Re: Georgetown Loop Lease Option

Roger,
one word describes this situation: Apathy. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we’re hit with news blips that don’t go into any depth because that’s what we’ve let the media get away with. We went to a number of different places trying to let people know what we thought would happen to the Loop after our last year of operation. No one cared. The Governor didn’t care and neither did our Senator, – Joan Fitz-Gerald. The Clear Creek County Commissioners didn’t care and neither did the majority of the local businesses, and do you know why? Because they were all guaranteed that nothing would change. Local businesses were assured that they would receive an “impact fee.” How pathetic. There is plenty of money at the trough and no one at the state level will ever have the where-with-all to ask the questions that need to be asked and make the changes necessary to ensure the success of this operation. It’s not just a matter of money. That’s the easy part. Passion, integrity, experience, talent and a competitive spirit to go 100 miles per hour to let your guests know why they should visit your attraction. And you better be able to handle the demand – these are just a few of the qualities required to make any business successful. The most important? A profit motive. This is why the CHS wanted to take over the Loop. They were convinced that the profits we made, could be theirs for the taking by making it very difficult for us to take their ridiculous offer of a new contract (see below under “looters” and read the book).
The Loop was successful under our direction in part because we could make important decisions on the fly, not having to waste time to put projects out to bid. We were responsible for making things happen. The current contract Railstar signed has been proven time and time again to fail. It has failed already and will continue to fail until someone listens to reality. If we lost 6-weeks of our operating season, we would be out of business.
I’ve always thought that this story parallels Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. In the book Rand covers a number of different philosophical themes, one of which covers “looters and moochers.” We wanted no part of being “looted” or “mooched” because of our entrepreneurial spirit of which we value greatly. Read the book and you’ll understand what I’m getting at.
Getting back to your question: I don’t have an e-mail address for Ed. Sorry.
Mark