Keep the box closed | Opinion

Editor:

Why would Pitkin County commissioners quash their own professionals, the Pitkin County staff who officially recommended that the Pandora expansion be denied? “Staff listed five main considerations that led them to recommend that county commissioners reject the request” (Aspen Daily News, August 23).

The resort’s and pro-Pandora’s paid propaganda campaign continued unabated, as if the recommendation from county staff meant nothing to SkiCo. As if they believed their arguments could be more convincing to Commissioners than those of their own staff? Just because you’re running a campaign and making a city full of people drool over something they never thought they needed in the first place (who never thought, ‘Aspen Mountain man does’ isn’t good enough? ”) until your lobbyists convince us we need it to“ keep us relevant ”, doesn’t mean we need it.

We’re already the most famous ski town in America, perhaps the world, thanks to “Dumb and Dumber”, CNN, The Aspen Institute, Aspen Dental, Aspen University, The Dodge Aspen and that Miller Beer ad for years. 1980 which very few remember.

Why isn’t anyone talking about the safety risk of adding more skiers to Aspen Mountain by adding more terrain to Aspen Mountain? Most of the mountain goes down to a footbridge and the narrow Little Nell trail at the bottom. Aspen Mountain is already too crowded, and the SkiCo has hot pants when it claims its Ikon Pass doesn’t add skiers and traffic to Highway 82, as many come from Front Range to spend their days in the name most. famous and most glitzy on the Ikon list.

Commissioners should follow the recommendation of county staff and do what is fair and in the best interest of the carbon sequestering trees that would be cut in the expansion of Pandora, while preventing the expansion of more roads in the wild. And they should protect Aspen Mountain bottleneck skiers from any additional skiers who would be drawn to 120 more acres of skiing when there are already three more mountains and over 5,000 acres to explore.

Adding terrain to Aspen Mountain will make the bottom of the mountain more dangerous by adding skiers to the furious confluence of Kleenex Corner, then into the underside of the mountain; where, on freezing afternoons at the start of the season, SkiCo cannons throw frozen jets of blinding ice on the skiers’ faces. It is not a recipe for safety. With security concerns already pressing down below, it’s best to leave that box unopened at the top.

Pandora’s? No. Please obey your staff and make it look like they are earning the taxpayer money you pay them.

Andrew Scott

Aspen