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Show : Vne love to see something like a Wal-Mart come in here. It’s not likely but let’s just pretend. Rex owns the Slickrock Campground (free plug, Rex...No Charge). Wal-Mart has recently introduced FREE CAMPING at many of its stores and self-contained motorhomers are flocking to them by the parking lot full, from Bar Harbor to Barstow. So would a Wal-Mart really do much to help the Slickrock Campground? Figure it out, boys. Razor's Edge From The eath As for all this “increased tax base" stuff, I want to ask all of you Moabites to do me a Wprittor Files... favor. You know where the Mill Creek Pueblos are, right across from Dave's Corner Market. There used to be a horse pasture there and we’d gather in front of Dave's on cool spring mornings, with hot coffee in our hands, and watch the young foals prance and frolic "KICKSTART" THIS!"... If you don’t live in this freaky, pea little town (and who would know better about paranoid neuroses than we at the Z), you've missed out on the latest local brouhaha. It’s been so goofy we should call it a brouhaha-ha-ha-ha. It’s that funny. It began with a pep talk editorial by our esteemed colleague Sena Flanders, editor of the venerable Moab weekly Times-Independent, and daughter of its publishers, Sam and Adrien Taylor. Ms. Sena (that’s pronounced "See-nuh" NOT "Sane-uh! and certainly not "InSane-uh") extolled the local citizenry to "kickstart" what she perceives to be Moab's flailing economy. Sena’s idea of a good kickstart is to support a couple of proposed boondoggle state and federally funded highway projects that the County Council had wisely rejected. And, of course, she offers another ringing endorsement for the proposed High End Devcioptear called Cloudrock, Moab’s own version of cold fusion. (I should note right now that Sena did not write the editorial by herself--she stressed that the whole darn staff wrote it as a joint effort. As I understand the procedure, Publisher Sam hit the "a..s..d...and f" keys, Co-publisher Adrien was in charge of the ";...]...k...and }" keys, and daughter Sena did the numbers. She’s darn good with numbers.) Anyway, the next week, all hell broke loose. To their credit, The T-] set aside three whole pages for citizens to either praise or complain and then Sena let her detractors have it squarely between the eyes. It almost felt like my own war of words with a goofy Sierra ' Clubber from Salt Lake a couple years ago. "Take THAT!" and "Oh yeah? Well...take THAT!!!” ae When one writer, Richard Sch suggested she go to "a halfway lai house d that her editorial had "failed miserably" for befuddled editorialists," Sena was not amuse! "Perhaps you could join us there, Richard," she seethed, "for your befuddled se - were long on complaints and short on solutions. Maybe we could form a support group." Touche’! And when former Zephyr Nutshell columnist Steve Russell questioned Sena’s "agenda," she damn near bled all over the page. Custer ain’t the only guy that wears Arrow shirts around here. The "agenda," Sena explained, was called "Progress." Damn right Seeny. We need more aggressive marketing techniques, an unquenchable dedication to growth, full speed ahead! Damn the torpedoes! Wait a minute. I’m mistakenly reading from the ENRON Master Plan. Sorry about that. But what about this latest round of economic freakout? Are we underpromoted? Or, as - this publication has been suggesting for years with a large mallet, are we overbuilt? (For a Zephyr pictorial, see page 33) And during these low ebbs, how wisely are we dealing with them? Let me give you an example. Ms. Flanders points out that park visitation has declined in recent years and that city tax collections have also decreased. We've already got more motels than Planter’s has peanuts, so what happened to Moab last year? Some genius entrepreneurs came to town and built TWO MORE motels! Hundreds of new rooms to COMPETE with the motels that were already struggling to stay afloat. And in last week’s T-I, lo and behold, here’s another story about a proposed Holiday Inn Express, right next door to the Aardvark Inn or whatever it’s called---you know--where the north highway horse pastures used to be. Now - in the greening fields. In the spring of 2002, gone. Here’s what I want lawn chair, and a thermos the fake-adobe “pueblos.” the Mill Creek Pueblos are complete and the horse pasture is you to do. Go out there some morning this month, and take a of coffee, maybe a donut or two, and set yourself up in front of Stare deeply at the mauve walls and the thermo-pane windows and all that asphalt. Contemplate the stucco. Then ask yourself: "Am I enriched by this experience? Do I feel perceptibly lighter, knowing that these buildings have expanded the tax base? When I receive my own tax notice, will I be able to shed tears of joy, knowing that these ‘pueblos’ have lightened my own tax burden? Am I happier now?" We've already got more motels than Planter's has peanuts, so what happened to Moab last year? Some genius entrepreneurs came to town and built TWO MORE motels...to COMPETE with the motels already struggling to stay afloat. Like someone once said, "In Moab, the best way to make a small fortune is to come here with a large one." Amen. If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you need to be on medication too. As we all know—as EVERYONE IN THE DAMN WORLD KNOWS-this kind of economic growth never lowers anybody’s tax liability and the increased tax base goes to pay for all’ | the improvements that the new tax payers demand. As for all the vacant business buildings on Main Street, about TEN YEARS AGO, I wrote a cover story about the Moab economy. It was called “Moab’s Pork Belly Boom.” Much of the construction and crazed growth, business and residential, was purely speculative, we suggested. Greed at its best. Or worst, depending on your perspective. It was as reckless as any of the Pie-in-the-Sky Dot.com companies that turned into Dot.CONs. Now, a decade later, just who exactly is to blame? Finally, going back to Sena’s Brouhaha, there was one letter to the T-I that was particularly memorable. The writer was a defender of Sena’s Kickstart Plan and here is what he said, “I constantly hear the term, ‘you don’ t want to open Pandora’s Box,’ but what is the alternative?" Alternative? Pandora’s Box was. "sent by the gods to Pandora, which she was forbidden to open and which loosed a swarm of evils upon mankind when she opened. it up." Websters’s Dictionary also calls it, "a prolific source of troubles.” So what is the alternative to a "swarm of evils?" It’s slowly going underwater in the South Pacific. of course I understand that ultimately, the investors in these new constructions have the final say, and if they’re dopey enough to build even more motels...well...it’s a free country. Like someone once said, "In Moab, the best way to MENS a small fortune is to come here with a large one." Amen. But wouldn’t it be nice if the Chamber T-I tried to get the word out that we have if we actually made a concerted effort Wouldn't that be a change in this town? Or take ol’ Mr. Pro-Moab Himself and ROAD PROJECT OVERKILL IN SAN JUAN COUNTY While Grand County residents have been kept informed of major US 191 highway projects north of Moab, a $10 million project in San Juan County could have an equally of Commerce and Pro-Moab and ol’ Sena at the enough motels for a while? Wouldn’t it be great to defend the viability of existing businesses? County ea Candidate RexBob Tanner. Now profound effect on Moabites and interstate travelers. The Utah Department of Transportation plans to use monies from the Fund to upgrade sections of the highway between Moab and Blanding. list of improvements is the reconstruction of the road at Devils Canyon, Monticello. UDOT has identified this location as its first priority and I don’t know Rex and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems a lot of those Pro-Mob Folks would | H&du I'm a John of all Trades. PROPERTY SERVICES 23 South 100 West Moab, UT 435.259.1001 ete : JOHN HARTLEY Fall Tine Independent of Caretaker Home Services Inspection Services Utah Centennial, At the top of the 11 miles south of is committed to |