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Letter: No due diligence on Power Plant selection

I take issue with the opinion of my friend Skippy Mesirow (“On leadership,” Commentary, The Aspen Times, June 10). I think he was trying to fault the City Council for caving in to public pressure on the Aspen Power Plant. That’s not how I see it.

A previously constituted City Council made an impetuous decision to reject the recommendations of its carefully selected citizens’ board. That City Council decided to leapfrog the Power Plant proposal over the board’s recommendations. That meant that the selected project underwent no due diligence. No one had asked any relevant questions, such as: 1. How would this impact the neighborhood? 2. Does this comply with zoning? 3. How would the public receive the awarding of this property to privately owned and operated commercial ventures? The opposition that arose later substituted for the due diligence that wasn’t done upfront — due diligence that, if done, might have led the City Council to conclude in the first place that the Power Plant was not a fit.

Our mayor has said the “complications” lurking in the Power Plant were “unexpected.” They were unexpected only because no one on the City Council (with the sole exception of Adam Frisch, who voted against it) applied any intellectual effort to the matter.



That’s what’s wrong with the City Council.

Maurice Emmer




Aspen