Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Mountain Town News


By ALLEN BEST - MTN TOWN NEWS SERVICE

Banff sending grizzlies, wolves on thoroughfares

BANFF, Alberta—Banff has four new electric-hybrid buses. The buses altogether cost $2.6 million, or $1 million more than standard diesel buses. The higher front-end costs are balanced by fuel savings of 30 percent and lower lifecycle maintenance costs. The Rocky Mountain Outlook says there are also environmental benefits: 90 percent fewer tailpipe emissions.

The buses are wrapped with larger-than-life magafauna of the area, including grizzlies, wolves and mountain goats. As well, GPS units will be installed at some bus stops, so customers can track the progress of buses.

What will higher oil prices do to tourism?

WHISTLER, B.C.—As gas moved past the $4 mark in the Seattle area, Bob Barnett of Whistler's Pique Newsmagazine ruminates on what increased fuel prices will mean for British Columbia. He doesn't see much silver lining in these storm clouds.

Rising oil prices may quiet some of the big bang from the 2010 Winter Olympics, he suggests. By then, oil will be $150 a barrel, predicts Jeff Rubin, chief economist of CIBC World Markets, and it will be $225 a barrel by 2012.

Meanwhile, the British Columbia government has been pushing development of its tourism industry. "But if it's getting more expensive to travel, and perhaps more difficult to fly, those new B.C. resorts and lodges are likely to be competing with the existing ones for smaller slices of a pie that is shrinking, rather than growing," says Barnett in his column.

One thought for Whistler and other resorts is to extend a handshake to the rapidly growing population of the Vancouver area. While Whistler has had some success in appealing to these new residents who come from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India and the Philippines, it's a tough sell. Few have a history of skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking and mountaineering, he notes.

Frontier struggling to pay spiked fuel costs

DENVER, Colo.—Frontier Airlines, which recently debuted low-cost shuttle flights to several mountain towns in the Rocky Mountains, continues to flounder with the protection of bankruptcy. Rising oil prices are a key cause of Frontier's problems. A newspaper in Denver, the Rocky Mountain News, reports that the airline's bill for fuel has risen by $100 million in recent months.

President Bush gets an inhospitable reception

PARK CITY, Utah—President George W. Bush visited Park City to help shake the pockets of donors at a Deer Valley function to bolster Republican campaigns. The Park Record has no report of how well the money-rustling went, but it does report that Bush was greeted, after a fashion, with crude signs and hand gestures

These hand gestures apparently weren't friendly hand waves. Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds described them as "classless and embarrassing."

To ensure the president's safety, 47 law officers were called out to help monitor the motorcade route. The cost to local taxpayers for overtime pay was $30,000.

The county commissioners supported the expenditure, if not necessarily Bush. "Frankly I don't care whether he lives or dies," said one commissioner, Sally Elliott. "But don't let him die in Summit County."

High court sides with Telluride open space

TELLURIDE, Colo.—The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld Telluride's right to condemn 572 acres of land outside its boundaries for preservation of open space.

The property, sprinkled with dandelions in spring and notable for its lack of buildings, was once owned by the operator of the last big mine in Telluride, the Idarado. In the 1980s it was acquired by Neal Blue, the CEO of a military contracting firm, General Atomic, based in San Diego.

The town, by public vote, condemned the land in 2002 and borrowed nearly $10 million to buy the land. In 2003, it made an offer of $19.5 million, which was refused. In 2004, responding to lobbying from Blue's company, San Miguel Valley Corp., Colorado legislators passed a law that forbade home-rule municipalities from condemning property outside their borders for open space preservation.

The Supreme Court, in a 6-1 vote, sided with the town, ruling that the 2004 law violated the scope of eminent domain granted to home-rule municipalities by the Colorado Constitution. The constitution trumps legislative laws.

The long-simmering case leaped to front pages across the Rockies in 2007 when a jury concluded that the condemned land was worth $50 million and set a deadline three months later for the payment to be made. With nickle-and-dimes events and donations of a few million dollars here and there, some $24 million was raised to supplement town and county funds, beating the deadline in the nick of time.




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