Carbondale’s been a home away from second home for
billionaires for quite a while now, and it’s always the same old story; we’re
like a new pet let in from the cold and given a nice spot by the fire, all cute
and fuzzy and spoiled until we pee on the carpet— then we’re booted right back
out into the cold.
Our billionaires have it pretty good; buying and swapping
land with each other for a dollar like Randolph and Mortimer Duke, while
avoiding too much contact with the Village of Small Merchants and Non Profits.
It’s like my husband always says at weddings, “our presence is present enough.”
But now there’s a new player at the table and I’m curious to see if the stakes
are raised when a Democrat antes in. Hopefully she’ll be a breath of fresh air,
like opening a window in a room full of cigar smoke and cheese straws. A
metaphorical Al Czervik come to buy Bushwood, if you will (we could use a Ty
Webb as well, maybe T Boone Pickens is in the market for a cute little 5,000
square foot cabin.)
Not that I want to see Carbondale turn into a toy town for
crazy billionaires (like another mountain town I used to live in) but a little
investment could go a long way towards keeping Carbondale a Great Place to Be!
The potential is exciting; not only can we be frack-free, but we could keep our
hiking and biking trails and teach seminars in our zero-footprint hotel and
conference center on How to Peacefully Cohabitate with Hippies, Punks, Cowboys
and Ladies Underwear Salesmen.
There is enough room for everyone, and just because you
don’t want to associate with the general public, (and who can blame you? Tromping
around in their primary colors and big brimmed hats…) doesn’t mean you should
hire Western Land Group to strategize a way to kick people off of public land.
I’ve said it before, (but I’ve been told I’m a three-times-sayer)
the thing that makes Carbondale cool is that everyone has fun here: “The
sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads…”
–Grace. And that was the case long before the billionaires showed up with their
fixers trying to redistribute the skittles. We didn’t need their money to start
the rodeo, or Potato Day, or Mountain Fair. We found our favorite hot springs
and hiking trails without them, and we certainly don’t need them to ‘save the
open space’ for us. All we need is a Bureau of Land Management with some cojones.
Pardon my French, but I’m sick of rich people buying up raw land and then
giving it a mani/pedi.
Wild spaces need privacy too. And it’s pretty evident we
can’t rely on the white man to preserve anything except gated communities
called The Preserve. Where are the billionaires who want to leave land exactly
as it is? I mean, they can’t all have unresolved childhood issues that make
them unwilling to share. It’s like a game of candy from the baby. They are
literally taking public land (candy) away from us (the baby) and no one says a
damn thing.
Well, except for a couple of Open Space and Trails Trustees
in Pitkin County named Annie and Hawk. They said something, and they used
public access to hike on public land and they got prosecuted by the US Forest
Service. Then, at the eleventh hour (Friday before the Monday start of trial)
the judge threw out the case. Annie thinks the citations “were an attempt to
intimidate people to stay out of there.”
There are two ways for our Billionaires to purchase public
land:
1. Legislative, when they convince a federal bureaucrat to
do the paperwork, i.e., write a bill (I bet we’d be surprised at how popular ladies
underwear is in our mostly male Congress…)
2. Administrative, when they convince a local bureaucrat to
do the paperwork. Techniques may vary, anywhere from back scratching to
providing misinformation to intimidation and fear of federal prosecution.
Whatever it takes. Because at the end of the game, the one
with the most candy wins, right?
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