Nobody loves America quite like Frosty Woolridge. "Today," he blogs, "after 20 years with the last three presidents, Americans watch their most precious value erode into meaninglessness. Does U.S. citizenship mean anything to this president, our Congress, our governors and our mayors of major cities. After 9/11 decimated our national security blanket, our borders needed closing. Our immigration laws and visas needed immediate tightening as most of the bombers hailed from Saudi Arabia. All of them lied on their applications without fear of inspection. Yet, current policy allows endless immigration by Saudi nationals as well as many others from the Middle East. Has anything changed? Not!"
Aspen plays host to over 150 world-class artists from all over the country this weekend at the art's fair on Wagner Field.
"We are all the future of The Aspen Club & Spa and we are all the future of Aspen," writes Kim Moore. "That’s because as we look beyond tourism, real estate and construction, we look toward a future of sustainability and healthy living — an opportunity to combine local vitality with economic survival. Let’s take a trip down memory lane to get a sense of this Aspen institution known as The Aspen Club & Spa..... [In the future] Aspen Club employees live and breathe the Aspen idea while living on-site in desirable affordable housing. With the opportunity to grow professionally, they choose to stay in town rather than move downvalley or to a big city."
Posts filed under 'Pitkin County'
I read with interest in local papers last week about the city’s efforts to “take responsibility” for the debacle now commonly referred to as Burling-gate. Not surprisingly it didn’t take long for the usual suspects, namely City Manager Steve Barwick and Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland, to go from offensive to defensive.
Speaking before Directors of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association last week, Barwick continued to offer the same weak explanations and excuses and basically admitted the massive debacle was the result of too many people, making too many decisions, over too much time, about a project none were properly qualified to understand or oversee. When both were recent guests of KNFO-FM radio host Michael Conniff on Con Games last week, Ireland was asked if he cared to expand on his recent assertion (conspiracy theory) that he is the subject of an illegal “smear campaign” by unknown operatives. He refused to do so or provide any specifics or retract his accusation. Meanwhile, Councilman Jack Johnson continues to behave like a five year-old saying he “can’t apologize” to Marilyn Marks after publicly chastising her in council chambers after she paid a local camera crew to record a recent work session at her expense (after telling the council she intended to do so and numerous request to have the council tape itself for the public good). Perhaps Johnson needs a hug from one of his teddy bears?
Continue Reading July 8th, 2008
The Burling-Blame Game Explained Learn the rules of the game in two minutes or less and you too can play. A brief primer; In 2005 City Council got a FIXED Bid to build Burlingame Phase I for $150 a square foot which included infrastructure inside the site. This contract got executed successfully with minor changes. At the time, city staff was responsible for estimating additional external infrastructure and future changes to the project. At the time the total cost estimate for Phase I was about $39 million. The original cost increased by $20.1 MILLION (per city staff memo) by mainly discretionary changes to reduce cost of units, add park, trail, buses, green improvements etc. Additionally the infrastructure estimate by city staff was wildly off, the total cost appears to have increased $18.4 MILLION more than the original estimate (per city staff memo). Essentially the cost of Burlingame Phase I DOUBLED due to Council discretionary decisions and a terrible cost estimate of infrastructure by city staff. It was NOT due to construction inflation since it was a fixed bid. It was NOT due to a delay in starting Burlingame in 2005 instead of 2002, since the city’s cost to produce housing per square foot was less in 2005 than what the city paid in 2002.
Continue Reading June 30th, 2008
We have a good box for you this week and some new recipes, let's
hope! We have Cherries, Potatoes, Onions, Salad Mix, Tomato,
Cilantro, Garlic, Kale, Romaine Lettuce, Sugar Snaps and Snow Peas.
Wahoo! It's looking like summer! I think it will be one more week on
one size box and then next week we will have enough food to split
into half and full size. I may change my mind on that during pack
out, we will see.
Continue Reading June 29th, 2008
Highlights of Ideas Festival sessions open to the public (tickets required) include:
· US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff in conversation with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg
· Alice Waters in conversation with The Atlantic’s Corby Kummer, with dessert served from her cookbook
· Award-winning National Geographic photographer James Balog exploring ice on the run in his “Extreme Ice Survey”
· A global perspective on the US elections from Der Tagesspiegel’s Christoph von Marschall, Ha'aretz’s Ari Shavit, Edward Luce of the Financial Times, and others
· A talk with four young, resilient survivors of genocide, war, and gang violence, moderated by playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith.
Continue Reading June 17th, 2008
I have made a very difficult decision to resign from the Task Force and Subcommittee. I deeply regret that I cannot continue the good work we have started together. I have learned so very much and most importantly, made new friends in the process.
The work of these two bodies is of critical importance to the community at this very crucial time. Future Burlingame plans and the future of our affordable housing are in question today. The community needs your strong, independent, and credible voice for information and guidance, and to rebuild confidence in the financial policies of the City. The City Council needs your objective input as well.
Continue Reading June 15th, 2008
The thing I love most about the Food and Wine festival here in Aspen is the famous people I’ve never heard of and would not know from Adam. It’s like going to the Super Bowl with no clue about frozen tundra—you should have stood in bed instead of taking up space in the stands.
A couple years back I was saving a chair at the Hotel Jerome for my fiancée when a woman took the chair for her husband without asking. She said something that indicated her husband was some kind of a big deal in the world of food, but I could not have cared less if he were Wolfgang Puck. It was our chair. I had saved the seat under the universal law found in the Constitution that decrees all men are created equal no matter how nifty you might be with pulled pork and coleslaw.
Continue Reading June 15th, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO—What does the little town of Harper Woods, Michigan, unremarkable in so many ways, have to do with the Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, Aspen’s own monarch with the $135 million manse in the beyond posh Starwood section of this mountain town?
Here in Aspen, in fact, the Prince is known as generous to local charities, kind to animals, and generous to a fault when his multiple wives hit the downtown mall with multiple plastic. He is also known to ski within a circle of bodyguards, and to rent out the downtown Isis theatre in toto so as to enjoy a movie of his choice in privacy.
In Harper Woods, in contrast, said Sultan is prince non grata, accused by the town’s employee pension fund of embezzling some $2 billion over 20 years as the go-between betwixt the Saudi government and BAE Systems of the United Kingdom.
Continue Reading June 12th, 2008
The Con Man welcomes the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboarding Club back to the program, then explains why the conventional wisdom that said Democrats would be damanged by the primaries was so completely wrong.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Tuesday June 10,2008.
June 11th, 2008
The Con Man can't help himself: he has to liken the Burlingate affordable housing scandal in Aspen to the neoconservatives who rule(d) Washington. What do they have in common? Both the local liberals and the Beltway conservatives felt they knew better.
Don't miss the call from former Aspen City Councilor Torre in the second half of the show.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Wednesday June 11, 2008.
June 11th, 2008
I don’t get to Aspen City Council work sessions that often—who has time for comedy in these days of Food and Wine?—but the first hour or so of the work session on Burlingate and affordable housing was a doozie.
I came in during a Council meltdown Tuesday night and it took me a good twenty minutes to figure out that Mayor Mick Ireland, Jack Johnson, and Steve Skadron were squawking about the necessity of televising the session as bankrolled by Marilyn Marks, a member of the Citizens Budget Task Force, a group formed at the suggestion of Mayor Mick to his eternal regret. Marks, also a member of the affordable housing subcommittee, has done nothing but make their lives miserable, mainly by pointing out the Council and City staff has no clue about where the money goes or is going in affordable housing.
Continue Reading June 10th, 2008
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