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Letter: Don’t even think about it

Recently, The Aspen Times printed a letter suggesting that our surrounding national forest be opened up for public (employee) housing (“Put employee housing on federal land,” Letters to the editor, July 20). I reply with a resounding “no.” Our forests were created not for private dwellings but as a preservation of our national heritage and for the recreational use of all people. Were this concept cracked and privately or publicly funded usage be permitted in the form of housing, the floodgates would open, and there would be no end to the demand and spread in the years ahead. Perhaps the most compelling factor in the popularity of the town of Aspen is its size, determined in large part by surrounding federal land.

Start populating federal land with houses and people, and both town and residents would suffer.

Hopefully this ill-advised suggestion will not see the light of day.



Everett Peirce

Basalt