Vail Mayor Chapin acknowledges bond with Mexico, necessity of immigrant workers

There was a lot of talk leading up to the Labor Day weekend about protecting American workers from cheap immigrant labor (both legal and illegal) and raising wages to keep up with the pace of the recovering (recovered?) economy. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, both anti-establishment mavericks, stirred up a lot of that talk.

Vail Mayor Dave Chapin

In case you missed my recent reporting on these topics, check out my story that posted Sunday on the Vail Daily website and included an interview with Vail Mayor Dave Chapin about the importance of the Mexican tourism market, the potential economic damage of Trump’s “threatening” anti-Mexico rhetoric, and the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

“We need this segment of our workforce to be here,” Chapin told me for the Vail Daily story. “Otherwise, we’re done. If we can’t provide services for our guests, and we’re struggling now, and if it requires an immigrant workforce to achieve that, then let’s deal with the reality of that.”

Chapin added a new element to versions of the story I wrote for the Colorado Statesman, RockyMountainPost.com and RealVail.com. Vail, the nation’s most popular ski area, has long depended on seasonal immigrant labor and foreign workers to function as a resort. I’ve been writing about this topic for at least eight years.

“Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first – not wealthy globetrotting donors,” Trump says on his on his campaign website. “We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change.”

For Trump, putting the needs of the working people first does not necessarily include increasing their paychecks by significantly upping the federal minimum wage above its current and largely lampooned rate of $7.25 an hour. Or maybe it does. He has flip-flopped furiously on the topic.

Colorado’s Initiative 101 proposal would steadily increase the state’s $8.31 minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, essentially raising it 70 cents an hour every year until 2020. Vail Resorts last year hiked its starting wage to $10 an hour, and some say a company should be allowed to set its own wages at its own discretion. Other business leaders say mandates are a necessary evil.

Check out my previous reporting on the minimum wage debate heading into the Nov. 8 election on RockyMountainPost.com and the Colorado Statesman.

Finally, an update on my recent reporting on the status of two proposed ballot initiatives that would have increased local control (towns and counties) over oil and gas drilling, which is regulated primarily by the state, and established a new setback for drilling operations of 2,500 feet away from homes, public building and water sources.

Both initiatives failed to get enough valid signatures to land on Colorado’s Nov. 8 general election ballot, although proponents are considering appealing. U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, a Democrat who financially backed the local-control question, says the ballot battle over fracking won’t go away until the Colorado Legislature decisively deals with the heated issue.

Trump, whose immigration stance seemed to softening with a visit to Mexico last week but then just as quickly stiffened with an anti-immigrant rally in Arizona, also has flip-flopped on the topic of greater local control over oil and gas drilling.

Trump’s top energy advisor recently walked back Trump’s earlier comment in Colorado seemingly supporting local control, according to The Wall Street Journal. The advisor said Trump did not fully understand the question when asked about it by 9News.

“Well, I’m in favor of fracking, but I think that voters should have a big say in it,” Trump told 9News. “If a municipality or state wants to ban fracking, I can understand it.”

That comment was later written off as energy ignorance by Trump energy advisor Harold Hamm.

“Donald Trump did not understand that concept at the time in my opinion,” Hamm reportedly said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal at the Colorado Oil and Gas Association’s annual conference. “He does now.”

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail

David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.

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