"Mick is an interesting human oxymoron." writes Post blogger Jerry Bovino in comment #1. "He was elected on a platform of limited growth. We all want that, so consider his slow growth concepts a big plus. However, our Mayor quickly evolved into an advocate of almost no growth at all. Unless of course that growth is to build additional 'affordable housing,' (another oxymoron in Aspen.) As an aside, I always wonder why building a hotel is unacceptable 'growth,' but building a Burlingame is somehow a God-given green venture. They both require trucks, cranes, movement of earth, pipes, sewers. You get the idea. An interesting statistic, frequently bandied about , is that 80 percent of Aspen's econonomy is based on real estate and construction and development. It's not Sushi."
The Con Man is at it again with Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland, his favorite "communist" pinata. "Americans for American Energy has got Aspen's Mayor Mick all wrong and rightly so," he blogs. "Anyone living beyond the roundabout can be excused for thinking the Mayor of Aspen simply has to be a card-carrying liberal, the kind that conservative talk shows blame for all our problems. How were they to know [type in sterotyping here] that Mick Ireland....is now a card-carrying communist who dedicates his politcal career to re-distribuging income from the rich to the poor, building housing for the people, 'master planning' a State vision of the city into oblivion, and fighting capitalism like the plague."
The Con Man used to joke (ha-ha) about the People's Republic of Aspen becoming nothing less than a classic Communist state under Mayor Mick Ireland. Now people are telling him the same thing.
"Workers of the world should know the new jobs for Aspen are gonzo," he blogs. "Instead they are left with Mick's 'vision' of what should be, regardless of who owns what--and who exactly is going to foot the bill.... The Council, in other words, was petrified that the voters might actually get a chance to decide what happens in Aspen. That idea was rejected in closed session as unacceptable. Worker housing. Master planning. Officious office building for the state. No public accountability. Redistribution of wealth. What do you call it?"
Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland was yelling at me as he was walking out of the KNFO studio after his live appearance with City Manager Steve Barwick on "Con Games" Wednesday morning and I was yelling back.
It would have been better all around if Mayor Ireland had been so kind as to scream at me on air, just as it would have been better if he had blown his top at the City Council meeting after, instead of before, they turned the cameras on. But such overt displays of pique would not be in keeping with the kinder, gentler politician promised during the election campaign just past.
Not that Mayor Ireland did not have good cause to be angry as he climbed on his bike and left the station for adventures unknown.
When Mick Ireland and his Merry Pranksters assumed office in Aspen after the last election, I of course assumed there would be some glaring glitches and growing pains.
Not in my wildest imagination did I believe that the current regime would all but run Aspen into the ground financially in just a few short months. No exaggeration, my friends. Under the stewardship of the Bath Party, Aspen has been brought to its knees, fiscally speaking, by a group of poobahs who pooh-pooh the value of the dollar even as they burn money faster than an open fire on the Cooper Avenue Mall.
I never worked for The Sun, though my first job in journalism was at the late and not-so-great Baltimore News American. But I can tell you this: the determination of those big-city newspapermen in the real world to get the powers-that-be to answer for what they do was something I also saw firsthand in newspapers in San Francisco and Boston. That kind of attitude was nothing less than their reason for being.
The hours are bad and the pay stinks—so why else would anyone want to do such a difficult job?
And that’s what’s missing in Aspen: a sense of mission. The Fourth Estate really functions now as an extension of elected officials, with a dearth of skepticism where a dollop is long overdue. It’s no exaggeration to state the obvious: the newspapers are the establishment in a town where politics lists to the left.
Imagine my surprise when I heard from my brother in Grand Junction that the local paper there was quoting Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland as being apoplectic about "talk-radio stereotyping."
As the sole proprietor of "Con Games" on KNFO 106.1 FM, the one and only local talk show heard every day in Aspen, I knew for sure that Hizzoner must have been razzing me. Not so.
Imagine my dismay when I learned Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland failed to win the "best recent change in Aspen" competition outright. The Mayor, in fact, ended the vote in a dead heat with the spanky Silver Queen Gondola now servicing Aspen Mountain like a slavish bellhop at an Aspen 5-star hotel. In the spirit of tie goes to the bummer, it has fallen upon yours truly to cast the deciding ballot.
“I’m fully prepared to lose,” Kronberg said. “After reading what the local papers wrote on my behalf, I probably wouldn’t vote for me, if I didn’t know myself personally.”
This election is simply a choice between the past and the future. It’s a decision about leadership. Now please, read on, give me a chance to explain myself.
I can live with his lack of respect for me--life, unlike an election, is not a popularity contest--but I won't easily forgive him for the disrespect he showed my audience and the process. Mick Ireland is easily the rudest person I've met since I moved to Aspen four years ago, and I have to wonder why the city seems so inclined to embrace him so.
I don't have a long list of requirements for the Mayor of Aspen, but it sure would be nice if he could at least be polite. Is that so much to ask of a man whose power emanates from the people?
I went downtown election night looking for hubbub and I’m still looking. Neither Hub nor Bub was there, and if you came to Aspen for the first time Tuesday night you might have come away thinking Aspen had gone fishing.
Like Tim Semrau, I have been a resident of affordable housing for many years. I won my current unit at Common Ground in 1997 in a lottery. Winning that lottery enabled me to stay in Aspen and extend my career in public service, an avocation that pays not a whole lot.
For me and my sister and her family, as well as many of my friends, affordable housing has given me much more of an investment than can be described by dollars and bottom lines. It has been our stake in the community and given every one of us a chance to be part of this wonderful place. Most, if not all of us could never have paid the market price for admission.
