money and brain cells and potential (unless it is providing some medical benefit to patients where nothing else has worked).  But hey, this is a world that bows to Darwin and natural selection, and if I can eliminate some of the competition by allowing them to sneak off behind the Rock and light one up, as Colorado currently legally allows, which side do you think I'm going to come down on?  We proudly fund our parks with lottery money, and lord knows there are plenty enough taxes on cigarettes and alcoholic beverages.  I don't indulge in any of those vices beyond once or twice a year tops, but I love walking through a park someone else's stupidity paid for.

While we're at it, let's not just waste space on the ballot for deciding whether or not to legalize an already legal drug.  Why not ask people what they think about the Loop, or whether they would like to have their vote back on the sale of Lot 4, or the Community Center.  You get ahead in this town by (a) lying and (b) being rampantly pro-development.  If you think otherwise, go back and read the letters to the editor from four years ago regarding the hospital board, and how we couldn't possibly elect someone who didn't support the Anschutz Wellness Center.  (Yes, there were rational minds opposed, even some running for a spot on the hospital board.)  Remember the threatened recall if trustees didn't go ahead and cede a parking lot to the downtown Performing Arts Center?  Now there was an entire months' long drama told by idiots, signifying nothing.

How are people with foresight and intelligence and a healthy dose of skepticism treated in this town?  Well, ask those of us who are, ten years in, currently batting well over 0.700 on predicting how these pie in the sky projects are ultimately going to pan out.  Revamped Lazy B?  I was on record as being against it from the start.  IMAX theater first go-round?  See my letter to the editor, circa 1998.  Note that I am not against change, especially the change that improves - You don't see me writing elegiac poems about how much I'm missing my down-at-the-heels Taco Bell, or a "coasting on fumes" Sundeck.

The reason the people currently considering themselves "in charge", despite all their failures, are still in charge, is because (a) they are incapable of self-examination and empathy, (b) they always have a plan, and (c) they cursorily dismiss all opposition, just tune out when they hear dissent, and the opposition allows themselves to be timidly dismissed.  The front-rowers are always churning, rearranging, hiring consultants and printing up charts and writing white papers and issuing preliminary drafts.  They likely pee according to schedule.  All of those folks who sit around complaining, not ever running for boards, not even volunteering for boards:  How about devoting some of that energy to actually joining forces with others who share your same core principles, making a sign and marching alongside, instead of making excuse after excuse, instead of pointing out and dwelling on a mote in their eye?

I wish, if nothing else, that Sprayin Estes Park over at the T-G would finally reveal himself.  Because he's sad, because it's not me, and because the person who I think it is claims it's not him.  Very rarely, Sprayin has valid points (maybe people did really turn away from Ward at the last minute because of his shoe pounding on the Grand Estates vote, or maybe I'm looking for a reason why my polling did such a bad job of predicting how poorly he'd fare).  But until he joins forces (oh, but that is anathema, I'm sure he'll claim) he will just be an empty voice, shouting in the wildness, accomplishing nothing, and being routinely derided by those who march forward, boldly, on stuff they've convinced themselves (mostly in their section of the Rotary echo chamber) isn't nonsense.  They've already been lying to themselves about the first failed Convention Hall and Conference Center since it opened, then its replacement, so what's another lie and a third go?  Heck, maybe we could quiet title on surrounding national forest land, and force people coming into Estes from any direction to have to drive through a horse barn and grain silo, and for once have inflated counts and "booked every weekend" seem justified.

Oh, BTW, the private trolleys sold yet again.  What a great idea, just looking for a town that actually wants them.