ISSUE # 32 ... EXPOSE: THE BURLINGAME BACK STORY

by Marilyn Marks

"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." - Mark Twain

The shameful Burlingame "back story" is one that the local papers did not weave together to give the citizens a complete picture of the wrongs against the taxpayers, the housing fund, and the community support for affordable housing. It is a distressing tale of:
-falsified audit findings
-dishonesty
-likely election law violations
-phony cost studies
-corruption
-elected officials' purposeful misrepresentations
-abusive treatment of private citizens
-cover ups
-reckless squandering of tens of millions of taxpayer funds
-cronyism
-incompetence, and
-gross mismanagement.

Apparently, this was acceptable behavior to our current City Council, which has failed to denounce these unacceptable standards of governance. Burlingame is an embarrassing story for Aspen. Most citizens have no idea just how

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PLUCKING THE SILENT GOOSE Issue # 31

Updated on March 4 by Elizabeth

"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing." Jean Baptist Colbert, attributed

Given the recent disclosures of Burlingame multi-million dollar mismanagement, millions in real estate speculation losses, a bloated City budget and the abuse of City employee p-cards and bonus plans, we've been getting a lot of questions from full-time locals and part-time residents alike on how to have a more effective voice in our local government.

PART TIME RESIDENTS Part-time residents, including seasonal residents and second homeowners are not well-represented in our local democracy. Particularly for second homeowners who pay the bulk of local property taxes, being continually tapped to fund local programs and projects is not so much the issue as not being able to participate in the process. They clearly are the lifeblood of most of the Valley's non-profits, as well as property tax-funded activities. Seasonal renters and workers are also making great financial and personal contributions to our lifestyle here. According to an economic white paper recently commissioned by the City, local residents only pay 10% of the sales taxes which go into the general fund. Second homeowners, part-time residents and visitors contribute 90%

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ISSUE # 30 ... CALEB KLEPPNER AND HIS KLEPTOMANIACAL MACHINE

Updated on March 5 by Elizabeth

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." -

Will Rogers

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO TOWN 

Caleb Kleppner (TrueBallot.com) is packing his bags and his little black box for a most-important business trip to Aspen. He may be the one guy in America who has the "counting machine" and ready ability to program it specifically for the Instant Run-Off Voting (IRV) vote count that will be implemented for our May 2009 election.

Remember, Aspen voters overwhelmingly supported a conversion to IRV in the November 2007 election when city officials claimed that IRV would save time and money by eliminating a separate run-off election should one candidate not get 50% plus one. They failed to disclose all of the confusing and practical difficulties with the untested system. The truth of the matter is that depending on which vote-counting method is selected (because the ballot language left this to the discretion of Council), the results can vary dramatically as demonstrated in last week's IRV open house at City Hall.

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ISSUE # 29b ... DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT ALGEBRA .... Part II

Paul Menter is also concerned about IRV. Paul's letter gives us the 30,000 foot view of the mess.

See his letter below. (Also see updatedinformation following the Orginal Posting.)

To the Editor,

I’ve been hearing the distant, gravelly voice of Edward P. Benton recently. My 8th grade social studies teacher’s mantra was …”You study the past so you can make better decisions in the present and improve the future.”

Or something like that…

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ISSUE # 29 ... DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT ALGEBRA

Updated on February 19 by Elizabeth

Updated on February 19 by Elizabeth

Don't know much about algebra

Don't know what a slide rule is for
But I do know that one and one is two

And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful world this would be.

Sam Cooke

(CLICK HERE to listen to the oldie while you read)

 
What a wonderful world it would be indeed if Aspen City officials had more respect for some of the basic democratic principles we treasure in America! If you're like everybody else we've talked to about this, you're not gonna believe The Red Ant at first, but see for yourself... 
The bottom line is that in the upcoming May election for Mayor and two council seats, Aspen will be using an election system that's never been tried before in the United States, where, depending on the mathematical scheme chosen to tabulate votes, there could be different results as to who is declared the winner. And guess who's designing and proposing the new election rules?

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ISSUE # 28 ... ASPEN'S LAND-BANKING NEEDS A BAILOUT

"The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." -- Margaret Thatcher

HOUSING AND LAND-BANKING FOLLIES

In 2007, City Officials obviously thought the flow of second-homeowner real estate transfer taxes would never dry up. Did they all drink the Kool-Aid served at the September, 2007 Housing Summit which was Mayor Ireland's initiative to fan the flames of the insatiable need for Affordable Housing within Aspen's city limits?

"Land Banking" - buying up land and property with public housing funds became a key strategy promoted at the meeting. (Admittedly, before the Burlingame money pit was uncovered.) Several "deposits" in the City's "Land Bank" have caught the public's ire, as they were not only controversial when they occurred, but have now become high-profile money losers,

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ISSUE # 26c ... CITY CROSS-CHECKS LOCALS ... Part III

Updated on February 9 by Elizabeth

Updated on February 11 by Elizabeth

Updated on February 19 by Elizabeth

I hate missing my town league team’s hockey games, but it looks like I might have to miss one on Tuesday in order to attend the City’s work session to be held at 5:00 pm at City Hall on February 10. At that meeting the City will consider whether to close the Aspen Ice Garden for 5 and a half months out of the year. The agenda packet for that meeting can be found at this link: http://aspenpitkin.com/uploads/cc.ws.021009.pdf.

Lots of people from the community are going to attend that meeting and are going to tell the Mayor and the City Council how much they love the Ice Garden. So there’s not much I can add to that discussion.

But I feel compelled to attend because the City’s numbers that are being used to justify the closure don’t add up, and I think we’re going to have to have a little discussion...

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ISSUE # 27 ... ASPEN'S SHAKEDOWN STREET

Updated on February 5 by Elizabeth

Updated on February 5 by Elizabeth

"Nothing shakin' on Shakedown Street,
Used to be the heart of the town.
Don't tell me this town ain't got no heart,
You just gotta poke around."
- The Grateful Dead

IT'S HOPKINS STREET... 

Shakedown Street in Aspen? You just gotta poke around to learn that it's Hopkins Street. Hopkins and Galena, right? Well, yes. But a few blocks west is the scene of a classic, little-known shakedown of interesting proportions and even more interesting characters!

City Hall, at Hopkins and Galena, has certainly been the site of many a shakedown of developers attempting to get approvals for their projects, with Council bent on negotiating every square inch. Regardless of whether the projects meet code and have the recommendation of the professionals in Community Development or on the Planning and Zoning board, Council is known for squeezing developers for more subsidized housing, larger public amenities or smaller building dimensions in order to grant approval. And in the case of the Cooper Street Pier building, Council even extracted a government price-controlled eatery!

(See Issue #4 - "Welcome Chairman Mao's Diner.")

Recent months have borne witness to several bizarre negotiations with developers on Lift 1A, Aspen Walk, the Wienerstube, and even the

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