A loss and five things I did for work last week

 The community lost another good one last week. It is unfortunately part of living in this active high mountain valley. Crested Butte’s 42-year-old Sarah Steinwand died in an avalanche near Silverton while snowboarding in the backcountry. I didn’t know her, but everyone says she was CB deep. Part of the 30s and 40s age group trying to make it work in a ski town, she worked hard, volunteered and played hard. 

Like it or not, this incident is part of living here. It sometimes scares the crap out of me as I have two boys living in the mountains and they both like the backcountry, the rivers and snow. But this place and others like Crested Butte, doesn’t attract meek, stay in bed, wallflowers. It attracts the passionate, the fierce and the unafraid. Our hearts go out to her family and friends, and I wish we didn’t have to face these sorts of incidents. But we do more often than we’d like.

According to Donald’s slash-and-burn czar, everyone should justify their job by submitting to him a list of five productive things they did at work the previous week if they don’t want to get fired. Not wanting to fire myself, here’s a quick list from last week that I’d do again this week…

1) As part of my job, I wrote that Elon was a possible lizard person who seems to relish being an asshole. He confirmed that afterward by looking like and acting like a middle school lizard boy at a middle school dance as he pranced around the CPAC stage with his super cool sunglasses, flat brim black MAGA hat and chrome chainsaw bragging about firing people all week. He might as well be a James Bond movie villain.

2) I breathed. Deeply. Believe it or not, that can lead to work efficiency and productivity.

3) I suggested citizens in Gunnison County tell our rookie congressional representative Jeff Hurd not to fall into the DC cesspool. I left a voicemail at his Washington office saying I hoped he had the character to stand up for his ‘Main Street Republican’ values and our independent Western Slope character. I want him to ultimately follow his conscience and not his con. You can do the same by calling 1-202-225-4676. 

4) I questioned why any person, particularly elected members of Congress, would abandon their previously stated principles because they’re apparently afraid Donald might tweet something mean about them that could cost them a primary election. I guess these people have secretly just been waiting for a brave deity to give the green light to support Vladimir Putin after Ukraine inexplicably invaded Russia, and they finally can rejoice at cutting Medicaid to their constituents.

5) I thanked a CBMR ski patrolman on the Silver Queen for that team doing such a good job on the mountain getting it open from the peak to Third Bowl. He said they are working on Teo 2. That was a more personal action, but I did mention the patrol in the paper last week and want to continue giving kudos to what it has accomplished this lean snow year.

Sigh…

Look…the concept of driving more efficiency in government is a good one. As huge as the U.S. bureaucracy is, there are no doubt places to be more efficient. One way to be efficient is to thoughtfully analyze work and the results, and then eliminate practices and positions that don’t work well. That’s not what is happening right now. 

Elon’s Department of Government Efficiency continues its pretty inefficient quest to reduce the size of government. Blanket firings of so-called “probationary” personnel is hobbling individual departments that could impact you. Taking a rusty scythe to all government agencies just to meet numbers results in losing good, ambitious workers and sets the rest of the team on pins and needles, lowering efficiency. The fact the team of DOGE Bros have blindly fired some important federal employees (staffers who safeguard nuclear weapons, scientists working to prevent the spread of bird flu to humans) and then had to try and find them to rehire them doesn’t instill confidence in their efficiency and rings of incompetence.

$600 pentagon toilet seats? Stop the waste!

Government employees supporting air traffic control? Don’t fire them!

Awarding more than $4 billion a year in tax subsidies to profitable energy producers like Exxon? Stop it!

The park ranger opening the gate in the morning or the researcher looking for a cure to cancer? Keep them on the payroll!

The ineffective F-35 fighter jet that is costing taxpayers more than $1 trillion and still doesn’t work? WTF? That’s huge waste that can be cut!

The fact DOGE isn’t documenting actual fraud that they’ve weeded out should say something about their motivation. While not addressing big ticket waste (F-35s!) — DOGE is however evidently sweeping up tons of personal information about American citizens and businesses. I’m sure that will be protected and not be used in any corrupt way. 

As Elon and Donald fire the actual independent watchdogs that oversee departments and try to weed out fraud; as they bring independent regulatory agencies under the shadow of the guy who wrote Project 2025; as they push out career federal prosecutors who won’t do their bidding to protect Donald’s NY mayor buddy; as they fire military lawyers that keep the warriors in line with the law; 

As they eliminate FBI agents who did their jobs in tracking down and prosecuting insurrectionists that rioted at the capitol on January 6…a reasonable person might wonder what lies ahead in a government based on loyalty to a man rather than the Constitution. Follow the money…

An effort to eliminate the guardrails and watchdogs who might raise question about protecting government services would lead many to conclude they perhaps want to have free rein over trillions of tax dollars with no consequences. Hey, it’s just business! Business for the billionaires, anyway. Nothing shady going on here — squirrel! Let’s invade Greenland! Squirrel! Gulf of AmeriSquirrel!  

This week for Elon — so I don’t fire myself — here are five or six quick local things on the list: We’ll put letters in the paper from community members passionate about a variety of issues; we’ll ask our friends and neighbors to do what they want but be careful in the touchy backcountry; we’ll again push local officials to consider implementing impact fees on new developments as our valley reaches capacity; we’ll remind everyone that our local Conservation Corps stewards will feel more pressure to protect our local backcountry as the federal public lands managers in the county lose more people to Elon’s idea of “efficiency;” we’ll pass along a police warning that some cocaine in the area could be dangerously contaminated; and we’ll remind everyone to take a deep breath. 

Breathe.

Celebrate this place and its people.

Be fierce and unafraid.

Breathe.

—Mark Reaman