My hamburger is your filet?

A guy goes into a butcher and sees a selection of meat. He wants to eat filet but can only afford hamburger. He buys the hamburger. And then he starts wondering why that hamburger doesn’t taste like filet. Alchemy, paradox, benefits vs. impacts, right brain, left brain. You. Them. Us. Just another day in the valley as we head into April?

You love wetlands but they want dogs, kids and cats to run free through the animal breakfast buffet that is a nesting ground.
You choose to live in a ski town, and they fight ski expansion to the hill a short gondola ride away.
You argue for ski expansion to obtain the dire need for more intermediate terrain to attract customers, but they choose to close the lifts serving intermediate terrain to save money.
You say sales tax is important, but they do everything with parking and zoning to keep people away from the stores.
You say you want your resorty mountain town to be a “real” community, and they send the things that make up a real community, like a post office, out of town.
You want to protect pristine valleys from the evils of skiing but they want to bring in rich people to cat ski in a pristine valley.
You buy a house next to a school for the location, and they are upset that families actually drop their kids off to attend classes there.
You encourage an annexation, but they are shocked when the developers come in with a plan with actual houses on the map.
You, as the largest business in the valley, say working with the local community is important but they do whatever it takes make sure the locals know they are just locals.
You tout county government as a conduit to attract business to the area for jobs, and they spend all your energy trying to regulate anything that resembles business in the valley.
You want to be green, sustainable and carbon-negative, but they actually want to live at 9,000 feet in the mountains where nothing but lettuce can be grown, the main industry relies on jets, and people, food and energy all have to be shipped in.
You move into a house next to the business district to be closer to downtown, and they can’t understand why it is so loud.
You like living in an old mining town, but they hate the idea of a mine or even the old shacks from the coal-mining era.
You want a simple agreement to benefit the children of the community, and they want an ironclad contract to solve every conceivable problem that might come in the next century.

You are us. We are them. We’re glad you’re here. They is loud. The filet is hamburger. More benefits. No impacts. Everyone stop the madness. Last man standing….  just kidding.

 Happy April Fool’s Day.

—Mark Reaman