Dark Sky

[John Meissner]

I am not anti-dark sky.

I do not have outside lights on my home, and I do not have any neighbors complaining about me leaving inside lights on long after dark.  I am not an abuser of electricity in any form, am long on record as wishing the noise and light shows from all downtown venues would wrap up by ten in the summer, and do not apologize for driving a non-electric car, just like I wouldn't have apologized for still using a horse after cars first became available, and won't apologize for using an electric car once nuclear-powered flying cars become available.  Currently, the burning of fossil fuels is required to charge batteries, and the depletion-mining of lithium is not made possible by wishful thinking connected to magic unicorns.  So I don't exactly understand why Tesla drivers get all sanctimonious worshipping a Nazi overlord.

Like many people in town, we are not part of a non-problem.  It is not that light pollution isn't a problem - it is a huge problem - but the only real solutions are to turn back the clock 50 years, when there were fewer people to pollute, or to move it forward 50 years, when technology has solved these problems with intelligent lighting and elimination of the need for 24 hours of artifice day to deter crime or guide us home, neither of which are possible or realistic for the current common man.

I have no problem making businesses and our local government decrease the amount of light they broadcast into the sky.  I am all for making the other guy solve the problem.  I am not sure why hotels and gas stations would get special carve outs, but maybe they have stronger lobbyists.  Or maybe at the end of the talking-talking, everyone gets special carve outs for their exceptionalism and nothing really changes except we fork over $10,000 to some organization for a certificate and the right to feel good about ourselves for not really helping the environment and not really being actual legitimate stewards of our fragile planet.

Or maybe I am cynical, and everyone will pitch in, including our guests and VRBO owners, who never got in to the Shylock Arms business to make a quick buck, and Estes Park will henceforth and forever after resemble a ghost town from the Newark red eye at 31,000 feet, and Denver will realize the errors of its ways and shut down its refineries and sell off its sports teams and implode its skyscrapers. 

Really, I am not sure why any of this hand-wringing is necessary:  I am not going to do anything different and do not need to do anything different.  A few self-serving or born-again homeowners and business owners will make some minor inconsequential cosmetic changes, we will proudly trumpet Dark Sky and enough gullible metro Texans will believe and not know any better the wonders of Haleakala before sunrise or the unfathomable wealth of stars from the base of Kilimanjaro.  The world will heat up by 2 degrees in the next decade whether or not Estes calls their skies faux-dark or faux-divinity, VEP staff will continue netting $100K/year to further their cheerleading careers, and we can all get together and celebrate "something" accomplished, with Palestine in rubble and Iran in rubble and Ukraine is rubble and those retired folks and town Dudleys promoting this most strongly likely long over the horizon, except those who can pay for cloning or anti-aging hormones or infra-red facial masks or festivals dedicated to quirky juvenile fantasies, like Earth Day or No Kings.

What if we attempted to be an "all races welcome" community or a "no people living below the poverty line on our watch" community or a "no one dies on Long's Peak from improper footwear or bad decisions" community?  

Gosh, that would require actual commitment and actual work, and we tend to shy away from things that require real time and effort and not being given a badge or button or gift card after 10 minutes of blather and assigning work to the volunteers while we are on the phone with reporters, making sure our hairs are in place before deadline.

Media, please ignore correctly.  

John Meissner, blah, blah

Estes Park Promoter of Deep Honesty and Deft Governance

This is how to beat a horse D. Denning-style

-join the non-yacht constituency 

[Mark Igel]

John,

I read each of your emails with interest and always glean something new to consider among the words that make up your colorful writing.

I often agree, and I am learning the ropes to constructively influence decision making that I believe represents the community. I have seen positive changes (action) in process and and an increasing awareness of public sentiment by trustees and town staff over the last couple of years, some of that due to questions that are raised, and some of that due to candid engagement from constituents.

I hope to catch up with you in person soon. For those who don't know you other than your emails, I want to publicly appreciate your affection for our community and passionate advocacy, which is easier to appreciate in a personal conversation.

Sincerely,

Mark Igel, Trustee

Town of Estes Park  |  PO Box 1200  |  Estes Park, Colorado 80517

www.estes.org
Direct voice mail: 970-577-3713

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[Gary Hall]

It's an interesting topic, John, thanks for the comments. I see Dark Sky as an aspiration, a long-term evolution, where technology has to keep improving while we're embedding good habits in new buildings and changes in construction. It's good to do what we can do when we can, even incrementally, with hopefully a few low-hanging fruit early successes on this multi-decade, or even forever, project. 

I see it a bit like stormwater mitigation, though obviously not as critical for survival of Town and people. Stormwater will take many phases, several decades, tons of money, to eventually be able to handle what we think is the tops nature will throw at us. (And of course, nature could always surprise.) Far past my lifetime, but I appreciate the efforts in design that are happening. The future Town staff and boards will have to decide how much ruckus to cause downtown when deciding which phases to do when. As you recall, they came to the board with a proposal right after the Loop to do another significant downtown stormwater improvement, and we chose to delay that since we were still PTSD'ing big time from the Loop construction impact. 

So, Dark Sky is not a bad aspirational goal, but there really isn't a time criticality, it's more of an evolutionary thing where focus somehow has to be kept alive through years and decades. Far beyond my time here, of course. That's how I see it. Thanks for the thoughts. 

Gary M. Hall

Mayor of the Town of Estes Park

Cell 970-744-9052

Email: gh...@estes.org