Letter: Standing up for the people of Basalt

Regarding the letter The Aspen Times published titled “Council was elected to make tough decisions” (Aug. 13) from one of the entrenched developer crowd, I, being one of the supporters who see the park as a newly uncovered jewel and see a more community based revenue generating River Park amenity concept, would like to remind all that the river was hidden from Basalt for 50 years. It was seen for the first time this spring — long after the development interest had set their plans in motion. Any good leader worth their salt, who is courageous in spirit, uses the most recent and relevant information to make decisions. The Council was elected to make smart decisions first and foremost. The community visioning process was hijacked from the public when Lowe Enterprises entered the picture in November. Slick marketing has tried to rewrite history and tell you otherwise. Since then, all non-developer options got thrown in the trash pile. The public town-driven options need to be taken out of the trash and laid side by side with all other options and studied from many perspectives before making a decision.

The community-oriented residents feel the river park area needs to be carefully viewed as an incredibly inspiring public amenity that would infuse the best of Old Basalt, Carbondale, Telluride and Aspen into an evolving Basalt. That would be a splendid result, no?

The bloated expansion of private “stay off and block the river access” attitude being proposed was a bad idea for Basalt. Bernie Grauer, Gary Tennenbaum and Jacque Whitsitt are to be commended for having the guts to not bow to all of the developer group lobbying pressure and standing up for the people.

Mark Kwiecienski

Basalt