Saturday
Oct192019
ISSUE #155: Kinda PedANTic... but Elections 10/16/19
October 19
"Meet the new boss.
Same as the old boss."
- The Who
| Ben Franklin was clearly not in Aspen when he wrote, "In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes." Here in Aspen, one must always add "another mail-ballot election." Statewide election day is Tuesday, November 5. You should be receiving your mail-ballot any day now. Here's the lowdown. (Questions about your ballot or voter registration? Call 970-429-2732.)
The 2019 ballot highlights:
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| Proposition CC: Retain State Government Revenue |
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Vote NO.
This is a high-stakes and shameless government money grab and an effort to overhaul TABOR, the taxpayers bill of rights, by permanently lifting TABOR's spending limits. By voting NO, any money the state collects over its revenue limit must be returned to taxpayers, in accordance with current law. FYI - In the next three fiscal years, Colorado is estimated to collect between $542 million and $1.7 billion in tax revenue above the cap. DO NOT BE FOOLED. Not only do proponents of CC want to keep the excess revenue (refunds of unknown amounts - forever) for "schools and transportation," expenditures that should be funded within the state budget or approved by voters on a case-by-case basis, this measure is a test case for a broader overhaul of how the state will levy taxes (including moving toward a progressive tax system) and spend money in the future. It is also the first step toward the repeal of TABOR. Vote NO.
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| Proposition DD: Legalization and Taxation of Sports Betting to Fund Water Projects and Obligations |
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Vote NO.
This is not in any way my judgment on water projects or sports betting. This measure has absolutely ZERO plan or commitment whatsoever for what will actually be "built." (If there was an actual tie to some required, beneficial or specific water project, it just might warrant some consideration, but there is none.) The sports betting piece pays less than lip service to gambling addiction services - the dollar amount is a drop in the bucket. This sounds a whole lot like a sports-betting industry advocacy bill, never mind the fact that sin taxes are notoriously regressive and expensive to administer. With 95% of bets going to the winners, it's a hard bill to take seriously. DD is NOT a serious public policy proposal. It's an industry-specific bill that will dramatically increase gambling, which is good for that industry. It's just not good for Colorado. With no commitment to actually build ANY water system improvements, just VOTE NO.
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| Aspen School Board |
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Jonathan Nickell
While we can vote for two, I am bullet-voting for Jonathan Nickell. I am sure the other candidates are qualified, but I am a particular fan of Jonathan's from his run two years ago. At the time, I endorsed Jonathan and Susan Zimet, who was resoundingly elected. We need this team together on the school board. Period. We are at a critical crossroads and must move the district forward, work to fix the poor governance system, enhance BOE effectiveness, and improve the district culture and climate while working to better support the teachers. Jonathan is the candidate with the best professional experience to get this done. His tenure on the District Accountability Committee and subsequent role in the parent group that was key in bringing much needed change to the forefront prepare him to hit the ground running. The Aspen School District needs his leadership now more than ever. If bullet-voting isn't your thing, cast your second vote for Katy Frisch.
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Pitkin County 1A: Sales Tax on All Cigarettes, Tobacco and Nicotene Products
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VOTE YES.
Another regressive tax, 1A echoes the sales tax on tobacco products that currently exists in the city of Aspen, which brings in significant revenue (see 2A below), but I have to believe has very little impact on behavior in general. If the goal is to reduce teen smoking and vaping, I seriously doubt it will have much impact. In Aspen, where kids have time and money, and already engage in risky behavior on a regular basis, this tax is not likely to change much. That is, unless you count the embarrassingly good tax revenue source for the county. But nobody is going to oppose a sin tax that targets a reduction in teen nicotene use no matter how ineffective it might be; there's too much value in jumping on the virtue-signaling bandwagon. Since 1A is VERY targeted and does not affect taxpayers in general, go ahead and VOTE YES. If you're a smoker or a vaper, you're already a pariah, so why not.
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| City of Aspen 2A: Retention of Excess Initial Revenue Estimate of Tobacco Sales Tax |
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VOTE NO
In the spirit of my analysis of Prop CC above, NO, the government should not get to keep the excess tobacco tax revenue beyond the defined limit! The City of Aspen has a 2019 budget of $140 million. Enough already!
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| Aspen Valley Hospital District 6A: Extension of AVH's existing 5.5 mills levy until 12/31/30 |
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VOTE YES
This is not a new tax, it's simply the extension of the current AVH mill levy at the same rate through 2030. This is our hospital, and with the uncertain future of healthcare in this country, not to mention the demise of so many small, rural hospitals, we are extremely fortunate to have such a facility in our own backyard. Let's continue this existing funding stream to keep AVH strong.
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| Colorado Mountain College District 7A: Enlarge the CMC district to include property within the boundaries of the Salida School District |
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VOTE YES
CMC is a special tax district that provides education services to rural mountain towns, and the Salida school district wants to join. By voting YES, it will not increase taxes on any existing taxpayer, but would open up Chaffee County to CMC. Financially, Salida would be a net contributor to the CMC district for the foreseeable future. (Salida is not the first community that has sought annexation into the CMC district; Steamboat Springs joined in 1982.)
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As summer colorfully becomes fall in the A-Town, it seems fitting to recap the first five months under our newly elected council.
Council Focus Areas and Priority Projects.
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Council's retreat in early July could easily be summarized as "Kumbaya Camp." Our esteemed electeds began with establishing the first rule of kindergarten, "Be nice to each other." (No mention was made of how to treat constituents.) And it progressed from there. Over the next 15 months, look for this group to govern from six subject areas:
**At press time, with budget talks looming, council has identified subsidized housing as a priority above everything else. Look for a re-evaluation of the "employee generation" calculation, which will increase housing mitigation for development (driving development costs and therefore rents higher and higher). Additionally worrisome is councilwoman Rachel Richards' idea for financing more subsidized housing. She would like to see "a new tax" beyond just the RETT for housing. No details given, just "a new tax," because taxes are always the solution!
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| Skippy's 11 Points For Making Aspen a Utopian Progressive Paradise. |
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As a preliminary illustration of what we're in for, here is a gem from Skippy's facebook page that outlines HIS thoughts for the council term at hand. He opens by stating, "Part of our job once we hire a new city manager is insisting on job performance and culture change. Here are the 11 (non-policy) things I am asking this council to insist on and measure the new city manager against!" He adds, "Feeling determined."
These 11 guidelines are directly quoted (parentheses are mine):
1. Create a new public engagement process to take big projects from inception (initial staff or council idea) through delivery. This process should be participatory and include experts and the public from day one. It should too set expectations that those not participating cannot come in at the last minute to hijack the process, they will be left out. So basically, if you don't hear about a city program before it's already in the works, sorry, your input, opinions and expertise are no longer welcome.
2. Create a new cross-department two-way communications protocol and best practice catalog to disseminate information to the public and receive public feedback in a measurable and actionable way, meeting people where they are in their need for location and type of content, prizing openness and creativity. Best practices should not be a novel new concept, although I am not entirely clear what he is saying.
3. Restructure public meeting format to suit the needs of the council and the public. This should include meeting times, locations, room-set, free childcare, digital engagement (live and not live), structure, and public input. It should aim for openness, collaboration, creativity, and the acceptance of innovation and open debate. It should not look at being right as the primary goal. Free childcare. Seriously? As if this is why people hate going to council meetings. I am all for a cultural change toward more openness and creativity, but should this solely fall to the new city manager to implement? Shouldn't council have a role?
4. Look at top-down organizational structure and re-structure as appropriate to reduce overlap, confusion, or siloed departments that don't speak to each other, are redundant, or disagree. This is fairly obvious. The fact that we need this speaks volumes about the Barwick era and the city councils who retained him for 19 years.
5. Create new ways to engage in RFP, RFQ, and sole-source processes to reduce the cost of projects, and reach smaller more innovative less government focused firms. Cost reduction is another obvious goal. What Skippy is trying to accomplish with smaller and "less government focused firms" is unclear.
6. Foster a culture of radical honesty, transparency, collaboration, and innovation in city hall. Reduce risk aversion through open upfront communications. Wow, since when is honesty, transparency collaboration and innovation "radical"? I'm uncertain how risk is averted through upfront communications. Risk of what exactly?
7. Create regular council-to-council valley-wide regular meetings, and restart the "State of the Valley" annual gathering. Sure, fine, another meeting, but for what purpose? Perhaps to show the other "lesser" communities how it's done in the A-Town?
8. Create a psychographic profile of the desired citizen of tomorrow and tourist of today - realign our event approval to these goals and actively pursue events that cater to these people. Good grief, the government will be determining who is a "desired" citizen or tourist? This is just plain creepy.
9. Take active steps to increase tourist and structural diversity in our community through the intentional welcoming of non-white communities down valley, non-white tourists, and economic diversity and social equity. This too must addressed in affordability and availability of housing. Ahhhh, diversity. You knew this was coming after #9. Sounds like we're headed toward quotas and some social engineering and income equality mandates!
10. Create a workflow that focuses on big-picture goals and innovation that aims to align our values with policy in a way that can transfer and inform other communities across the country. Because of course "other communities across the country" are just dying to know how Aspen aligns its values with public policy.
11. Focus on increasing enfranchisement, voter turn-out, citizen activation and involvement, and civic education from lower-school through seniors. Is it really the government's role to rile up the populace? This is Aspen, not North Korea.
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| The Taj Mahal Grow-eth. |
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Despite pleas from numerous citizens and the presentation of many rational design alternatives (see Issue #151), council presses on with construction of the hideous and uninspired $50+ million, 37,500 sf behemoth on Rio Grande Place. At press time, the programming for the building is still yet-to-be finalized, but it is indeed being built. (Yes, they're building the airplane in the air.) And, alarmingly it WILL be three stories high, despite the massive wall this will create between town, Rio Grande Park and the riverfront district. Citing a need for "efficiency," the new city hall is actually inefficient by design; building it larger than necessary will only create the incentive to hire more unneeded people. And mark my words, in the end this will be the worst decision by the city in the last 50 years. Interestingly, the "go forward" is a 180-degree turn from Mayor Torre's campaign commitment to revisit the entire project. (Read it in Issue #152.) Yep, right out of the gate, Torre caved. On another equally interesting note, Ward Hauenstein, ever proud of the prior council's work, refused to consider any changes to the proposed project because, in principle, he refused to "undo" a prior council's decision. That is, until this council decided to undo the prior council's decision to keep the actual "seat" of Aspen's government in the Armory (at Galena and Hopkins). Now the Taj Mahal really will be City Hall. Manifest destiny. (See Issue #122 of 2016.)
Torre and Skippy asked good questions and tried to hold accountable feet to the fire, but in the end, it was the epitome of freshman guidance of an unconscious staff and the controversial and unnecessary third floor was approved. Quotable quotes regarding this approval:
Here's the monstrosity underway on October 9, 2019:
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| Barwick Banished. |
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He's outta here! Our fired-last-Christmas former city manager accepted a job as county administrator and started work in Mono County, CA on September 9. Home to Mammoth Mountain ski area and an entrance to Yosemite National Park, the rural county spans 3,132 square miles, most of which is government land. Home to 14,200 residents, Mono County employs 270 full-timers and has an annual budget of $101 million. Our cast-off will be paid a $190,000 annual salary but the gig does not include housing, and like all personal income in California, his will be taxed at 13.3%.
In a parting shot at the Aspen citizenry he served and who paid his undeserved paycheck for 19 years, Barwick told the Aspen Daily News that the rural areas of his new jurisdiction are "not under as much pressure in terms of 'extremely wealthy out of towners buy-ing up all the ranches and turning them into their own private horse farms.'" The Red Ant does not believe Barwick will last in the role. He has never entered an organization at the top and has always had a protector. Without someone flying high cover for him, he is simply too lazy and obtuse to learn and then navigate the politics. Two years, tops. At least he is finally vacating his city-owned housing on Cemetery Lane! |
| Barwick Replaced. By His Own Hire. |
| Former assistant city manager Sara Ott, who also served as interim city manager after Steve Barwick's ouster, was named city manager by council in September. She starts with an annual salary of $203,000. A Glenwood Springs-based search firm was retained to advertise the position. Aspen's reputation in the city manager universe must be really awful - there were just 64 applicants, and once the final four were selected, one dropped out. Surely there should have been hundreds of candidates for this job, especially given that Barwick's city-owned housing would have been available to attract and retain this new hire. In the end, however, council passed on two well-qualified outside applicants and instead took the easy route and chose the known entity. Is anyone surprised? While calling for cultural change in city hall, when presented with an opportunity for a new perspective and vastly different experience, council went with the familiar. In the first few weeks officially on the job, Ott has vowed to listen to the community, and acknowledges that the city's organizational structure is less than ideal. Let's hope that this generational opportunity was not squandered and that Sara Ott will redefine how Aspen's city manager runs our city. Let's just hope we won't get fooled again. |
| The "Incubator" Rears Its Head. |
| If a bad idea dies in city hall, just wait for the make-up of council to change. It'll be back and will likely be a priority. Now that the Taj Mahal will be the actual seat of Aspen's government, our current group of electeds again want the government to provide subsidized "incubator" workspace for local businesses in the Armory (at Galena and Hopkins). And when The Red Ant says "provide," it means just that. According to councilwoman Rachel Richards, "There seems to be emphasis on giving room to the next generation." Yep, giving. And that also includes "community space," because allegedly "we have more demand for community space than we have room for," despite empirical evidence to the contrary. In other words, aside from leasing the ground floor of the Armory to ACRA, look for heavily subsidized work and community spaces in our government buildings. Of course there is no mention of how the winners and losers of this space will be determined. And never mind there are already privately-owned shared workspace businesses in town. |
| The Old Powerhouse Back in Play. |
| When ACRA eventually moves into the Armory from its temporary digs in the Old Power House, look for this city-owned property to find a new use. Early betting has "subsidized childcare" slated for occupancy there. Not surprisingly, given the high cost of living here, Aspen has a huge shortage of childcare options which is driving young families out of the community. City council wants the government to solve this issue with your tax dollars and in publicly-owned buildings. |
| 2008 Land Banking Parcel at the Lumberyard Grows to $29 Million. For the Dirt. |
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Council has recently agreed to put a 3-acre parcel at the ABC (currently home to Aspen Mini Storage) under contract for $11 million in cash. The site is adjacent to the 7-acre BMC lumberyard, purchased for $18.25 million during Steve Barwick's 2008 "land-banking" spree. The new property is cited as an "enhancement" to the lumberyard property that is currently eyed for subsidized housing development. According to the Aspen Daily News, "The additional property (storage facility) doesn't necessarily mean more buildings." Apparently, the city is eyeing the $11 million acquisition for "traffic flow" and access off Hwy 82. It is not entirely clear whether or not "better access" will translate into more units. My guess is that somehow it will. It must. Steve Barwick notoriously did ZERO due diligence on the BMC purchase, so the new parcel is likely needed for more units in order for the overall project to begin to pencil out. Thankfully, this time the 120-day due diligence period will include an appraisal, unlike the BMC purchase, which was widely criticized for its lack thereof (and appalling over-spend). According to the Pitkin County Assessor, the storage facility property has an actual value of $7.9 million.
The combined 10-acre site will be the subject of upcoming roundtable discussions pertaining to use. Early indications include a desire for subsidized for-sale and rental units, in addition to commercial and/or retail space, and potentially a portion of the current lumberyard. The Red Ant has several ideas to be presented in a future edition.
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| Aspen: Where Vision Goes to Die. |
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In all the hoopla about combatting climate change through mandatory composting and promising housing to any and all comers (Aspen's version of open borders, I assume), we've effectively lost our way. These are values, not vision. Say what you will about these values, but today The Red Ant is talking about VISION. We have successfully (again) elected idealists who don't know the difference. Maybe it's because none of them have ever held significant leadership positions, nor made forward-thinking public policy decisions with generational impacts. Not a one has had serious fiscal responsibility, managed staffs and payrolls, nor built anything of lasting impact or significance. Maybe it's because they ran for office to advance their own agendas. Maybe it's because they want power. Maybe it's because they simply need a job to stay in subsidized housing. For whatever reason, I am not convinced that any one of them has vision. And certainly not a one has a vision for Aspen that can be attained in the current regulatory environment.
Despite this, council is currently responsible for a $140 million annual budget, a staff of 326, a $50+ million construction project underway (Taj Mahal city hall), and the responsibility for multiple significant land use decisions and developments that are coming online in the immediate term. The Aspen Times recently summarized what's in the pipeline. The term "critical mass" comes to mind. Read it HERE. The city's current taxes, regulations and fees, ostensibly designed to thwart development and soak the developers themselves, are actually backfiring, and stand to kill the town.
Case and point, let's look at the former Conoco station at Monarch and Main. Remember "Base 2," the affordable lodge proposed by developer Mark Hunt that was rejected by voters in November 2015? We can all personally thank councilman Ward Hauenstein for the soon-to-be built two-story JP Morgan Chase bank that will soon be built in 2020 on that site. As a result of Ward's efforts to overturn the ordinance allowing for an affordable lodge there, the "box" is still being built, but instead of much-needed affordable hotel rooms and the vibrancy those would bring to our resort town, a national bank will be moving in with a 50-year lease. Yuck, right? Well, it gets even worse. The disdain for and subsequent "no" vote against the proposed hotel now guarantees that the city will get exactly $0/year from this tenant for the life of the lease, when it would likely have garnered $700K/year in tax revenue from the lodge. Do the math. That's a $35 million screw-up. Aspen gets a bank, and leaves $35 million on the table. Don't blame the developer. He wanted to build a lodge.
In fact, he still does. Across town at Cooper and Original, where Domino's pizza is located, is the site for Base 1, the sibling affordable lodge proposal to the erstwhile Base 2.
 Council recently decided to allow Hunt to build this lodge with less parking than originally agreed upon (because this was where the parking for both hotels was to be), instead of doubling down in opposition. It could easily have been another $35 million mistake (making it $70 million between the two), but there was a glimmer of vision. National banks, pharmacies and jewelry stores are lining up for Aspen real estate, especially in shiny new buildings. I for one think we already have plenty of those and we certainly don't need more. A fresh, new affordable lodge seems like a REALLY good - not to mention obvious - concept.
Throughout town, the issue at hand is a total lack of vision at the council table. Remember, Walter Paepcke wasn't popular with his plans for Aspen back in the day, but today he's a hero. Paepcke had vision. He knew what Aspen could become. He had guts, pushed for generational change, and persevered. Redevelopment is a reality. Today we have property owners and developers who want nothing more than to add to the vibrancy of Aspen. They don't want to build banks! With all that's coming down the pike, I certainly hope our council members are making the time to have individual conversations with developer Mark Hunt, owner of nearly 20 downtown properties slated for redevelopment. I recently met with Mark to discuss his vision, and I learned a lot. There are incredible opportunities for affordable hotels, diners, restaurants, local-serving shops, you name it. But with punitive city ideologies, policies, regulations and fees that effectively say "screw the developer," only one thing will happen. The developer won't get screwed, Aspen will. If we truly want buildings and businesses built that fulfill our vision, we need to collectively look at how we approach development. With the current regulations that aim to "soak" the developers, guess what - they will build anyway, and the outrageous city-imposed fees will be passed along. We'll price ourselves right out of pancakes.
With renewed talk about government subsidies for local businesses, we are actually talking about using taxpayer dollars to prop up services and businesses that we'd all like to see here but are prevented from gaining a toe-hold by the very same government policies and fees that punish developers and drive costs and therefore rents upward. It's all intimately related. And it's idiocy. No one is asking for subsidies for developers, just some vision and guts at the council table.
Besides, keep in mind that our resort economy is not bettered by more subsidized housing and a bigger city hall. People don't come to Aspen for those things. It's Aspen's mind-body-spirit offerings that attract tourists. And never forget that Gucci, Prada and Bruno Cuccinelli bring in millions of dollars of tax revenue every year - dollars that fund all kinds of ridiculous city expenditures. In other words, these tenants contribute a great deal to our bottom line. If we want a wider variety of offerings, we need to find a way to efficiently redevelop in the future, where businesses that we need and use daily can afford to operate. It can be done, but not in the current environment. Let's have some vision and work with the developers to achieve our goals, not against them.
Council, how many more "Bank of Wards" do we need? How many can we as a community afford? It's up to you. Have some guts and think outside the box. And this time, YOU can be the heroes.
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