The Last Stand
Comments by mfishon1
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On Steamboat 700: Transfer fee ‘unfair’
(anonymous)
May 8, 2008 at 2:38 p.m.
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I agree with your assessment elkeye….especially with the current state of economy and such…it will be difficult to get community approval for any substantial costs to be passed along to the community as a whole.
To set the record straight…I am not saying that we should ask the city to propose a property tax….I'm just saying that we need to make sure the city leaders in charge of this pre-annexation agreement are brutually honest when assessing costs. They need to mitigate risks as much as possible and then error on the side of caution when it comes to “guessing” how much more money the city will need to build/support/maintain this massive undertaking. They then need to send a clear message to the community on WHERE this money is going to come from.
On Steamboat 700: Transfer fee ‘unfair’
(anonymous)
May 8, 2008 at 10:12 a.m.
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If you have been following the city council meetings where SB700 was discussed then you know that this pre-annexation process still has more unknown/unanswered questions compared to what is known. It is also commonly agreed by all parties that the studies that they are wating on (i.e. financial impact study, housing study, etc.) will be extremely subjective and simply put will be WAGS (i.e Wild A** Guesses.) You can bet that SB700 will fight to make sure they are taking on the least amount of costs as possible because that is there justification to making sure the affordable part of this deal will indeed be affordable.
What you need to do is make sure you are telling your city council rep that they should approach this SB700 using the worst case scenario when they are viewing these studies and how they relate to the costs that will be incurred by the city and existing community. Personnaly, if they get rid of the special levy and the transfer fee and don't come up with any other way to raise money to cover infrastructure/ongoing maintainence cost then I see no way the city can proceed with this unless the city starts collecting property tax. We cannot proceed with SB700 assuming that sales tax (which is generated mainly by tourists) will cover the cost of SB700….that would be a very foolish assumption.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to email/write/call you city council rep and make sure you voice your concerns about the cost ( to the city budget ) and where is this new revenue going to come from to pay for this increase.
On Wall to face DUI charges
(anonymous)
May 2, 2008 at 2:14 p.m.
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Wow…wanna compare the character of leaders…check out this congressman who was just arrested on DWI. For a second I was going to think those same Routt County conspriators who got Wall must also be working in NYC….but then I see the congressman's response….”Last night I made an error in judgment,” Fossella said. “As a parent, I know that taking even one drink of alcohol before getting behind the wheel of a car is wrong. I apologize to my family and the constituents of the 13th Congressional District for embarrassing them, as well as myself.”
Can someone post Wall's apology? Hmm…I can't quite find an apology anywhere. He did admit he was drinking at the party…and we know he was carrying a weapon….but the only thing I rememer him saying is “he believed the troopers did not have probable cause to require the test” and his other argument of “there is a bounty on my head.”
The implied message to kids is “Kids…it is okay to drink and carry weapons while driving in your car…just make sure you have a good excuse or two ready for when you get caught.”
On Wall to face DUI charges
(anonymous)
May 2, 2008 at 11:45 a.m.
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In a small town your reputation proceeds you. If you are known as someone who likes to “tip the bottle” and then you go to a public event…carrying a weapon…and then admit that you were drinking but refused to take the breath test. Yikes…it doesn't take the help of other people to get you in trouble - you are “setting yourself up” for trouble. I'm not saying Wall is guilty of DUI at this point because the jury gets to decide that…but he definelty fails the “good judgement/common sense” test at a minimum.
On Omar M. Campbell: Bias in support
(anonymous)
April 30, 2008 at 5:20 p.m.
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I've only attended one City Council meeting where the SB700 was discussed so I'm a bit in the dark on the financial picture. One thing we do know is the city government and services will have to grow to support the annexation. Since this SB city revenue is driven by sales/lodging tax (i.e mostly tourist) I'm just trying to figure out where are we going to get the extra tourist tax money to pay for the additional city staff/services. My understanding is that SB700 is not going to bring in more tourist - on the contary the goal is to lure some of those tourists into becoming full time residents which means instead of those tourists contributing big sales tax via eating out/lodging, etc. they will live like a large majority here who make big purchases elsewhere (Denver, Internet, etc.) and contribute very little to the sales tax revenue.
It just seems that as this town grows and the tourist base stays relatively the same then at some point the city is going to need some property tax money to start paying the bills.
On Nerneys regain liquor license
(anonymous)
February 20, 2008 at 5:43 p.m.
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If this was a bar related event that involved liquer then maybe I could see preventing Kevin from working the bar upstairs and serving liquer. However, to ban the guy from the entire joint seems too extreme. At least let the guy work in the kitchen or wash dishes….or at the mimimum eat in his own resturant.
Just curious what would happen if Kevin gets a job working at another local bar. Would the council then tell that bar owner to fire Kevin or else their liquer license will be revoked? Does a liquer authority have that kind of power to actually dictate who gets to enter a bar based on your accused behavoir in a bar?
Yikes…this is scarry because I have a couple of friends who are bartenders in this town that better straigthen up their act before someone accuses them of improper behavior in a bar.
I know one bartender here in town who spent a night in the local jail because of his involvement in a bar fight. I guess if we applied this same reasoning to him that was applied to Kevin then this guy should not be allowed to enter any bar.
This is a slippery slope the liquer authority is venturing down.
On Steamboat not part of new Frontier
(anonymous)
February 14, 2008 at 3:10 p.m.
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The last 2 trips i took were priced at $575 out of HDN compared to $230 from DEN….multiply that by 2 family members and it is a no brainer to drive to DEN to save over $600. I'm actually wondering how many locals actually use HDN for outbound trips. At my last HOA meeting a bunch of us ended up in a discussion about flying (because it seemed everyone wanted to escape for some sunshine at that point) and viturally everyone in that discussion flys out of DEN because of price….regardless of if it means driving both ways thru white-out conditions in the dead of winter.
I sure the incoming tourists with deep pockets don't have much heart-burn over paying extra to fly into HDN because they want to get on that mountain as soon as possible without having to worry about the commute from DEN to steamboat. Hence United will continue to charge whatever they want…including extra baggage fees because there will always be people willing to pay it for a taste of steamboat.
On Michelle Lichtenfels: Support rec center
(anonymous)
October 29, 2007 at 4:14 p.m.
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I just got a good giggle from the comment above where someone said “At least the rec center people are running an honest campaign.”
I noticed that the BIG proponent ads in the paper and the fancy mailing on the “vote Yes for 2B&C” I just received DON'T mention one single thing about usage fees. After talking with my neighbors about the mailing they made the incorrect assumption that the rec center will be free for everyone to use. Interesting?? No mention of usage fees in the proponents section of the election guide, in any ads or in any mailings. Now it couldn't possibly be that the proponents are trying to decieve the voters out there so I guess we can only blame this on the marketing company that made up the ads…obviously they unintentionally left off all that usage fee stuff.
This reminds of the current sub-prime mortgage mess we are in….overwhelm the rationality of people by placing unending desires in front of them….and then later on inform them of the costs/debt they just put themselves into.
The even more funny thing about this was my neighbor at that point had decided to vote “no” on it because he was more pissed off that tourists were going to get to use this rec center for free when it was the locals who were the only ones paying for it via taxes. After I broke the news to him that both tourists and locals will have to pay at the door he was somewhat relieved for a second…but then he realized that he was being forced to pay twice (taxes and usage fees) and that sent him into another frenzy.
On Will you vote for city referendums 2B and 2C, to construct and operate a $34 million rec center at Ski Town Fields?
(anonymous)
October 29, 2007 at 3:19 p.m.
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Before you cast that “yes” vote on this issue you need to realize that there are plenty of steamboat residents who fill the needs of our labor market and they are barely getting by financially…what you are doing is demanding that these locals increase their taxes and cost of living (since businesses will need to pass the extra tax on to us) just to support your recreation wants. If you are selfish enough to live with that decision then vote “yes”, otherwise, I ask you to vote “no” and force the city to come up with a different way to pay for this thing where the USERS of the rec center will be the ones paying the bill.
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On Dream Island under contract (anonymous)
May 16, 2008 at 3:37 p.m.
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I'm obviously missing something here. DI is currently “affordable” as affordable can get in this town. Jim is going to take already affordable housing…put some lipstick on it….and whalla call it “affordable” and this is going to meet his requirements for his other projects. Huh…are we being hoodwinked here?
Now I'm not a big fan of this affordable housing ordinance we have. But if this is all it talkes to meet the requirement then I guess our developers have found a bonafide easy way to get around these requirements. That is some creative thinking on Jim's part. I was under the impression that he actually had to add affordable housing units to the community…not take some away and add slightly more cost to the already affordable housing at DI.
On the other hand, if the current owners were marketing the property then I guess it was just a matter of time before DI goes thru some type of transformation.