Boom, Bust, Boom, 2A/2B, Bust

I have come to appreciate and understand the boom/bust cycle over my working life in three states Colorado, Nevada, and to a smaller extent Nebraska. Every business, municipality, and state goes through these cycles. Depending on the current economic conditions and the size of the entities involved these cycles can be rather traumatic. For example: I worked for several different mining companies over 10 years and one fact is always true: If it costs more to remove a mineral from the ground, than they can sell it for right now then they stop removing it from the ground. It is like money in the bank to them by not mining. I remember one company I worked for telling us: "If the price of gold hits $360 don't bother coming to work cause we'll be closed." and unfortunately it did and that mine did close. It is just simple economics and miners in Nevada understood that fact often using a term "It's worth more in the ground" when referring to layoffs and mine lives.

When I first started mining in Nevada I was a very young 19 years old, and I did not yet understand that they could and would close a mine on a moments notice. Being young and with lots of money (mines do pay very well), I spent my money like crazy till one day the mine shut down and I was left with nothing to pay for all my new junk. It was pretty bad times for a while, but I did learn that valuable lesson: You need to save for the bad times because they are imminent.

The Grand Valley has had these problems in the past as well (interesting that they all involved natural resource extraction as well). There was the uranium boom of the 50's, the Exxon 80's and now we are in a natural gas boom. It seems though, that the governments in the Grand Valley are kinda like me at 19, spend like the money is never ending, not saving anything and accumulating enormous debt. With the new drilling rules from the Ritter administration coupled with an Obama administration who dislikes (at last check) mineral extraction of any kind, I think our boom has peaked and now we are starting down the hill to an eventual bust.

I got bad taste in my mouth hearing that the city commissioned "a study" on what went wrong with 2A/2B ballot measures. Maybe something didn't "go wrong" maybe it was just the right thing to do, voting no on a measure we cannot afford at this time. You see, those of us that have been here and have lived through the boom/bust cycles, know what can come next. The people of the Grand Valley remember the days where you could drive down any street in town and all you would see was foreclosure notices and for sale signs on many of the properties. We remember and we didn't like those days. So instead of being condescending and telling the public that they were wrong in their choice for not approving the new police/fire station why doesn't the city government adapt to the public's wishes, maybe a smaller building(s) or adding on to existing buildings, or using a building that has little use (can you say infill program). Oh no they would rather spend time and money blaming the public for not doing something they wanted done. I think I know what that taste in my mouth is now....The city feeding me bul____ again.