Snowmass mayor owes an apology

I am writing to denounce the comments made by Snowmass Mayor Bill Madsen in the Jan. 28 Pitkin County Board of Health meeting. When I heard the mayor say, “To hearken back to the George Floyd scenario, we have put our foot on the throat of the restaurant industry and they can’t breathe,” I was deeply disturbed.

To make a comparison between temporarily impacting the income of the restaurant industry and the murder of an unarmed Black man at the hands of police is beyond reprehensible. Some people in our country are fighting for their paychecks while others are fighting for their lives, and to compare the two shows a blatant misunderstanding of the issues of race and inequality that plague our nation.

When a leader makes an offensive comment like this, it doesn’t just reflect poorly on him, it reflects on the Board of Health as well as our community, and it erodes the trust that we put in our elected officials. Our board members owe it to the citizens that they represent to be better informed and I am calling on Mayor Madsen to apologize. I also am asking for the Board of Health to speak out against the mayor’s comments in order to regain our trust.

Dan Perl

Aspen