Harvey: Longtime families and demo fees

It’s completely disingenuous for Aspen Mayor Rachel Richards to push back against exempting $800,000 in demolition fees for the Cerise family to rebuild their home in the Cemetery Lane neighborhood. (The Aspen Times, bit.ly/43yrsL4)

Richards has juiced development in the past by exempting a longtime local family from the rules. With the Limelight Hotel redevelopment in the early 2000s, she pushed through exemptions for the Poss family, so their new hotel could be higher and bigger.

In the subsequent pre-election Squirm Night, when she was running for county commissioner for the first time, I was one of the editors asking questions. I specifically asked her if she thinks longtime local families should be exempt from some land use rules, she said “yes.”

Her pivot away from helping local families makes this former Aspen Times journalist wonder.

Allyn Harvey

Carbondale