From: Darcey Brown
Date: Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 10:02 PM
Subject: Response to your personal attack
To: “cczephyr@gmail.com”
Stiles-
A friend no longer attends meetings or writes letters because Dave Cozzens personally attack her ten years ago. We have lost an intelligent, thoughtful, and insightful voice as a consequence. I don’t claim any of those attributes, but my voice will also be silenced by your personal attack. I am stunned and hurt by not only your misrepresentations but that you would dig into my history and distort it.
For the record: I was raised in Carbondale not Aspen, my father was a top executive of the ski company not an owner, but he was also a Vernal, Utah rancher and often came to Moab starting in the early 50s to run rivers. I have lived in Moab full time since 1997, and as director of a small family foundation I receive no compensation or benefits of any kind. We contribute annually to the Youth Garden, Canyonlands Field Institute, Canyon Rising, Living Rivers, Moab Solutions, Colorado Watershed Coalition, Community Rebuilds, Grand County Library, Utah Film Society Free Screenings, Beacon After School Program, and the Moab Valley Multi Cultural Center to name a few. And, yes, many of those organizations are headed up by poorly paid staff and volunteers, and they can hardly be called “powerful special interest groups”.
I’m not sure what your problem is, but you have some issues, and I hope you address them before you undermine, polarize, and do further damage to this community and those- new and old- that are living here doing the best they can to address the problems brought on by both the recreation and extraction industries.
Darcey Brown
Moab, Utah
Here is a link to the Zephyr article Ms. Brown refers to:
On the Facts, Darcey Brown & Moab ‘Now & Then’
We later received another email from Ms. Brown. Here are her further comments:
From: Darcey Brown
Date: Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 9:18 AM
Subject: Re: Response to your personal attack
To: jim stiles <cczephyr@gmail.com>
Ironically, I actually agree that the recreation industry is out of hand here, and have worked hard to try to mitigate some of the effects. I have developed and distributed soil crust education cards and paid for stay on the trail maps. I ran full page informational ads with the results of an MIT study on what constitutes a Living Wage in Grand County by profession. I helped put on a Housing Crisis panel for the League. And I am (or was before your article) trying to do another panel on the Transient Room Tax in an attempt to end additional tourist advertising and to divert at least some of those funds to badly needed infrastructure and services. So no argument there.
What I do have an argument with is your belief that unless you are moderate or low income and were born and raised in Moab, you have no right to express an opinion without being held up to public ridicule and an invasion of privacy. Neither longevity in Moab or one’s bank account should have a bearing on one’s ability to participate in community issues or one’s credibility. And it’s noteworthy that few if any of the non profits in town have volunteers or staff who were born here. When you make these personal attacks from afar on the rich or newcomers, you threaten not only the person but the community welfare.Darcey Brown
NOTE: THE ZEPHYR will be responding publicly to Ms. Brown’s comments in the near future.
For more information on the Brown family and the ski industry in Aspen, Colorado, click here
