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At least, a referendum

Dear Editor:

The City Council has given us a welcome time-out to think things over when it comes to Lift One. For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts.

I would be perfectly happy if nothing got built there. People speak of the neighborhood in which I live as if it were an area like the South Bronx in desperate need of rehabilitation. Come over here and walk around. It is very nice. I would also be happy if a few townhomes were built on the site. It is true that these have no community benefit but they also have little or no negative impact ” unlike the proposed project with its 1,300 automobiles per day.



There also seems to be agreement on what I call the “magic wand” solution. This would consist of some small lodges with a decent amount of open space and a feeder lift that one really wants. Why is this the “magic wand” solution? This is because the town has got itself in the odd position of making the developers whole. Think about it for a minute. Suppose Macy’s wanted to open a branch here. Suppose they say to make our store financially viable we need 8,000 square feet. How far would they get? But we are stuck with the homongous Lift One proposal because each time there is an effort to shrink it to some reasonable level the developers tell us that they can’t make enough money to make it worth their while to build. We have somehow made this our problem.

I hope at the very least, this project is put up for a referendum.




Jeremy Bernstein

Aspen