Dear Editor,

Three candidates running for the Nederland Board of Trustees were featured in The Mountain-Ear. Having lived in and around Nederland for over 40 years I’ve noticed the phenomenon of people who move to Nederland, because they think it’s so beautiful, cool, and quirky, and are immediately dissatisfied with it, and want to change it, develop it, exploit it.

These three candidates all have as their personal agenda to “develop” Nederland. They find Nederland deficient, and cannot recognize that pretty much all the deficiencies have been caused by overdevelopment. All would like to re-do Nederland in their own image. What do they want? One has only been here for three years, and is sure he can make Nederland “better” by renovating 1st Street. Sound familiar?

Another believes we need to provide for “our workforce,” by which he means low paid laborers for the tourism industry he promotes. As an advocate for the working class, I take exception to his motivation.

All want to support local business; not local business which support the needs of local residents, but rather the hundreds of thousands of tourists that inundate Nederland each year. Not satisfied with this, they want more.

They search for methods of mitigation of the problem of too many people, while promoting Nederland as a tentacle of the malignancy known as the Front Range. Too many people, not enough housing, so they need more people, more housing, more people, more housing. Cognitive disconnect. No problems solved.

All complain of insufficient infrastructure. For what? Too many people! But they need more tourists, more bicycle trails for those recreationists ascending Boulder Canyon with bicycles on the roof of their fossil fuel-burning cars. Bike trails destroy habitat, but these anthropocentric boys could care less. One is thrilled that Nederland “has government documents which support the rights of nature,” but needs more tourism, more infrastructure, more trails, more people, all of which are destructive to nature.

Nederland has always lied about sustainability and caring for Nature, and has archives of similar disregarded and forgotten documents. He claims capitalism is not a “four-letter word.” Truth is, it’s an exploitive, extractive system which requires economic inequality, which is destroying our planet, and must end.

Another pedestrian/emergency escape bridge is now necessary. For more than a century it wasn’t, but developers of days gone by have created the perceived necessity. These guys see the need, especially if their goal of more tourism, more development is to reach fruition. To these three, Nederland is an object of exploitation, a whore. Dress her how you want, that’s pretty much it.

We live in incredible times. Earth is struggling, and humanity sits on the brink of existence. We need leaders who deeply understand this, and will focus their efforts on solving these problems. Overpopulation, overconsumption, overdevelopment: these are the problems facing the Earth and humanity. The response from all these guys is depressing.

Vote for them if you want. Through each bout of characters like these rotating through Nederland’s government, Nederland becomes more exploited, its beauty more devastated, and its community more inundated by outside forces.

Dennis Duckett

Raton, New Mexico

(Recently moved from the Nederlandarea)