Dear Editor,
In 2018, Rolling Stone Magazine featured the 10 best things from Dierk Bentley’s Seven Peaks Festival which ranged from the fantastic music line-up to “the stunning scenery of Buena Vista, Colorado”. When Bentley announced that Seven Peaks Music Festival would return for its third year over Labor Day Weekend 2021, he told Rolling Stone that “It is my favorite weekend of the year, and I know every fan and artist that has been there will tell you the same.” I am sure the Chamber of Commerce will agree that you just can’t buy that kind of advertising for a small mountain town!
Seven Peaks Festival crew members work to finish setting up the main stage at The Meadows in 2018. (photo by Joe Stone).
Likely the very last article that will feature Buena Vista in Rolling Stone was published on July 9 and reported: “Just one month after announcing its 2021 lineup, Dierks Bentley’s Seven Peaks Festival has been canceled. Returning for its third year after a 2020 hiatus, the country star’s event was originally set for September 3rd to 5th in Buena Vista, Colorado. Seven Peaks Music Festival is being canceled for 2021 due to current capacity restrictions in place by local health officials,” the festival tweeted on Friday. “We are already planning for 2022, and a new location will be announced in the coming months. “We tried everything to make it happen, but Chaffee County has decided against lifting capacity restrictions,” Bentley tweeted from his own account on Friday.
The day Chaffee County’s commissioners turned down Seven Peaks because of COVID-19 concerns, Gov. Jared Polis ended 16 months of health emergency orders, marking what he called “an exciting milestone for the people of our state” and a “testament to our resilience and united commitment in the fight against this deadly virus.” Two days later tens of thousands gathered for All-Star baseball, concerts, festivals, and events around the state.
Commissioner Felt gave as his rationale for maintaining the 5,000 event capacity restrictions through the Labor Day weekend (September 3-5th): “I hope to hell our situation improves between now and Labor Day – at this point, I don’t see metrics pointing in that direction. I don’t see evidence that things are drastically improving,” added Felt. “What I DO see is decisions being made throughout Colorado that I believe are not supported by the data … based on wishful thinking and based on hope, but in my opinion not based on epidemiology. Other county commissioners and the governor can make decisions for their areas, other music festivals, the All-star game; they can make those decisions and answer for the consequences.”
So [in my opinion] Commissioner Felt sees other decisions in the State as “not supported by the data” and in “[his] opinion not based on epidemiology”. Let’s unpack this “expert” opinion from a County Commissioner who runs an Outfitting Business and has a BA from Yale University in Fine Arts. I am sure he is justifiably proud of having an Ivy League education, but a review of the fine arts curriculum at Yale does not provide any insight as to where he would have received knowledge to become an expert in epidemiology.
So what do the data and experts’ data actually say regarding COVID-19, and in particular the spread of the Delta variant in Colorado? The Statewide modeling report released on July 8 included the following numbers.
- 52 percent of the total population of Colorado is immune
- 70.25 percent of Coloradans 18+ have received one or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine
- The more transmissible Delta variant poses the greatest risk to unvaccinated Coloradans and is estimated to account for approximately 90 percent of current cases
Recently Dr. Anthony Fauci (who is an epidemiology expert) reported that national and international studies showed that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were proving to be 79-96 percent effective against the Delta strain. The problem that he and other experts at the Center for Disease Control called out is that, due to the large number of Americans who are choosing not to take the vaccine, we are now seeing uniformly a “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated”.
While I would like to see as many citizens take advantage of the vaccine as possible, it is every citizen’s individual choice to make whether they want to take this step to protect their own health and that of their loved ones and household. With a large event, such as Seven Peaks, it is statistically highly probable that unvaccinated individuals could spread the Delta variant, but the facts show that the spread would be among other unvaccinated people, and that vaccinated individuals would not be at risk. It is not rational for the Chaffee County Commissioners to regulate an event that has given such joy to so many attendees and benefit to the local economy over an attempt to mitigate risks to people, who as is their right, have chosen not to get vaccinated.
Given this extreme approach to denying Seven Peak’s request to raise the capacity limits to a number that would make the event feasible, one has to wonder if their decision was influenced by citizen complaints. Many residents near the Meadows, where the event would have been held, have expressed complaints and tried to influence the commissioners to deny an event permit. It should be noted some of these complainants are also near neighbors of Commissioner Keith Baker.
Also, in response to other complaints from these same residents, Chaffee County has taken the extraordinary step of sending a cease and desist order to the Meadows owner, Jed Selby, claiming that the weddings on his property were not actually wedding events but were determined to be “outdoor theater” which would require a major impact review. I fail to understand why the Commissioners are targeting Jed Selby in such an arbitrary manner as to the use of his property, given that many other local businesses and private properties host weddings, to the economic benefit of the community, as promoted by the Buena Vista Chamber of Commerce.
I, for one, appreciate the beauty and green space of The Meadows and commend Jed Selby for attempting to keep this as an open green space where private weddings can be held as well as a few public events each year. However, as a business owner I can understand that given the draconian enforcement actions the County has taken against his business use of the Meadows, it may make more sense just to quit and allow development of the property into residences.
Recently Jed Selby posted on Facebook “Losing Seven Peaks breaks my heart. I feel as if I have lost a family member. The festival delivered so much happiness, community, love, and prosperity to our valley”. He followed with “Hopefully our commissioners will learn this from the loss of Seven Peaks: when you treat people poorly enough, long enough, they will leave.”
Sad but true – will the last entrepreneur leaving Chaffee County please turn out the lights.
Alison Brown, PhD
Salida
Editor’s notes: Dr. Brown is a principal investor in Ark Valley Voice. She has no editorial control over Ark Valley Voice. The Chaffee County current COVID-19 vaccination rate is 62.9 percent. Children under the age of 12 cannot yet be vaccinated. Seven Peaks announced its lineup and began to sell tickets before their event application had been presented to the Board of County Commissioners.
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