PINECREST, Colo. — The Pinecrest Heritage Council voted 4-1 Thursday night to ban “any person from the next valley” from town limits, then directed the next valley to continue operating the ski lift, the snowplow, and the pie counter, all three of which began running on their own at 5:30 a.m. Friday.
The ordinance, which passed after nine minutes of discussion in the fire hall, states that no one from the next valley may be present in Pinecrest “at any time, except between 5:30 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. on days when the lift is open, and during the pie rush.” Coffee at the meeting, according to council members, was “adequate,” and the seating chart placed the next valley’s two representatives in the parking lot.
“We have nothing against the next valley. We love what the next valley does,” said Dolores Whitcomb, 67, the council’s chair. “We love the lift. We love the plow. We love the pie. We love all of it, from a distance, when no one is in it. We love what the next valley does. We just don’t want it here, doing it.”
According to the town’s own payroll, which the council released Thursday, 209 of Pinecrest’s 212 working positions, including 36 of the lift’s 38 operators, 11 of the plow’s 12 drivers, and all nine pie counter staff, are held by residents of the next valley, a figure of 98.6 percent. The remaining three positions are held by Whitcomb’s nephew, the council’s secretary, and a man who watches the weather.
Whitcomb said the ordinance would make no difference to the town’s operations. “People say, ‘Who will run the lift?’ The lift will run itself,” she said. “People say, ‘Who will plow the road?’ It will plow itself. It has done so since 5:30 this morning. I stood there and watched, and I was very moved.”
The Reporter confirmed that the lift opened at 5:34 a.m. with no operators present, carried 41 skiers by 8 a.m., and stopped at the top of each run to let people off, “as a courtesy.” The plow cleared Main Street unattended in a single pass, signaling at each turn, and the pie counter produced 61 pies, 11 of them cherry, by 7 a.m., which council members described as “what the town would have done anyway.”
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center had never before recorded a lift operating without operators. “Under normal conditions, a lift requires 38 people,” Teller said. “Under the ordinance, it requires 0, which is a 100 percent reduction in labor and a 98.6 percent reduction in the people who do it. We cannot explain the discrepancy. Further study is needed.”
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, said the council had found a simple distinction. “You want the lift, not the lifter. Those are two separate things, and any reasonable person can see that,” Brickhouse said by phone from a car wash. “It’s just common sense.”
Wes Pruitt, 44, who has operated the Pinecrest lift for 16 seasons and lives in the next valley, said the lift would open at 6:40 a.m. on Saturday as it always has, “whether or not anyone’s there,” and that the next valley had no position on the ordinance. He said it would like to be paid on Friday.
The council said it would revisit the ordinance next month, and that it would be meeting in the fire hall, with the next valley’s representatives in the parking lot, where there is a good view of the lift.