Aspen locals excoriate wealthy visitors, even as they fleece them
The favorite parlor game of Aspen locals is to bash the wealthy visitors who over the last half century turned this dilapidated near-ghost town into a renowned place of recreation and money.
The gist of the bashing is that the visitors are “greedy.” Utterly lacking any self-awareness, those same locals simultaneously demand that the “greedy” visitors give them ever-more money, especially in the form of taxpayer-subsidized housing which the local insiders get for dimes on the dollar.
This hypocrisy reached a peak when a local wrote a column last year in the Aspen Daily News suggesting that the visitors should stop visiting. He apparently wants them to just mail their money in.
That same local has now written another column decrying a $17 million donation by a wealthy visitor to the Aspen Music School, which is graciously thanking the donor by putting his name on the music tent. That gesture of thanks, says the local, amounts to Aspen selling its soul.
I wrote a letter to the editor of the Aspen Daily News about this. Here it is. (The local’s original column is at the link in my letter).
All that said, Aspen has a colorful and interesting history. Read about it in my book, “High Attitude - How Woke Liberals Ruined Aspen.”
BTW, the donor is not some newcomer trying to buy his way in. Here's how he's described on the music school's website:
"Michael Klein has been a member of the AMFS Board of Trustees since 2008, leading its Strategic Planning process in 2014, and serving as its Vice Chair for four years. In 2018 he became Chair. Klein has had extensive involvement in public and private business.... His current principal non-profit activities include serving as Board Chair of The Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, DC), as well as Board Chair and CEO of the Sunlight Foundation, the Gun Violence Archive, and the Global Warming Mitigation Project—all of which he founded. He is also a member of the boards of The Aspen Institute, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Harvard Law School."
I suppose that record of accomplishment and generosity serves only to make Marolt hate him all the more.
If you’re readers aren’t convinced that Aspen’s denizens are brain dead, they should read two of the other Letters to the Editor in the Aspen Daily News. One of them equates the gift of $17 mil to an “act of service” such as picking up a piece of trash in the pedestrian mall. The other suggests naming the facility’s toilets after the donor. If I write one, it will suggest that Mr. Klein withdraw his donation and flush Aspen down his mental toilet.