Opinion

September 30-OPAGE 22 ctOber 13, 2021 The Business Times Contributors THE BUSINESS TIMES JANUARY page 27 15-28, 2015 Opinion Opinion Business BriefsA new year affords Business Peoplea new opportunity to meet local needs Almanac A new year almost always brings an opportunity for a fresh start and renewed ambition to do things better. In business, that usually boils down to providing customers better products and services faster and at lower cost than competitors. Part of the process must include listening to customers to determine what they actually need and then meeting that need. After all, it does little good to offer the latest and greatest if nobody actually wants what you’re selling. Just like the businesses that belong to the group, the Grand Junction Area

Chamber of Commerce invariably starts out the new year with a reassessment of the services and resources it provides and how well they match with members needs. Jeff Franklin, the new chairman of the chamber board of directors, personifies this approach in describing what he considers his role for the coming year: listen to members, determine their needs and then meet those needs. It’s a role with which Franklin is familiar as market president of Bank of Colorado. The process will take on a more structured approach in what the chamber plans as the resumption of a program aptly called Listening to Business. Under the program, business owners participate in in-depth interviews to identify barriers to growth and other problems they encounter. The new year offers a good time to join the proverbial club. As an advertiser or reader, what do you need from the Business Times? While business journals traditionally gather and report the relevant news to readers, communication isn’t necessarily a one-way street. That’s especially true as

Web sites and e-mail make the dialogue more convenient than ever. Good publications don’t exist in a vacuum. They respond to the needs of advertisers and readers. They provide what’s needed. So what do you need? Is there additional news coverage that would help keep you informed about local business developments? Are there features that would be interesting or useful? Is there advice that would make your jobs a little easier? It’s equally important to ask what you don’t need. With limited time to produce content and limited space in which to publish it, would time and space be better devoted to something else? What’s good? What isn’t? What’s needed? What isn’t? Let us know. Send us an e-mail. Comment online on the Business Times Web site at www.thebusinesstimes.com. You could even write an old-fashioned letter to the editor if you’d like. Your feedback, both positive and negative, is valued and will be carefully considered. Good publications are the result of not only the efforts of their staffs, but also collaborative efforts involving advertisers and readers. Like any other good business, we want to listen to our customers, find out what they need and then meet those needs. It’s a new year. Please help us to do so. ✦ THE BUSINESSTIMES 609 North Ave., Suite 2, Grand Junction, CO 81501

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It’s that time of year when resolutions and prognostications abound. My favorite saying applied to New Year’s resolutions is in saying they’re basically a bunch of promises to break the first week of January. And while I won’t predict a whole lot, I can pretty much accurately nail a few things that without question will make the news. You will see these are pretty, well, predictable: ■ Prediction one: There will be some sort of weather event, natural disaster or heinous occurrence where someone will be interviewed and say the following: “I’ve never seen anything like that in my lifetime.” It’s as if this person is a required attendee at every news reporting event. While I understand most people’s perspective can indeed be limited by, or contained within, their own personal experiences, it is too much to ask to consult some historical perspective before saying such a thing? Yes, this response can apply to some events. But when it comes to weather and natural disasters, I’m pretty sure this is simply history repeating itself. Same as it has for millions and millions of years. More important, the planet made it! What didn’t were certain species. How’s that for perspective? ■ Prediction two: When it comes to a crime or something that occurs between humans, the other required attendee at all news reporting events is the person who says this: “They we’re just the nicest people, and in no way did I see something like this coming.” Exactly. No one does most of the time when it comes to neighbors and acquaintances. People should be surprised at what goes on from time to time in their neighborhoods, towns and with people they know because people are good. And for the times that they shouldn’t be shocked — like with politicians, repeat offenders and terrorists — where’s the interview that says, “This doesn’t surprise me in the least.” ■ Prediction three: Something good will happen economically, and the government will take credit for it. The most recent example is gas prices, where people ask me why I won’t credit the president for low gas prices. My answer is simple: Government never makes the price of something go down and simply takes credit for good news. Gas pricing is subject to many global factors. Now there are government answers to addressing some of them to keep prices stable for Americans, but our government has none of them in place. The only things it has in place in the

Bold predictions for 2015 more like not-so-bold repeats long run always hurt consumers. Another fact is that unemployment reaches a certain level based on the economy. And while the government might brag the number is low, it’s more than likely the government did something to cause that number being low — and not in a good way. Conversely, when business picks up, it’s because the people who need to buy widgets who were not buying widgets because the economy was contracting due to natural (or unnatural, government caused) reasons, decided we better buy some widgets. The government had nothing to do with this. ■ Prediction four: In keeping with things the government does, I predict the government will manipulate the numbers to make the claim the economy is getting better because of how hard it is working to help all of us “working Americans.” Now Craig Hall you might say, “Craig, you always say this about President Obama because you don’t like him.” You’re right in a sense. I don’t know the man, but what I know of him and his thinking, I don’t like it or him one iota. Before you go off, however, I didn’t like President Bush and his bailouts, stimulus and his abandoning the free market to save the free market. And I don’t know him either. What the government does, and the only thing it can do, is hurt the economy. Unless it does nothing or put criminals in jail instead of partnering with them, nothing the government does will help. Always look at it this way, whatever the government says it is doing, whatever the name of the law it is passing, or whatever the name or goal of the bureaucracy it is presenting to the people, expect the polar opposite to occur. I guess what I’m saying is that perhaps it’s time to get out of our own perspective. There’s plenty of history books and historical research out there to begin to understand that all of this has happened before. And it will again, whether the topic is people or government. The best recommendation is to find some books or try that whole Google thing. There’s a lot of information on the Great Depression. The truth is it wasn’t even a good one until the government got involved. There’s also plenty of research on the medieval warm period when the planet was much warmer than today with a whole lot less people (and warmer well before man was here at all). And yep, people have been killing other surprised people since history was first written. Maybe some research will help stop all of these trends. Otherwise, we’ll be saying we’ve never seen anything like it in our lives. And not in a good way. Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 Copyright © 2021 — All rights reserved. or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com. F ✦

I’ve been doing some research on big building projects and came across this little ditty because I like the comparison for the purposes of this column:

“The Taj Mahal is located on the right bank of the Yamuna River in a vast Mughal garden that encompasses nearly 17 hectares in the Agra District in Uttar Pradesh. It was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahalm, with construction starting in 1632 and completed in 1648, with the mosque, the guest house and the main gateway on the south, the outer courtyard and its cloisters were added subsequently and completed in 1653. The existence of several historical and Quaranic inscriptions in Arabic script have facilitated setting the chronology of Taj Mahal. For its construction, masons, stone-cutters, inlayers, carvers, painters, calligraphers, dome builders and other artisans were requisitioned from the whole of the empire and also from Central Asia and Iran. Ustad-Ahmad Lahori was the main architect of the Taj Mahal.”

And it cost a boatload of bucks to build this level of excess.

Now in the above, replace Taj Mahal with Grand Junction High School and every reference to the emperor with Mesa County School District 51, and you’ll get the gist of the new plan to build our local version of the Taj Mahal, the new Grand Junction High School. After all, I’ve been here 21 years and — voila! — that’s how long it took to finally complete the Taj and that’s how long it’s taken for our elected betters on the D51 board to come up with an even more exorbitant plan to erect another wonder of the world, this local one priced two to three times higher than the average cost to build a high school in Colorado.

But to be fair, let’s use a quote from another piece of research I did, this one coming from District 51 itself on its promotional website at Citizens for D51: “We’ve listened to your concerns ... And we’re proud to now fight for a new school that successfully addresses only the most urgent and essential needs.”

And those they consider to be “community conscious citizens” have put a price tag on “urgent and essential needs” at about $150 million. But don’t any of us dare do any more research and discover the AVERAGE high school buildout cost is about $50 million to $60 million in the United States. And most of those include large tracts of land needed to be purchased AND full athletic facilities.

But what do I know? I’ve never

Taking a lot of extra steps in efforts to help children Nothing government gets built in a day or ... at a regular price

Doug and Melinda McCaw are willing to take extra steps to help children. Quite literally, a lot of extra steps. The Grand Junction couple ran the length of the Colorado Trail — 490 miles from Denver to Durango — in just 18 days in 2020 as part of a fund-raiser for Elevate Kids, an organization they founded to help charities that help children. For those who don’t want to do the division, the McCaws ran an average of 27 miles — more than a marathon — 18 days in a row. Moreover, they did so while contending with the ups and downs of the Colorado Trail and a total of 87,000 vertical feet of elevation gain. When I received a news release about the McCaws and been elected to a position of power and Phil Castle their effort, I couldn’t imagine that kind of a physical, mental and emotional challenge. I jog a couple of times a week and once backpacked the Four Pass Loop, a 25.7-mile trail around Craig Hall knowledge like a school board, city council or county commission, where all knowledge is bestowed once the ballots are in. the Maroon Bells west of Aspen with 7,752 feet of elevation gain. It took me more Well, I know this: D51 has been than three days. The Four Pass Loop is plenty long and steep by my standards, ignoring this community need for the but constitutes a proverbial mole hill in comparison to the Colorado Trail. Less, in 21 years I’ve been here after making the fact, than a typical day in the life of the McCaws along their trip. horrible decision to build a school with a

Consequently, I was eager to learn more about the McCaws and accepted lifespan of less than 50 years not so long their invitation to attend a media premier of “Chasing the Sky,” a documentary ago — damned near within my lifetime. about their journey. This willful negligence has our kids going

The nearly two-hour film details their training and other preparations, then to an asbestos laden, roof leaking, bricks offers a day-by-day account of the trip. It’s more like a blow-by-blow account falling out of walls, basement flooded given the injuries, pain and fatique they endured. They repeated a simple constantly, floor upheaving, death trap statement summarizing their assessment of the effort: “This is the hardest thing for decades. And now it’s demanding I’ve ever done.” $150 million dollars to fix the problem it

How, then, did they ultimately complete their quest? They explained that, too. caused? And parents are falling for it? One step at a time. By putting one foot in front of the other, day after day. But then Since I arrived here, D51’s annual another question arises: Why? Why embrace that kind of hardship? In part, they budget has almost doubled. Its student said, to prove to themselves they could. population hasn’t, but its staff has grown

I’ve been thinking about that and its analogy to the stories I’ve heard from exponentially. We’ve approved hundreds entrepreneurs about what they go through to start and grow their ventures. of millions of dollars above and beyond

There’s another common motivation, though, and that’s a desire to give back. the billions the district has received, The McCaws wanted to raise money for charities that help children. The first two including allowing the doubling of its debt beneficiaries of their efforts are Kids Aid, which provides backpacks filled with just a few years back. Yet, D51 hasn’t put food to students in Mesa County School District 51 schools who might otherwise ONE PENNY towards what I’ve been told go hungry over the weekends, and the Intermountain Adventist Academy, a school is its most pressing need: a new Grand for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Junction High School. Nope, the most it’s

Public showings of “Chasing the Sky” are scheduled for Oct. 14 at the done is put Taj after Mahal on the ballot Colorado Mesa University Center ballroom and Oct. 27 at the Picture Show only to be defeated so it can blame the movie theater in Grand Junction. Profits from ticket sales will go to Kids Aid and voters and call us child haters and antithe Intermountain Adventist Academy. More information about Elevate Kids is education — a move that’s done as much available at https://elevatekids.org. to sever relations in this community than any evil the satanic experts in the federal Phil Castle is editor of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or government have come up with. phil@thebusinesstimes.com. One thing that’s amazed me since F understanding everything in this country is political: people wanting the same folks who caused the problem and are hurting you to somehow fix the problem and help you. If one looks through that lens, they’d have to conclude the last place to look for a solution is government. For the love of Gia, just take a ride down any road and tell me it’s fixed. You can’t. We desperately need a new Grand Junction High School. But until there’s some sanity on price — say $60 million due to the swamp thing — let’s put this latest proposal in the place the Taj was intended: a tomb. Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.

But don’t any of us dare do any more research and discover the AVERAGE high school buildout cost is about $50 million to $60 million in the United States.