Underdogs

I got a call from someone making the case for the bears in town. “We live in bear country. We moved here and they didn’t,” she said. “There aren’t problem bears. There are problem people.”
Chris Parmeter of the Colorado Department of Wildlife has made the same case. We live in bear country and while many residents feel we have “problem bears” in Crested Butte, the bottom line is, we are part of the problem. Now, reality dictates that we are a step up on the food chain so the problem works both ways. Let’s at least be respectful and try to mitigate the “problem” by locking up the garbage, locking the front doors and not leaving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the dashboard of the car.

The Hells Angels. Members of the motorcycle gang weren’t the underdogs this past weekend… believe it or not… the cops were the underdogs. As Sheriff Rick Murdie said this week, “On a scale of one to ten with the public relations machine, the Hells Angels are a 9 and the police are a 1.” But the reality is, the Hells Angels are, for the most part, criminals; sometimes violent criminals. The majority are convicted felons. Many of them are convicted of rape, selling meth, beating the crap out of people and murder. Despite the impression that they were on vacation posing for pictures, playing softball and generally being another roadside attraction, the Hells Angels are not secretive about being dangerous. It’s part of their mystique and one reason people wanted their picture taken with them.
The cops are the cops, and even Monday when I drove to Gunnison I saw too many along the highway with a couple of Staties chatting at the county shops, a sheriff’s car heading north and someone pulled over by a big white SUV. I think the number of police up here on a normal day in paradise is probably too many. In another editorial I may argue the merits of combining the two law enforcement agencies in the north end of the valley.
But with 500 Hells Angels in town I am glad there were as many police as there were, and they made their presence known to the motorcycle club members. It appears one person paid a horrible price with the Hells Angels in Crested Butte early Saturday morning, and that is one person too many.
Overall, the cops did a nice job and even the Hells Angels apparently acknowledged that effort. The Angels may have been laid back because the cops weren’t. Hey, buy your favorite cop a donut this week.

The 1% for Open Space Board. Here is a board trying to do the right thing but getting embroiled in a world they try to avoid. That world is Crested Butte politics. They are getting heat on both sides of the issue over trying to purchase a trail easement in Baxter Gulch. Normally this group just ponies up money for good projects. Heck, they threw in $110,000 for the Kochevar open space purchase and that is wonderful. But they are getting pushback, primarily from some members of the Crested Butte Land Trust board, on the proposal to pay $45,000 for a trail easement. The Crested Butte council might consider rescuing them from the political peril. But they probably won’t. The bottom line over this easement: Does this make a nasty trail better? The answer is yes. Is it worth paying for? That apparently is still to be decided. You can’t please everyone in every deal but the 1% board doesn’t need to be put in this vise.

Fireworks. Not sure there is an underdog here but there certainly isn’t an overdog. As I have said for a couple of months, the two towns seemed to have determined it is in the best interest of their constituents to have both towns spend the big bucks and put on a huge fireworks show… separately. Silly. This is an issue of emotion so there will be no backing off from either council. My original 50-50 chance that they could find a way to work together is now laying at 99-1 odds… against. Each will pull thousands of dollars out of their black budget hole, and next year we can look forward to another great Fourth of July pyrotechnic extravaganza. There will be no compromise, no working together on this one. But there are worse things.
So at the very least, each town as a unit or both towns together should figure out a way to market the hell out of it and get those people that love fire in the sky to make the trip to this valley. Can they at least figure out a way to do that? I give that one another 50-50 shot as well.

And finally a shout out to this year’s political underdog. State representative Kathleen Curry is fighting the uphill battle as a write-in candidate. Vying against two political party candidates, Curry, the incumbent who has shown consistent courage and passion for this district, must convince people to actually write five letters on their ballot. C-U-R-R-Y. That’s it. And she must do it with less ability to gather campaign contributions since her opponents can collect money both before and after the primaries. She is essentially entitled to half the contributions from individuals compared to Democrats and Republicans. Talk about underdog. But voters around here need to look not at her party but at her performance. If they do that, most will vote for the underdog and figure out how to write her name on the ballot this fall.

Being an underdog is no fun. Just ask the bear that fell for the old ice cream and fried chicken in a trap trick. But this is a community that roots for the underdogs most times, so every once in a while they should be acknowledged.