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Taking license in tough times

Don Rogers

But cutting off the local driver’s license office in such a high traffic place as Eagle County seems awfully shortsighted. Do the state budget brainiacs understand that the highly seasonal nature of our population adds to the demand for this service staying in town?

Maybe there are some other prudent steps, such as finding a smaller space with less rent than the current $2,900 a month, still relative pennies well spent by the standards of government service.

Driving to Glenwood Springs or Summit County for driver’s license and ID services is a bit much. The inconvenience involved here strikes us as unnecessary. Surely, there are less essential places to cut in that budget.



Eagle County has asked the governor to overrule this cut in favor of a more sensible solution. There’s a better way than the rather knee-jerk decision to close the driver’s license office in Avon.

Era passing

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Those who oppose the Middle Creek affordable housing complex include such Vail stalwarts as Sheika Gramshammer, Rob Ford, Merv Lapin, Diana Donovan, Johannes Faessler – bright, thoughtful people all.

Wise business owners in town have on their own provided housing for employees, and they should be commended.

Philosophically, there is weight to the idea of integrating smaller affordable housing projects into Vail neighborhoods, and this is good. But it’s not enough.

Vail is far enough behind the curve on the affordable housing front that it also needs a sound complex of 142 units in the Middle Creek plan. A rental market historically under a 1 percent vacancy rate, occasionally fluctuating into the 2 percent range, remains well off the preferred 5 percent rate, and the good things that does for the community if perhaps not owners used to reaping fine profits.

Vail continues to forget there’s a community, and a market, growing by leaps and bounds not far to the west. Like it or not, there’s new competition for employees, along with potential customers obviously going untapped. To put this dryly, adjustments are necessary if the golden goose is not to die of malnutrition. Middle Creek is a part of that.

Sad comment

The recent sting on stores that sell liquor to minors in the downvalley was of course distressingly successful. Our roads are more dangerous. We seem willing to kiss off whatever proportion of drunken teens become alcoholics and fall short of their potential. We’re even willing to pay the price of young lives, as we shrug off this rite of passage as innocent “adult” fun. D.R.


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