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Free up Wagner Park again

Dear business community members and City Council,

On Wednesday the city is meeting with various members of the business community to ask “How can we help?”

On the one hand, city government has clung to its policies of old, the ideals behind adopting the Home Rule Charter in 1970; for example, policies designed to make it hard for developers to build without community approval or to keep the Entrance to Aspen a difficult passageway to discourage traffic. “Save our small-town mountain culture and protect the locals” has been the platform that almost all City Council candidates have run on since 1970.



On the other hand, the number of rules and red tape that are now required to do things in town in the name of preserving that culture are so numerous and expensive that big-money interests can easily submerge locals’ activities and interests.

For example, since the city upgraded Wagner Park with a new drainage system and a tougher grass a few years back, the Gentlemen of Aspen, a registered nonprofit business who have called Wagner Park home field for 50 years, have been struggling to gain their customary access for summer games and for Ruggerfest. That very space in 1968 they cleaned up and planted trees around.




We ask City Council reinstate our traditional access to Wagner Park. We also ask business owners, when they meet with city officials at their coffee outreach Wednesday, to petition for us.

Bryan McShane

Aspen