It has recently been reported that real estate values in the city of Aspen and Pitkin County have declined for the first time in a good many years. This decline, along with the conversion of some commercial properties to timeshare ownership, thereby changing the tax bite from a high commercial rate to a lower residential rate, will reduce the property tax revenue of both the city and the county.

For the past 40 years, both our county commissioners and our City Council members have enjoyed the ever-increasing benefits of the taxation of a large number of expensive homes, whose absentee owners pay large taxes without any representation ” just like money from home for our politicians.

It encourages me to think that the day may be coming when our governing bodies may have to take a hard look at our bloated and overloaded payrolls ” Pitkin County has more employees and a larger budget than any county its size in the United States ” and face reality. Nearly every governing body in the country from the smallest town to the largest state is being forced to trim its expenses to match its revenues. It may even happen here.

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D. R. C. Brown

Aspen