Editor,
Like many in our town, I oppose the Garibaldi at 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 resort. While I share concerns about the project's impacts to the environment, I'm also worried it would dramatically alter the character of our community.
According to the report, "Counterurbanization and its Socioeconomic Effects in High Mountain Areas of the Sierra Nevada" (Roland L枚ffler and Ernst Steinicke. Mountain Research and Development Vol. 26. No. 1 Feb. 2006: 64-71), ski resort towns, such as Mammoth Lakes and Lake Tahoe, California, have undergone profound socio-economic shifts as a result of development.
The study found the effects of resort development in the Sierras have resulted in rising home and consumer prices and significantly higher property taxes.
The report also concluded that most ski town jobs are low-paying service ones. An increased cost of living, coupled with minimum wage employment, in both Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes, have forced middle to low income families to move to more affordable communities and commute to the resorts for work.
In addition, the report found that ski resort development has contributed to substantial and sudden increases in population growth and visitation, stressing existing services and infrastructure.
Development in the Sierras has led to a disturbing transformation in the social fabric of those communities.
I fear that 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料, a paradise of snow-capped peaks, inspiring landscapes, salmon, eagles, and bears and a town of salt-of-the-Earth, hard working people with modest yet charming homes, will morph into another Whistler, Mammoth Lakes, or Tahoe.
If GAS proceeds, 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 may face the same fate as the Sierras and Whistler. The price of houses and property taxes would sky rocket, making it impossible for many local residents to purchase our own home.
Rents, too, would soar, compounding challenges of the area's poor. The resort would harm small businesses by luring consumers away from downtown. Prices for goods and services would also rise sharply.
The area's population would double, overwhelming social services. Since GAS does not intend to pay for public essentials, like hospitals, police officers, firefighters, and schools for the resort, 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 taxpayers will be stuck with the bill.
Long-term residents may no longer be able to afford to live here. As a result, the very face of a once graceful town - the kind of place where you know your neighbours, where some folks never lock their doors, where people come together to celebrate the rich beauty of their surroundings - will be forever changed.
GAS flies in the face of sound environmental and economic policies. It is a development that could, quite literally, destroy 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料.
That is why I urge our local officials to immediately pass a resolution opposing the GAS resort.
Brigitte Myaux
老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料
