Roses and Thorns – This week’s best and worst of Aspen

Thorns: A thorn to 9th Judicial District Attorney Sherry Caloia for acting like a sore loser in comments to The Aspen Times last week about voters rejecting her in favor of Republican Jeff Cheney this November. Caloia admitted she remains angry about the loss and is considering leaving Glenwood Springs after 28 years. She also has reportedly made her office an awkward and sometimes uncomfortable place to work in the run up to Cheney’s inauguration as DA on Jan. 10.

Thorns: Thorns to the contractor on the Basalt pedestrian underpass project. It’s a $13 million deal. Can’t you please buy a few extra gallons of paint and, the next time the weather allows, delineate the adjusted lanes better? It’s tough enough to figure out what’s going on when you live here. Imagine the challenge for tourists and strangers.

Roses: Roses to Reid Haughey for quietly playing such a critical role in preserving open spaces in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the West. He was the Pitkin County manager when the open space programs was launched. He oversaw extensive growth of the Aspen Valley Land Trust in the early 2000s. And, in his latest role, he oversaw the Wilderness Land Trust, which buys inholdings of private land surrounded by wilderness or adjacent to wilderness and gets the parcels into the hands of public land management agencies. How cool is that? Haughey claims he is retiring soon. We’ll see. Whether he does or not, he deserves an “atta boy” along with the roses.

Thorns: Thorns to the woman, who, while walking in front of The Aspen Times building on Wednesday — while the newsroom was discussing Roses and Thorns, no less — let little Fifi lay one down on the sidewalk. Without picking it up. When will they learn?