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 beauty, 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).
the Aspen beat 
I was often resentful of newbies and visitors showing up to change Paonia.. Sadly, they have won. Subsidized housing was brought up several times and I suspect it will happen there soon.
The leftists living in government ( taxpayer subsidized ) housing, etc. do not appreciate why it is affordable.
Note – the real price of free corn.. – How to catch wild pigs..
BTW, the donor is not some newbie flash-in-the-pan. Here’s how the music school’s website describes him:
“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 served only to make Marolt hate him all the more….
Meanwhile , CA homeless keep O.D.’ing on fentanyl. Aspeners can go build a cabin, or something.