Vail Daily letter: Listen to the opponents
“The company’s next step will be to sit down with town staff and officials to rework the Eagle River Station plan” — so says RED in the recent Vail Daily article. How much did it cost the Eagle taxpayers to go through the first process? After all of the promises, pitching, puffing and touting in the last three years, RED finally has realized that the ERS project, as planned and promoted, was just too large for the area; that it was not economically feasible in the market then and now; that all of those nay-sayers in the community that opposed the project may have had a point that the plan did not fit the place, the time or the desires of the denizens of the Eagle area, except those of the professional shoppers, urban sprawlers and cronies of RED who supported it no matter what the potential costs and damages would turn out to be.
Perhaps the town of Eagle and RED can take a lesson from history when they process the second stab at this development, and listen to those who were right in the first place, the opponents of the first project. Would it be too non-protocolic to convene a meeting between the town of Eagle, RED and the prior opponents to paint this white elephant into a different color, say, green, especially when the taxpayers are going to take another hit in the process, and the historical complexion of Eagle is destined for a makeover per the designs of a St. Louis developer? It is the arrogance that voters endow their municipal officials that creates the mind set of “we know better” or “trust me, I’m from the government” that foments the governmental proclivity to err and ignore the interests of the people. The town of Eagle can learn from the last referendum that the minority in an election may have a point, albeit it does not promote the wish book of a brazen developer.
Fredric Butler