Extensive public debate has costs, consequences

Editor: Aspen and the greater Pitkin County community pride themselves on having an extensive, in-depth, professionally managed, public process on virtually every matter of local importance. That's all well and good. But perhaps people should keep in mind that high-friction public processes consume both time and money, and sometimes can lead to missing the proverbial boat. The proposed Aspen-Pitkin County Airport terminal provides a graphic example. Over more than the last decade, considerable time, effort and money have been devoted to 'aligning the airport with community values.' Meanwhile, federal grant opportunities have come and gone, and some federal grants have even been withheld — and they are still being withheld. The Vision Process of 2018-2020, for example, and the public debate that followed with two successive years of public voting on whether to move forward with the airport modernization project, didn't just cost us the couple of million spent on those efforts, but also kept us from being able to tap into the billions of federal infrastructure money that was available, but is no longer. Consequently, Pitkin County is now struggling to finance a fully functional terminal, with such basic features, for an airport of its size, as jet bridges. The comparable airports at Gunnison-Crested Butte, Montrose, Grand Junction and Eagle-Vail all have jet bridges. But we have planned a new terminal, which is arguably already substandard, while we continue to focus on secondary issues such as 'having the most sustainable airport in the world' and whether the terminal design is 'awe-inspiring.'