City is duplicitous to the Golden Rule – Aspen Times

The parallels between the operations of Aspens city staff and council members seem to correlate well to some of the observations made during the 1971 Stanford prison experiment and the 1963 Yale Milgram experiments. Most readers have likely heard of these experiments where participants conform to abuse and are obedient to nonsense by situational social pressures and perceived powers of authority.

We believe, at this point in time, considering the plethora of supporting evidence, we can categorize Aspens city government as a predator municipality operating as a for-profit and largesse centric enterprise. One egregious example of many specific to us: How can city staff and council be morally capable to lying and maintaining to the public for three continuous years that the city can own significantly more than 75 feet of a street while knowingly causing damage?

I believe this municipal predation has all come to pass from two decades of ex-city manager Steve Barwicks autocratic leadership and staff tutelage. Barwick and his handpicked department heads morphed city staff from an at cost public service into an authoritative, officious and dismissive for-profit enterprise, divorced from common sense and decency. This has not changed with a new city manager.

This transformation of Aspen government to a predator municipality was enabled by Barwicks selected staff, who then authoritatively pushed their self-serving wishes though home rule legislation, past a succession of clueless and biased city councils, where some members carry significant wealth-envy-victim feelings. CERSA, the deficient so-called fourth estate, and the uniquely skewed demographics of Aspens voting constituency also aided in this transformation. Of course, the above it all, second homeowner who is the willing, suffering fools gladly chump has ultimately enabled the creation of Aspens municipal predatory enterprise. One can only speculate on how big money influences city decisions. You know its significant when the city is duplicitous to their own published standards or the Golden Rule.

Scott and Caroline McDonald

Aspen

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City is duplicitous to the Golden Rule - Aspen Times