A Look Back...

Last New Year's Eve (2008), former Aspenite Jim Blanning planted four homemade bombs near banks in downtown Aspen. The incident closed down 16 blocks of downtown and several businesses suffered huge losses in revenue. The Aspen Police Department was also challenged to tackle an incident unlike anything they had dealt with before. They called in agencies from as far away as Grand Junction and Vail to help block off the area and dismantle the bombs. The evacuation order was lifted at 5 AM on New Year's Day, leaving businesses like restaurants empty-handed on one of their busiest nights.

Since the bomb scare, some restaurants have recovered, but just barely. Denise Walters with Social and Elevation restaurants says the evacuation kick-started a tough year, combined with the recession. The eateries lost 5% of their total revenue that night and the recession pushed revenues down 20 to 30% compared to the year before. Fortunately, the restaurants are nearly booked for this New Year's Eve and the staff is positive.

For the Aspen Police Department, the biggest success of their response to the incident was that no one was hurt and no major property damage was reported. But, the Department realized they needed more radios, as batteries died during the night. And, phone calls backed up so the Department expanded their phone and computer capacity. Officers also realized they needed to communicate with local media more during significant incidents.

Despite the lessons learned and hardships battled, the incident is now just a "foggy memory," according to Walters. Now, there's nothing more to look toward but the future.

Holiday Struggles

It seems the Holiday season brings out the best and most difficult circumstances in a community. Today I did a story about how the Toys for Tots charity in Basalt is struggling to raise donations for needy people in the mid-Valley. Organizers believe people are so strapped for cash, they are waiting until they buy their own Christmas gifts before buying some for others. It's hard to hear about the impoverished side of our community--people having difficulty paying rent or putting food on the table. Maggie Cruz of the Roaring Fork Family Resource Center at the Basalt schools says basic needs assistance has gone up. More people are applying for programs like Medicaid and Child Health Plan Plus, which is a low-income insurance plan for children. More people are applying for Toys for Tots too--the number of families who asked for gifts this year was more than double what it was in 2007. Cruz says most of the poverty she sees is centralized to the trailer parks in El Jebel and Basalt, where large families often squeeze into small living spaces.

If you would like to donate to Toys for Tots, you can find donation boxes at Alpine Bank, Aspen Valley Hospital, Big "O" Tire, Basalt Community United Methodist Church, Novel-Tea Bookstore, Red Rock Diner, American Furniture Warehouse, Capo Tile, Christopher and Banks, Edward Jones and Moe's Southwest Grill. The boxes will be picked up on Friday.

First Turns

I made my first turns of the season yesterday, on Aspen Mountain. My legs were reminded of the sport as I led them slowly (at first) down runs like Copper, North American and finally Spar Gulch. I heard the sounds of the World Cup as I finished the day at the bottom. It felt good to ski and there was a surprising amount of people on the mountain, which should make the Aspen Skiing Company feel good too.

The Ski-Co is gearing up for a season that it hopes will match last winter, when it comes to ticket sales and general business. The Company logged 1.36 million skier visits last season, which was down more than 7 % from the 2007/2008 season. The Ski-Co is using more marketing dollars this year and aggressively promoting deals. Ski-Co Senior Vice President David Perry told the Aspen Times recently "We're still battling economic headwinds."

Despite the challenges, everything seemed in its place yesterday with a packed Ajax Tavern and lift lines at the Silver Queen Gondola. Let's hope the early-season visual signs are representative of what's to come throughout the rest of this 2009/2010 ski season.

Veterans Day in Aspen

U.S. Representative John Salazar spoke at a Veterans Day event in Aspen yesterday. He talked about legislation he's working on to help veterans get medical care when they return from serving overseas. He also mentioned how a new National cemetery in southern Colorado gained approval from the House last week. After discussing "business," Salazar told a story obviously close to his heart, about his father who was a veteran himself. Holding back tears, the congressman told how his father mentioned family and being buried in his uniform right before he died.

The most moving part of the ceremony though, was not Salazar's talk. Instead it was a short comment made by an unidentified soldier who had served in Vietnam. He said he had never felt welcome upon his return home until 37 years later when he came to Aspen. He said the Fourth of July parade where veterans walk through a cheering crowd, was the first time he had felt "welcomed home."

Another veteran I interviewed said nowadays, "greeters" are standing by and called to duty when a veteran returns to the United States. He said no longer do veterans need to feel "unwelcome" when they return home.

Mental Health Behind Bars

Nationally 16% of inmates in jails suffer from mental illness. At the Pitkin County Jail, Administrator Don Bird estimates that number is even greater. He believes between 20 and 25% of inmates deal with issues such as psychotic episodes that are often the reasons inmates end up in jail.

In order to better protect the community and serve the Jail's population, a more aggressive approach is being taken at the Jail. Jail officials will work with health providers to identify, diagnose and treat mental illnesses among inmates. The inmates will also be referred to local health providers after they are released from jail.

Bird says the new approach sprung from a greater awareness of mental health issues in the Valley. He says organizations such as Colorado West are bringing mental illness to the spotlight and making it not such a taboo subject.

So far one inmate has successfully gone through Pitkin County's program, from identifying the illness to seeking treatment with a health provider after release. Bird estimates more inmates will go through the program as they fine-tune it. It's currently being funded with County dollars allocated to medical expenses in the Jail's budget.

A Booming Business

Each day in Colorado, 400 applications from patients wanting to use marijuana as medicine, come to the State Department of Health and Environment. In 2006, just over 1000 people were on the State's patient registry. So far this year, more than 11,000 people are card-carrying medicinal marijuana users. Four dispensaries have opened in Aspen since late summer and several others are serving patients up and down the Roaring Fork Valley.

To treat a knee injury, one patient I talked to uses a concentrated form of the plant that is liquified and edible. Josh Griggs says it makes the constant pain he experiences go away. Griggs is also a dispensary owner and he has created several rules for his patients, or members. They are required to sign a 5-page agreement saying they will not re-sell the marijuana on the street and the patients are outlawed from using the drug in the dispensary.

Local town governments are also creating rules in an effort to regulate parts of the industry. In New Castle, the Town Board is preparing to adopt an ordinance that would require background checks for dispensary owners and the dispensaries themselves would be subject to Conditional Use requirements. So far, no dispensaries have opened in New Castle but in Glenwood Springs there are at least two downtown stores. City elected officials have not set up rules but the mayor believes the State needs to create more regulations.

This booming industry seems to be growing so fast, local governments and even dispensaries are trying to catch up and regulate it where they can. It will be interesting to see where this newly-sprouting industry goes and whether new regulations from the State are developed.

Cool State Website

There's a new State website that "tracks the dollars" of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and it's interesting to see where those stimulus dollars are going. I talked to the Executive Director of Mountain Family Health Centers, which is receiving about $554,000 in stimulus funds, and he told me he's never seen so much transparency from the government. And this website exemplifies that. The website at www.colorado.gov/recovery leads you to a map of the counties of Colorado. You can click on say, Garfield County and find a list of organizations that are receiving Federal funds. An interesting benefactor in Garfield County is Glenwood Beauty Academy Inc., which is getting a $45,000 chunk of change. I suppose the money will help train people to cut hair, paint nails or other beauty trades. Go ahead and log onto the site and check out where the money is going in your county, you might be surprised!