By Tom Darnell
November 24, 2008, 8:45 am

“Give me your tired, poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”  This statement is just a part of the quotation on the plaque of the Statue of Liberty at the southern end of New York Harbor.  For 122 years, this Ellis Island Lady has welcomed and inspired many who helped weave the human fabric of the United States of America.

If there were a statue at the bottom of Farmington Hill, the southern end of Durango, it might read, “Give me your old (if they have enough money), give me your fixed income (if they are willing to spend even more for basic services), give me your huddled masses (if they are willing to work two jobs to support their families), but don’t expect to breathe for free.”

Why would I bring this up? Because the Durango City Council meeting on November 18, 2008 talked about the new city budget, and councilors discussed how to raise a variety of fees, in particular solid waste fees, which have already been raised three times in the last four years.

Councilor Doug Lyon analyzed the proposal most aptly saying, “This is death by 5,000 cuts for people on a fixed income, single-parent homes, the disabled and the old.”

This was followed by Councilor Leigh Meigs saying those people are being subsidized enough and should pay more.  But others are also being subsidized, including the proponents of recreational and environmental projects.

So, the true statement of the council majority of Meigs, Scott Graham and Michael Rendon is, “Give us your young, wealthy, physically and politically active people like us, and we will subsidize recreation, open space, trails and sustainable environment at the cost of fixed income people having less and less money”, thereby lowering their quality of life.

A second area that should be explored is whether this council is latently anti-business through its sophisticated anti-growth policies and decisions.

I asked the council that evening if it could use some of its political activism to create new jobs and diversify the economy, resulting in additional tax revenue generation for their money projects.

The answer was, “Look at Twin Buttes. That was a pro-business, pro-commercial development.”  However, when we look closer at that decision to allow the housing project west of Durango to proceed, we see clearly that the developer anticipated all of the council’s politically correct expectations, and the developer did all of the homework on the city’s Comprehensive Plan (the current Council’s “Anti-Growth Bible”).

What other choice did council have when it got everything it asked for, and more. from the developer? Another factor was Mayor Renee Parsons’ behavior during the hearings making the council legally vulnerable to a lawsuit. It seems that there was no choice but to approve, since council was backed into a corner of its own making.

This was not a conscious creation of new jobs and business. It was another stone embedded in the wall to stop new growth. How can anyone match the investment which the Twin Buttes developer made to get this project through a brutal approval process and then build a product that ordinary human beings can afford with the huge subsidies forced on the developer by council?

Did someone say subsidies? I thought subsidies were bad for the fixed income and poor, but now they seem to be OK for the young, upwardly mobile, and politically correct. What the anti-growth faction has done is create surrogate people (experts) in jobs, specifically subsidized by council, to choose the “selected people” they think need the subsidies the most within the guidelines determined by council.

Councilor Lyon reacted to my request for council leadership to create jobs and economic diversity by saying here are many local, private organizations that can lead the quest for new businesses. Isn’t it conversely true there are many private, environmental and recreational organizations that could lead the quest for recreational, open space, trails and sustainable environment priorities? They don’t have to do that since we already have three city councilors who are taking active leadership roles in that quest.

Councilor Graham seems to represent this position best by continually telling us that the people who elected him, and Councilors Meigs and Rendon, expect them to take certain stands on recreation, open space, trails and sustainable environment issues. If that means voting for a few new fees and creating new regulations, so be it!

The solid waste fee increase passed 3-2 with Lyon and Parsons voting against it.

Does this type of dogmatic thinking put another nail in the coffin of a healthy business community? Actions speak louder than words.

It has become obvious from the actions of Meigs, Graham, Rendon and Parsons that they are anti-growth, if not anti-business. The ramifications are fewer jobs, less development, and a stagnant business community which pays a vast majority of all types of local taxes.

This process of slow death is strange. We are losing new opportunities for economic and social diversity in Durango through a new form of isolationism. Printer Friendly Version

On December 24, 2008, at 3:06 pm, Ray Walker wrote:

The Statue of Liberty is located on Liberty Island, not Ellis Island. Granted they are a short distance apart, but they are two different islands.

On November 29, 2008, at 7:20 am, Confused wrote:

According to every one I talk to Durango is a very desirable place to live. Therefore it cost more to live here than it does to live in a less desireable area. Does that somehow make it unfair to those that would like to live here but can't afford it? The only specific complaint that I read from your article was your comments about the cost of solid waste fees. Do you feel that these fees are too high? Where is the money that is collected going? Is the money being spent properly? If you are going to take the time to point out problems you should also take the time to create solutions. If you have a better way to collect solid waste let's hear about it.