On November 7, Aspen voters trounced the issue, casting 2,824 no votes to 1,883 in favor of a runway expansion. The election probably wouldn’t have been quite so lopsided were it not for the intervention of author Hunter S. Thompson.
“It’s a victory for the people who live here,” said Thompson, who co-hosted an election eve anti-airport rally (after which he was busted for driving under the influence). “We are the community and that’s what we’ve told them… The Ski Company should get a lesson from this. They’re not in charge here,” the “Doctor” proclaimed.
Earlier in the election season, Thompson had delivered his own unique response to the proposed expansion called “The Woody Creek Manifesto.” Woody Creek lies just outside the Aspen city limits in the airport flight path, but residents maintain their opposition is not NIMBY (not in my backyard)-based.
“The time has come for the whole human community of the Roaring Fork Valley to say that we will accept no more garbage coming downstream from the greed-crazed merchant/fortress of Aspen,” Thompson’s Manifesto read.
The election spawned an “us” and “them” adversarial relationship reminiscent of the late 1970s, when the Skico eliminated the local’s ski pass. Neighbors took to calling one another “greedheads” and “obstructionists.”
Opponents saw runway improvements as a critical quality of life concern that could spawn incalculable other problems in the narrow, rapidly developing valley. The airport became a metaphor for growth and all the related problems that have finally come to a head—skyrocketing rents, second home-owners pushing locals downvalley, chain stores supplanting local businesses, etc. A new anti-growth group called the United Neighborhoods Organization was formed midway through the election season.
Proponents, lead by the Skico and the Aspen and Snowmass Village chambers of commerce, maintained that the 1994 withdrawal of Continental Express left the market with just one airline, consistently high ticket prices and far fewer available seats. While four airlines were scheduled to provide limited service to Sardy Field for the winter season, the transportation situation was dire, supporters claimed. Especially in light of the fact that air transit was becoming more convenient at other resorts such as Vail. An expanded runway would open doors to new and existing carriers, supporters said.
With back-to-back years of declining lift ticket sales staring them in the face, the Skico was justifiably nervous about the airport situation. The Skico’s pre-election waffling on the issue (spawned by the ballot’s vague wording, they claimed), didn’t help its cause in the public’s eye.
Not insignificant to the fight were the publicly-voiced safety issues, with each side presenting so-called “experts” who testified as to why or why not Boeing 737s and other jets, would work in Aspen. A safety study that was “mysteriously” released just days before the election was dragged out as evidence.
As is true in most every Aspen election, emotions ran high and tempers flared. While the Skico’s John Norton admitted, pre-election, that the issue would most likely fail, he probably couldn’t have anticipated the negative fallout it has caused.
The wounds of divisiveness will heal. But many residents view the election as a black eye to the Skico in a year of missteps that have included: a failed proposal for cops patrolling the Snowmass Ski Area slopes, a one-month furlough for all year-round workers and an oft-ridiculed and eventually rescinded “no purple hair” grooming policy.
