As a co-owner/partner in Lowe Enterprises, and active in our development both locally and nationally for nearly 40 years, I wish to refute the preposterous allegations contained in a mailer from an out-of-state labor union earlier this week.
I begin with a reminder that Lowe began in 1972 with its first project, The Gant, right here in Aspen and has continued to do business in our community ever since with honesty and integrity.
The scurrilous mailer in question puts forth information that is simply not true. It is a bullying tactic to pressure one of our resorts to accede to an unconstitutional path to prospective unionization. The union seeks to avoid a secret ballot, which our resort has offered to conduct under the oversight of the National Labor Relations Board.
As to the misinformation in the mailer:
• No taxpayer money is being used to develop the Gorsuch Haus hotel, as the mailer presents. The investment of public money is to share the cost of public improvements in a public ski museum and street improvements.
• No Lowe-owned project has ever been foreclosed. We simply stopped certain projects during the late financial crisis (the worst since the Great Depression) as they were no longer economically feasible. And we were also appointed by the federal courts to address the troubled projects of others in that crisis, including several in the Aspen, Snowmass and Roaring Fork Valley where we served as the receiver.
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• Our Wild Dunes project did settle a complaint to avoid a costly and lengthy litigation. More importantly, we fully comply with all the employment laws governing at that property, and always have.
• The allegations of harassment at our Terranea project are nonsense. The complaining party settled with her employer (a contractor), and neither Terranea nor Lowe was party to the settlement and neither the complainant nor her alleged harasser were employed by Terranea or Lowe.
Outside parties, such as this labor union, have no business in intervening in our local community affairs, and those who oppose the project should certainly not welcome such intervention, especially when that intervention is completely in error as to the facts.
Aspen citizens are quite capable of make their own judgments, for or against, without outside, unfounded meddling.
James DeFrancia
Principal, Lowe Enterprises