New West Network

My Page: Mitzi Rapkin

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>

City Still Negotiating

Last week I reported that the City of Aspen is trying to buy the building that houses the only remaining movie theater in town for $8.75 million. The deal would involve the City putting a $500,000 non-refundable deposit and taking the issue to the voters. In November it would be up to them to decide if the City should buy the Isis Building with a property tax or sales tax hike or lose the $500K.

Movie theaters seem to be a dying commodity in small towns, even local video stores are suffering from the ease and low cost Netflix alternative. But the question at hand for the City is not just to buy a building and become a landlord, it’s about what the Council and ultimately the citizens want this town to be. [more]

Babbit's Land Use Solution

Bruce Babbit, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1993-2001 told a group of Westerners gathered in Aspen that the Bush Administration is in an unprecedented binge for energy development that is putting BLM land at risk. "Beneath the smiling face of consensus, they are doing their best to dismantle public lands," he said.

He made his comments Sunday in a closing speech at the Sopris Foundation’s annual conference entitled "Innovative Ideas for a New West, Best Practices for Growing Communities of the Intermountain West."
Over a hundred elected and government officials, private citizens and non-profit representatives gathered from places like Missoula, MT; Taos, NM; Sun Valley, ID; and Durango, CO to name a few, to talk about a vision for the West. Experts in planning, the former CEO of the Swiss Rail, the former Ambassador to Denmark and the founder of the Sonoran Institute were some of the speakers sharing their ideas over the course of three days.

At the heart of the discussion was the love people have for the West and maintaining that feeling while facing the challenges of growth, the high price of energy, transportation conundrums, the scarcity of affordable housing, the sale of public lands, willy-nilly land use and dying agriculture.
[more]

City wants to keep movie theater

Last night the curtain fell on the Stage 3 movie theater in Aspen. It marked the final showing of films in the three screen cinema that was recently sold to buyers who do not intend to keep it a theater.

Hours before Stage 3’s last showings, the Aspen City Council announced its intention to buy the Isis Building, what is now the last remaining movie theater in Aspen. The Council’s intent is to preserve the character of downtown Aspen and ensure that what seems so common throughout the country, movie theaters, do not become extinct in the city where real estate is king and fractional condominiums more profitable than moving pictures.

“A majority of City Council agrees that movie theaters are important in downtown Aspen,” Mayor Helen Klanderud said.

[more]

Kids Can Formally Opt Out

Roaring Fork School District which covers Carbondale, Glenwood Springs and Basalt is overhauling its policy governing sex education opt-out procedures according to a report in the Glenwood Springs Post Independent.

The newspaper is reporting the overhaul is part of the school board's efforts to adjust its policies to comply with federal law. [more]

Bike Path Closer to Reality

The Aspen Times is reporting today that Pitkin County is set to sign an agreement with Gunnison County to complete a 74-mile trail between Carbondale and Crested Butte.
In the winter it takes about four hours to drive between Crested Butte and Carbondale. In the summer, it takes about two. But it is uncertain how long that distance would take on a bicycle path because although it’s been a dream of many for decades, it does not yet exist.

The Aspen Times is reporting today that Pitkin County is set to sign an agreement with Gunnison County to complete a 74-mile trail between Carbondale and Crested Butte. [more]

City Council Not Convinced Paid Parking Gets People onto Buses

In a last minute decision and contrary to staff recommendation, the Aspen City Council opted not to increase paid parking in the downtown core of the City. The measure, which was meant to encourage transit use and discourage people from driving, was initially supported by a majority of the five member council. After hearing a slew of negative comments from the public and analyzing its effectiveness Mayor Helen Klanderud withdrew her support for the measure, tipping the scales in favor of the status quo.

“I have heard very little support for this,” she said. “I have supported this up to this point but there is an entire community that has to work on this and this is not going to get people onto buses.”

Currently there is paid parking in the downtown core with free 2-hour parking in the outlying residential areas. The proposal was meant to shift a three block radius of the free 2-hour parking to paid parking.

The tendency for some drivers is to park in the 2-hour spots and either shuffle their cars every 2-hours or wipe off the chalk mark the parking department leaves on their tires. [more]

Symposium Leaders Want to Improve the State of the Valley

Over 160 government officials, government employees, non-profit representatives and concerned citizens gathered on Friday for a State of the Valley Symposium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado sponsored by Healthy Mountain Communities, a non-profit dedicated to regional collaboration.

It’s no easy task to assess the state of a valley where it’s a two-hour commute from one end to the other, where oil and gas issues dominate one end and skiing and recreation dominate another. In between Aspen and Rifle (the two ends of a valley that is actually made up of two river corridors and therefore two valleys) are issues of race, cost of housing, transportation, development and most of the other common maladies facing a growing West. Colin Laird, Director of the Carbonbale, Colorado based Healthy Mountain Communities said, ”It was the largest turnout we’ve ever had [for this symposium] and I think that speaks to the scale of the issues facing the region and also about the hopefulness people have about the future and doing something about it.” [more]

ABC News Comes to Aspen for a Cooler View

Veteran ABC News Reporter Bill Blakemore has gone out of his way to do stories on global warming.

So Blakemore and Producer Clayton Sandell came to Aspen to film for potential stories on global warming solutions.

Last year the City of Aspen initiated a project called the Canary Initiative. The program is an action plan to identify steps to reduce global warming pollution in Aspen as well as around the world. It also aims to inform the public about the impacts from and solutions to climate change and to advocate for action locally, nationally, and internationally. [more]

March Retail Sales Net $5 million more than budget of Palau

Aspen’s businesses took in more than $62.8 million in retail sales in the month of March. That’s $5 million more than the yearly revenues of the island nation of Palau which has 20,579 people compared to Aspen’s 6,000.

The City of Aspen’s 2005 budget of approximately $100 million was more than the yearly revenues of 25 countries according to the CIA World Fact Book. That $100 million is just $7 million shy of East Timor’s yearly revenues and $4 million more than Sierra Leon’s.

The gist of a monthly financial report released yesterday is that Aspen’s economy is not slowing down. In fact, sales tax collections through this March are up 10.4 percent from last year. Aspen’s retail economy has not experienced a decline in taxable retail sales on a month over month basis since August of 2004. And if things continue, Aspen’s total retail sales could hit the $488 million mark by the end of 2006 ($6 million more than Tajikistan’s budget). [more]

High on their jobs

The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, John Walters said the highest percentage of positive tests for marijuana use among Colorado’s workforce occurred in Aspen and Crested Butte, Colorado the Aspen Daily News is reporting.

A workplace study revealed 3.92 percent of employees in Aspen and Crested Butte failed drug testing in 2004 the newspaper writes. The national average of workers failing drug tests is 2.8 percent.

But marijuana isn’t the only problem. The ONDCP states that a 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health ranked Colorado first among the 50 states in illicit drug use other than marijuana in the past month and cocaine use in the past year. [more]

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>