Letter: Please let us watch our kids compete in winter sports
Eagle County Commissioners and Public Health directors, please allow us to watch our kids compete in winter sports at our local schools. Parents are missing out on the last years, and sometimes the last days that their children will get to participate in high school sports. Some of our students are down to just a few more events before their athletic careers will end, and they will move on, far from Eagle County.
My own student athletes have asked to leave the district so they can attend schools in neighboring counties or states where fans are in attendance at games. It is very difficult for both parents and student athletes to see fans in the stands at away sporting events just 30 minutes from our own home gym.
I am not suggesting that you open gyms up to whole communities to pack in shoulder to shoulder. Not like in the lift lines at our ski resorts. Nor am I suggesting that you allow us to remove our masks, like our paying tourists do in bars and restaurants. Nor am I asking that we ignore social distance rules, like we do in Walmart and Costco. It feels unfair that tourists get to fly here, shoulder to shoulder in an airplane, go to restaurants and bars, and crowd together in lift lines, but we can’t watch our kids compete in the things that they’re passionate about, while safely, socially distanced.
It seems like our local government can be flexible when it comes to making things work for wealthy tourists and big businesses, but it’s too much to ask for the same flexibility and problem solving for the local families and students who live in this valley year-round and voted some of you into the offices you hold.
Please reconsider the values and needs of the people you are representing, and allow families to attend their children’s events.
Support Local Journalism
Sara Fitzsimmons
Gypsum
