A business owner of two stores in downtown Durango for 50 and 40 years respectively, I am very much opposed to what the man the city has hired to do to our unique, historic downtown and is pushing through in the name of Next Step. Seventy-five business owners have told him and the city that we want our town left alone. We have already lost many parking spaces, and now they want to take away 50 more! Locals don’t come downtown because of lack of parking, many tourists get very frustrated and express their ire to us about how hard it is to find parking. There is a hidden agenda hiding behind the city’s not listening to those of us who have the most to lose – they want a pedestrian mall. It just won’t work in this narrow valley with no other parking. Keep it up, and there won’t be any businesses left to walk to. The fake walkway to show us what Next Step would look like caused all the businesses there to lose all or most of their business that weekend. This will happen to all of us during the construction that it will take place next summer and every summer after. We can’t take hits like that and survive.
Marsha and Jon Schuetz – Diamond Circle Gift Shop and Rio Grande Trading Co.
Durango
