Guth: Grateful for city leaders?
With Thanksgiving, I find myself wondering how to be grateful for this Aspen City Council. But, I can’t find a way. Can you?
Despite their mostly good intentions, these five “leaders” are perilously steering Aspen in an unsustainable direction. As a result of their lack of leadership, life, and business experiences, their solutions to our problems only compound Aspen’s longstanding issues and create new ones.
They have created an environment whereby our government is growing rapidly yet the quality of service provided to us citizens has declined. They have zero creativity and refuse to take advice from citizens with deep experience.
I believe that this council bears responsibility for many of our issues and frustrations: housing availability, lack of affordable restaurant and retail options, child-care options, bad development work (including construction defects), traffic, and more.
If we continue down these unsustainable paths, Aspen will become even more exclusive, and our community will dissolve. We must be creative, business- and community-minded, and work to ensure all aspects of our community are considered — not just the limited perspective of an overconfident few who are in constant agreement on how to make life worse for Aspen’s citizens.
Let’s move on from these ineffective leaders and position Aspen to be the world’s best alpine resort for the next generation.
Bill Guth
Aspen