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Don’t blame Helen

Dear Editor:Aspen isn’t lost, it is changing. This is not Mayor Klanderud’s fault. Change is inevitable in life. So what’s new about that? The ski resort was primitive in the late ’40s through the ’50s. Think Ed’s Beds accommodations. The trend to growth began to gather steam through the 1960s. Saving Aspen became a serious government business in the 1970s. What you see lost today is what you get, elite accommodations.Ms. Klanderud saves Aspen again by making it more exclusive. She preserves the city’s snob zoning. The mayor doesn’t propose to house employees in new trailer courts. Her Burlingame affordable housing project is popular and is another step toward turning Aspen into a paternalistic company town. The next big change will come when City Hall considers buying Aspen Mountain.In the 1970s, the majority of voters in their simple cabins had the choice of letting everybody into Aspen or closing the gates to keep certain people out. It’s too late to turn back the clock. Simple mountain cabins have become McMansions. And guess what? A whole lot more of those certain people self-destructed and now live downvalley. Some to trailers in El Jebel at the edge of hell.Blaming the mayor for changes in Aspen is wrong.KNCB MooreSanta Barbara, Calif.