{"id":802789,"date":"2020-01-06T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=376893"},"modified":"2020-01-06T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T18:00:00","slug":"aspen-councilman-rails-against-holiday-visitors-in-social-media-post-later-apologizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/aspen-councilman-rails-against-holiday-visitors-in-social-media-post-later-apologizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen councilman rails against holiday visitors in social media post, later apologizes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
People walk and shop on Hyman Avenue in Aspen on Friday, January 3, 2020. <\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner \/ The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Aspen City Councilman Skippy Mesirow apologized this week for posting a rant on social media about the crowds in town during peak season and that they are not the \u201cright people\u201d to visit here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI shouldn\u2019t have framed it that way,\u201d he said Friday about his Instagram post he made over the weekend while he was driving in crowded downtown Aspen. \u201cI apologize for reacting the way I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

His post began with driving today \u201cis a f\u2014ing disaster \u2026 there are god d\u2014 people and things and accidents everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s time we have the conversation about it\u2019s too many people in town at peak season and they are not the right people and even if we have to take a little bit of a haircut on our income, which I certainly would, it\u2019s worth it for quality of life and the character of our town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mesirow on Friday would not specify what type of people he was speaking about but said he has talked to many service workers who are at their wit\u2019s end because of how they\u2019ve been treated by guests in the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

He said he saw a security guard cry at the city\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve event at Wagner Park and as an elected official, people have been reaching out to him more sharing their frustrations, stress and feelings.<\/p>\n

Mesirow<\/a>, who took office last June, also got a lot of feedback from his Instagram post, both positive and negative. Some who criticized him said he was a \u201cdummy\u201d and he needs to realize that they make most of their money during the holiday weeks. Others thanked him for saying something about the town being at capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to the community members who reached out to me and criticized me,\u201d he said, adding he has greater clarity now.<\/p>\n

Some of Mesirow\u2019s colleagues on City Council were not impressed<\/a> by his comments and said it was unbecoming of an elected official to bash tourists in a resort community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised by his comments,\u201d Mayor Torre said. \u201cNot necessarily what he said but how he said it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was glad to see he accepted responsibility that his comments were brash.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Torre, Councilman Ward Hauenstein said he has accepted that for a few weeks out of the year, town is overrun with guests.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be patient and take deep breaths,\u201d Hauenstein said, adding that Mesirow\u2019s comments \u201cshocked\u201d him.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly as an elected official you are the voice of the town,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

Hauenstein and Torre questioned why Mesirow was driving in town during peak season, exacerbating the situation and going against the city\u2019s ethos of a pedestrian-oriented downtown.<\/p>\n

Mesirow, who works for a vacation rental property, said he was in between work emergencies and needed to drive.<\/p>\n

While the Instagram post has been taken down, Mesirow posted Friday on Facebook saying he had been on a two-month cleanse and had been vegan but broke it by eating a steak, compound butter, creamed spinach and bread and then got sick for a day and a half, making the end of 2019 a rough one.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged the Instagram post, and said he has a lot to work on and realizes he shouldn\u2019t post when he is frustrated.<\/p>\n

Hauenstein said with age comes wisdom and he is sure that his younger colleague regrets his statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think patience comes with age,\u201d he said. \u201cSocial media capitalizes on impatient people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that civil discourse prevails in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People walk and shop on Hyman Avenue in Aspen on Friday, January 3, 2020. Kelsey Brunner \/ The Aspen Times Aspen City Councilman Skippy Mesirow apologized this week for posting a rant on social media about the crowds in town during peak season and that they are not the \u201cright people\u201d to visit here. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-802789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-29 09:39:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}