Not many might recall that I used to write a weekly column for the Snowmass Sun. Scribing for the tiny paper that has mostly resembled an insert for The Aspen Times wasn’t my first assignment as a writer. I had been at the Times for several years before. To the best of my recollection, the editor of the Sun asked me to fill in for a “couple of weeks” while she searched for a new columnist to replace a regular who suddenly quit. Those couple of weeks turned into a 15-year run.

It wasn’t bad. Continually viewing it as a temporary position and writing to a tiny readership allowed me the luxury of giving my weekly column an effort commensurate with the pay. I painstakingly agonized over topics, wrote and rewrote drafts and spent so much time on my Times columns and had I divided my weekly remuneration by the number of hours I spent on the keyboard, it would show I was getting paid in dimes. When I wrote for the Sun I let ideas fly, edited lightly and hit the “send” button almost simultaneously with the final period.

A writer friend told me often that it was some of my best work. He called it raw. I was unleashed. I was making the mathematical equivalent of hundreds of dollars per hour to write! He might have been the only one who read that stuff. I rarely got other comments.

We used bylines then and mine was “Cluster Phobic.” There is still a part of me that hopes I get a call one day from an upstart indy rock band that wants to use the name after they sign their first record deal.

Things at the Sun came to an end when new owners of The Aspen Times, Ogden Newspapers, usurped editorial independence from the local publisher and began calling the shots from their West Virginia headquarters about what reporters and columnists could and could not write about their hometown. Andrew Travers got fired on his first day as new editor for publishing hard truth with serious local impact, some of which I wrote. He had just replaced a well-seasoned (salty) editor who knew how to read writing on the wall as well as news stories and had resigned.

I quit in solidarity with Travers. Most of the rest of the staff did too. When reporters are barred from exploring truth, what’s left is a crappy job with long hours and peanuts for pay. The iconic Aspen newspaper was gutted and fell hard into the newspaper bin reserved for regional tourist fluff.

Meanwhile, in haste to make the clearest statement about free press that I could, I forgot to resign from the Sun. Amid the turmoil and ensuing fallout from the disgrace of the Times, quitting the sleepy old Sun never crossed my mind. Several weeks after the turmoil and angst subsided to a rolling boil, I got a call from someone at Ogden Newspapers, who said something like, “I know you resigned your position at The Aspen Times, but we are wondering if you intend to keep writing for the Sun?”

For some time after that, writing about Snowmass Village flew under my radar, even though it is the place I live and love. Then, just as I was regaining the itch to opine about The Village again, my wife went and got elected to the town council here. With this obvious conflict of interest, I resolved to keep my big nose out of Snowmass Village issues and politics.

While I have no intention to weigh in on specific items being discussed in the political realm of The Village People, I can’t keep quiet any longer about what I think is a general mistake currently being made in Snowmass Village that happened in Aspen, the town I grew up in and still love, too.

One of the greatest mistakes Aspen made was convincing itself that preservation of what you can see is what is needed to preserve the community that locals feel. Don’t get me wrong, taking care of historical buildings and landmarks is critically important. But, it is the longtime local residents who are the key ingredients in creating deliciously, fresh community spirit. How what you build looks is far less important than how it will serve residents.

Appearances are more important for visitors who want to post Instagrams than they are to citizens who see it passing by while taking care of daily life.

Larger affordable housing projects will never be as ugly as Base Village. A roundabout to keep traffic moving smoothly and pedestrians safe is better for residents who will use it every day than for visitors who won’t. The real center of Snowmass is the Rec Center, not the Transit Center. If you want to expand anything to better the community, start there.