{"id":2457848,"date":"2020-04-29T22:48:01","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/guest-commentary-imagining-the-future-of-eagle-county\/"},"modified":"2020-04-29T22:48:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:48:01","slug":"guest-commentary-imagining-the-future-of-eagle-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/guest-commentary-imagining-the-future-of-eagle-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest commentary: Imagining the future of Eagle County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">These times have been like nothing any of us could have imagined. It seems impossible that just weeks ago we were all going about our lives as we had done every day before that, concerning ourselves with things that seem almost trivial now. We thought about housing and our ability to live in this place we love, about access to child care and our ability to work, about health care and living without undue worry, and about climate change and our children\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">None of these things are trivial, of course. But even these important issues have taken a backseat to the public health crisis we face with the COVID-19 virus. We have suspended those concerns and normal life in order to navigate to safe shores while in the throes of this fierce and unexpected storm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As an international travel destination, Eagle County was one of the early hotspots for the virus with some of the earliest confirmed cases in the nation. But this did not catch our Health and Emergency communities off guard. Eagle County had already activated its Emergency Operations Center before our first confirmed case March 6. On March 7, we were one of the first in the nation to declare an emergency to help in our fight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Our community health care partners and first responders were already preparing for what would soon be declared a pandemic.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In addition to enacting some of the more restrictive public health orders early on, we worked hard to communicate as much and as clearly as possible. In the early days of the crisis, our understanding of the virus and the unfolding situation changed on a daily basis. With such great uncertainty and the necessity to act swiftly and aggressively, we have felt it critical to be as transparent and informative as possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">And our community responded. Because each of us acted for all of us, we have slowed the spread of coronavirus and are succeeding in flattening the curve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The county has already been preparing for how we can recover from the COVID-19 crisis. Part of that process is a gradual loosening of public health order restrictions in a way that allows as much social and economic activity as possible without new cases overwhelming our local health system. At Eagle County we wonder, is this transition to a \u201cnew normal\u201d the fate we await \u2026 or the future we create?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Remember those concerns we had before COVID-19? We wrestled with these issues during what was \u2014 at least on paper \u2014 one of the strongest economies in history. How was it, then, that 25% of households in our community could not make ends meet? How could 40% of our community not have access to affordable housing? How could 33% of our businesses have trouble recruiting and retaining staff because of lack of child care? How could economic growth mean further destruction of our climate and environment?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Whether or not the outbreak will create a new normal, does this current crisis present us with the greatest opportunity we have ever had to learn from our past and imagine, and create, a different future? Can we build communities of inclusion in which no one goes hungry; where quality education for every person creates a capable workforce and engaged electorate; where accessible transit, child care and housing enable that workforce and provide them rich and rewarding lives?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Until this moment those questions were merely academic. Changing the tremendous inertia of the global economy was like steering the Titanic from an iceberg. But now the unimaginable has happened: We have dry-docked the massive ship of the global economy. What now is our opportunity \u2014 our responsibility \u2014 to use what we have learned and rebuild it to serve us all?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">We have been planning since the beginning of the crisis and using the best knowledge we have to help our residents and businesses recover from COVID-19. But do we need more than knowledge?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Perhaps what we need is more imagination. If this is an opportunity to create a new, better world for ourselves, we will need more than the planners, the strategists, the administrators; we will need the dreamers, the artists, the inventors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">We are working hard at Eagle County to return our community to normal \u2026 the new normal. And we will need your help. All your thoughts, ideas and dreams. The poet William Blake reminds us that \u201cWhat is now proved was once only imagined.\u201d Together, let\u2019s create a new normal that serves us all and unleashes the power of each of us to benefit all of us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">Kathy Chandler-Henry, Matt Scherr and Jeanne McQueeney make up the Eagle Board of County Commissioners.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/opinion\/guest-commentary-imagining-the-future-of-eagle-county\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These times have been like nothing any of us could have imagined. It seems impossible that just weeks ago we were all going about our lives as we had done every day before that, concerning ourselves with things that seem almost trivial now. We thought about housing and our ability to live in this place [&hellip;]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 01:07:44","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":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}