On the job
The following figures are taken straight from the town of Minturn’s 2003 final budget (available to anyone interested upon written request). Payroll for the town staff included the following annual salaries: town manager, $64,607; treasurer, $44,786; and town planner, $40,000. According to the town treasurer, these numbers all fall within the middle-of-the-road range taken from a sampling of communities in Colorado with similar populations and budgets.
After living in Minturn 20 years, I feel that we have one of the finest, most articulate groups of professionals on staff, as well as on Town Council, that our little town has ever been blessed with. Their goal is to provide sustainable sales tax revenue for the town so that its infrastructure is not financed by increased property taxes.
As far as Floyd Duran and Lorenzo Martinez are concerned, I see them both at their jobs days and evenings, on weekends, holidays, whenever. We see them at the meetings, the weekend market, at the music festivals, pushing snow around or like Floyd – on his hands and knees fixing someone’s sidewalk or digging sand out of the storm sewer.
Back to the other comments in the paper, it sounds like the same loser (can’t sign his own name) wrote in the next day (1-24-03) and suggests we get rid of our police force as well as the Town Council and staff. That would be charming. Then we could get in line with Red Cliff, holding our hands out for some sort of public assistance and boiling our water all the time.
One last note, I truly believe the Vail Daily Enquirer needs to drop the entire Tipsline format, where as it may increase circulation of your paper, it also clouds the issues with erroneous information. I think all correspondence printed in the paper needs to have the writer sign off and take responsibility for their thoughts.
Support Local Journalism
Editor’s note: This letter was misplaced and publication delayed as a consequence of not finding it until a few days ago. Apologies to Mr. Vance.