The problem with public plans

Dear Editor:Planning is the chief job of top management, and information is its chief resource. Forget that happening in City Hall. Look at the broad confusion today over the design of the Entrance to Aspen. What you see is the mess you get after 37 years of transportation planning. And that’s an improved four-lane Highway 82 from Glenwood to Aspen where it is improved to two lanes until it merges with an improved four lane Main Street.Public planning proves to be impractical for two reasons: 1) We have a weak form of government that allows us to elect inexperienced, part-time amateurs to public office who are not up to performing on a continuous, multidisciplined and vigorous intellectual level. 2) even nice, smart and experienced officials and professional hires are unable to make a constitutionally weak government perform as a comprehensive planner.The low poll ratings given the president, the Congress and the public schools show up a nation where nonmanagement, not management, is the problem.Top manager Walter Paepcke talked about the need for a Master Plan in the 1940s. His plan was to gentrify Aspen. That one private plan has made Aspen extremely prosperous today. No public plan could do so well.Be Brave Comrades.KNCB MooreSanta Barbara, Calif.