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Resident praises emergency response and urges planning as Smith Hill Road and Entrance to Aspen work progress
Summary
A longtime emergency responder praised multi-agency responses to recent outages and structure fires and warned that upcoming changes — including a Pick N County IGA with CDOT for $2.5 million to close Smith Hill Road access — make evacuation planning and supplemental environmental review for the Entrance to Aspen project more urgent.
Toni Kronberg, who said she spent 25 years in emergency response, commended the local dispatch, sheriff, Aspen Fire, and other agencies for a fast and coordinated response to multiple incidents in a short period. She described a nearly simultaneous set of calls — transformer failures and multiple structure fires — and said the response was "the best" she has seen in 25 years.
Kronberg noted Smith Hill Road will be shut off next year and that Pitkin County signed an IGA with CDOT for $2,500,000 to close that access, saying the recent incidents served as a trial run for potential evacuation conditions. She urged better public updates on the Entrance to Aspen project, recommended consideration of a supplemental environmental impact study because closures concentrate traffic on alternate routes, and praised emergency crews for their work during the incidents.
