The Town Meeting, Part I

The small town of Hot Sulphur Springs was founded in 1864 by William Byers, who was a mover and shaker in the new state of Colorado in general, and the newly- found town of Denver in particular. Byers was also the founder and owner of The Rocky Mountain News, which began publishing in 1859, and coincidentally, shut down shortly after our move to Hot Sulphur. Byers’ sole interest in the area and his purpose for founding and developing the town was to exploit the natural hot springs at the foot of Mt. Bross that pump forth 250,000 daily gallons of mineral-laden sulphurous waters. There are numerous such effluences in the chain of the Rocky Mountains, and the inhabitants of this beautiful state have a bug for them that I’ve yet to catch; however, they are my lifeblood and they are still, as in Byers time, the only reason people from the Front Range hitch it up and head for Hot Sulphur Springs.
While soaking in the hot springs is what put the town on the map, it isn’t now the main industry in Hot Sulphur; rather, Hot Sulphur Springs is the county seat of Grand County, the largest county in Colorado in terms of area, and one of the smallest in terms of population. There is quite a story, (involving the brutal murders of several Grand Countians), behind Hot Sulphur Springs being selected as the county seat over more populated towns in the county, such as Grand Lake, but it will be told later. There was also a time in the early 1900’s when Hot Sulphur Springs was a winter playground, boasting the first ski jump in the state on a hill that overlooks the Riverside. The annual “Winter Carnival” in Hot Sulphur would draw upwards of 20,000 people to this tiny town – hard for me now to fathom. But as more glamorous and beautiful ski areas and resorts were developed, Hot Sulphur’s reign as Colorado’s winter games capitol was short-lived. But suffice to say, between the county government, county courthouse, county jail and 23 soaking pools, Hot Sulphur Springs supports (barely, in most cases) 350 residents, one gas station, two diners, one restaurant, two bars, five hotels, two auto repair shops and a candy store that ships rock candy all over the world.
What those 350 residents and the handful of businesses don’t do is support Hot Sulphur Springs; the town is virtually broke. Being broke is bad – trust me, I know – but being broke when you need to come up with $2,000,000 for an upgrade to the town water system, just to stay compliant with state health codes, is really, really bad. No ifs, ands or buts, the town has to show that they can eventually come up with this money, or we literally will have no potable water - an important feature in any town on the go, and a real plus for someone trying to make a go of it as an hotelier and restaurateur. On the bright side, it does make for great theater when the third Thursday of the month rolls around, which is when we have our monthly town meeting, replete with the mayor, the six-member town council and, the real stars of the show, a crowd of 40-50 angry Hot Sulphur-ites. A few of them are sober.
The town councils proposed solution was to raise everyone’s water bill by as much as 50% for residential users, and as much as 500% for commercial users, the latter category under which we unfortunately fall. 500%!!!! The water bill at The Riverside will go from its current $150/month to $750/month. The increase and your ultimate water bill aren’t based on actual consumption, rather, they’re based upon some mumbo-jumbo formula that was cooked up by some of the town board members after having a few pops at The Barking Dog Pub, wherein you count your toilets, multiply that by the number of showers, subtract the number of sinks and multiply that by 1864 (the year the town was founded), then add your water-using appliances and divide that by the square root of 23 (the number of hot spring pools in town); or something like that. Any way you figure it, I’m getting screwed.
Try explaining this increase, especially in these tough times, to a room full of inebriated citizens at 9:00 PM; inebriated citizens whose pre-meeting first buzz of the evening was starting to wear off, and they were getting cranky in anticipation of their after-the-meeting second buzz of the evening. I knew we were in for some fun when the first opportunity for questions from the Mayor brought a quick, but shaky, hand up from Fred (not his real name…..…ok, it is his real name, but I won’t use his last name), who slurred “What I wanna know ish whoosh reshponshible for getting ush in thish messh?” (Fred’s pre-meeting first buzz of the evening had yet to wear off.) This was followed by an outraged citizen who said that due to the slow economy – she’s in real estate – there was no way she could come up with the additional $30/month that was the net result of the 50% increase to homeowners – “$15 a month maybe”, she said, “but no way $30”. I agreed with her, at least not if she was going to continue to be able to afford multiple $10 Grey Goose martinis at the Riverside bar, as was her habit. Another of the towns more colorful characters gave a rousing speech, ending with a word of warning, that “even now we shouldn’t be drinking the water coming out of the treatment plant, as the chlorine levels have probably done more permanent damage to the towns citizens than all of the shrapnel I got in my head when I was in Desert Storm.” He finished his speech with, what I’ll politely refer to as, a crazy laugh; but he was serious. You can’t make this stuff up.

To be continued……