Vote Yes on 2B, Let's Pay for those Planes!

Written by Claire Borne Thursday, 03 November 2011

Dear Steamboat Residents,
It's crucial that we pass Referendum 2B and pay the airlines to fly into Steamboat's Hayden Airport. We need every single tourist we can possibly get, and if we have to pay for them to get here, then that's what we have to do.

I'm a small business owner, running a store on Lincoln that relies on outside visitors called Tourist Crap No Local Would Ever Buy. Without the gapers coming through town during the winter, I'd be forced to collect unemployment or find a job working for someone else or move to someplace awful, like Broomfield. And we can't let that happen!

In fact, I think we need to go several steps further to increase our tourism. I suggest we skip the "middle man" and just pay for the tourists' plane tickets altogether. Think of how many more people would visit if their plane tickets were paid for by the citizens of Steamboat Springs? I'm not sure, but I bet it would be a lot. And they'd all have an extra $500, at least, to spend on local businesses like mine. Everybody wins!

I also think we need to be more proactive and forward-thinking with our travel program. Planes were the preferred travel method of the second half of the 20th Century, but, like the railroad before it, it will be replaced by something better, and we should stay ahead of that curve.

That's why I also suggest we set aside $3.2 billion from our city's budget to work on a mass teleportation device. I'm picturing something like Stargate, where tourists walk into a circle near where they live, and out they pop in Steamboat Springs! Should we perfect that first, we'll easily be the third or fourth most popular ski resort, maybe even right behind Deer Valley and Vail! Of course, I don't know anything about our city's budget, but I'm guessing we can afford a few billion from our reserve fund to work on teleportation technology.

So remember voters, Steamboat's local businesses, like mine, need Referendum 2B to pass. If not, where will you get your "I survived Steamboat Springs" t-shirts and coffee mugs? That's not the world we want to live in, is it?