Showing posts with label mess of pottage. Moab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mess of pottage. Moab. Show all posts

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Response to Theodore Roosevelt IV OP-ed in SL Tribune

Don't you just love how do-gooders know all the answers to rural America's problems!? I will respond to just one paragraph as I throw water on Mr. Roosevelt's Parade. Mr. Roosevelt said: "Tourism has been touted as the economic hope for the region. Right now, there are basically no amenities: no hotels, restaurants, signage, visitor centers. Low cost loans and funding need to be secured so that these communities can make necessary business and infrastructure investments and improve their lives accordingly."
#1 The only ones touting tourism as the "hope" for the region are environmental "pack and plays", who are grasping at straws, to convince Utahans that monuments are best for the state and for San Juan County. #2 There are motels, there are restaurants, there is signage, and Visitor Centers in both Blanding and Monticello. There are low cost loans, and funding available. What is missing is a desire to sell out to a philosophy that has ulterior motives.
What Mr. Do-Gooder fails to realize there is ALSO limited WATER in his high desert plateau. There are only so many "showers" for tourists nor is there lots of water for new housing/motel development in this area. Water is a gift from God and from the mountain, and some years we have it, and some years we don't. Thanks to wise stewardship of city councilmen in both Blanding and Monticello the past 80 years, we have used low interest loans to build reservoirs to hedge up against the years when there is not sufficient water, but that those resources do not allow for tens of thousands of new bodies, requiring pampering and cleanliness. This is situation not the result of climate change, but is based on historical evidence from hundreds of years of survival in this arid area.
Tourists who are not used to "roughing it", will likely find Bears Ears NM more wilderness than they bargained for. The real intent of this "green" imposed makeover of San Juan County and other western towns, seems to be destroying the foundations and history of local economies. The trade off for capitulation, is to offer a "mess of pottage" called tourism. This only gives away our sacred land connection and the birthright of thousands of Hispanic, Native, and Anglo residents who call San Juan County home. We only have to look 75 miles to the north and see Mr. Roosevelt's vision of what Tourism does to towns, i.e. Moab's Mob Mecca. We would counter that facts in the following research show that San Juan County is well ahead of Moab in many positive ways that we aren't willing to give up. Hyped up hyperbole and capitation is a lose-lose proposition for San Juan County Utah.
https://l.facebook.com/l.ph...