Countdown to the apology

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 aware that no tickets will be issued for airhorns, bad local bands playing the same six songs over and over through giant speakers, or jackhammers, in fact, just the opposite, you will encourage them to go on through the night, so some of the topics that will be discussed, loudly, will include: 1. Thus far, the Economic Development Corporation has been an abject failure. Don't take my word for it, just note the rushing retreat of "investors" who voted with their feet. Who answers for the failure of this "vanity project" that the electorate didn't ask for and somehow couldn't get out of, and still can't get out of because the town continues to fund them and provide a liaison to report back on how wonderful they are at ACCOMPLISHING NOTHING that couldn't be accomplished by employees or employers taking a course or two at their local community college? We don't cut our losses and admit failure and move on, we continue to spend taxpayer money and wave our finger and say, "Hey, now don't waste this latest barrel of cash". Hell, if the EDC was worth anything, we would already have a branch of a local community college up here teaching classes. The town's response in the past was always "But we're not the EDC". Now, you are clearly their main lifeline. Ask the public if they want or need it, or stop spending taxpayer funds on it. 2. The hospital is an abject failure. While the Denver Post recently reported a down year for hospitals statewide, where they didn't make as much money as they usually do, we are crowing about how our local hospital didn't lose as much money last year as it usually does. I get that the town is not the hospital district, but instead of giving them free air time every six months to justify why they are shutting down Labor and Delivery or doing away with a nursing home or getting rid of hospice, why don't you just say "Come back and report when you've sold it to actual adults with actual knowledge of running an actual hospital, as the voters just gave you authority to do." 3. Sales tax revenue has been down the past few months, and will likely not break any records in January or February of this year. This during a time when it costs $16 to buy a Happy Meal at McDonalds, and you'd have to be a horrible business like the local hospital to not be making more money and paying more sales tax per unit sold just because of price increases. Businesses impacted by construction are hemorrhaging if they are even open, and instead of paying them money to make it through, you are paying former police chiefs six figures to go away. This is a town with too much money and not enough respect or humanity or common sense to know who is supporting all your bloat and who you should be answering to. If this was Alaska, all citizens would be getting a check in the mail, money back from being impacted by tourism and construction. If this was Florida or Texas, we wouldn't be paying any income tax or sales tax, because tourism takes a toll on those who are forced to deal with it all day every day. Instead, our town administrator is out crowing about how we need to keep a 1% sales tax increase on top of an already high sales tax that doesn't have waivers for basic foodstuffs, menstrual products, anything. If you want people to increase pollution and drive down to the valley for their everyday needs, congratulations, that's working great. 4. Road construction is insane, and is only going to get worse. One of our candidates for mayor is in favor of additional construction because of the benefit of bike paths. What about the benefit of people's businesses? What about the benefit of people's sanity? What about actually living in and dealing with the areas impacted, instead of offering your faux sympathy from a distance? A fund should have been set aside to help impacted businesses make it through these two years of hell intact, not pay hush funds to those crowing the loudest, or $1 million extra every time another hand went out from the contractor or another state or federal entity. What trustees candidates or mayoral candidates are honest enough or insightful enough to say "Hiatus on construction or funds going to impacted businesses " instead of just mealy-mouthing something about "I'm new here, I'm not really up to speed" or "isn't all leveraging good?" When I lived in Russia, it was a big joke for the American entities funding the Russian laboratories to demand "transparency" at the same time the American's practice of "transparency" was no different from living up to other four syllable words and phrases like "non-hypocrite" or "genuine truth" or "incumbents know". Lacking a newspaper that doesn't have to bend over every time job opening ads are pulled, and an administration that has yet to take responsibility for any of their hundreds of failures, large or small, promulgated on their populace over the past decade, instead retreating to their private, taxpayer supported bathrooms to make up songs about how stupid and ignorant we are, it is now up to private citizens to expose the rot in the town hall, both literally and, well, literally. You reading this should all be ashamed. You live in a media desert, and act like you are flummoxed by the cruelty of someone asking whether Christmas lights should be left on all year during a time of pretend climate concerns and a 2030 promise that will never be met from our coal-burning paterfamilias, who we worship by forcing the populace to genuflect before them. We're mad as hell with your constant failures and your constant excuses and your constant need to assert they are overwhelming successes, and we're not going to take it anymore. We want our town back.