Dear Citizens of Garfield County,

My name is Bill Vezzoso and I own and operate Independent Trucking & Excavation. I’ve been located outside of Carbondale since 1987. We have raised our children here and have been a part of the amazing Roaring Fork Valley for over 40 years.

I write this letter because of a great injustice being carried out by our County Officials and a select group of people who are intent on destroying my way of earning a living here in the valley. There have been several recent articles and comments which paint an untrue picture from the one that is really going on. It’s been called “a joke” that we’re fighting for our rights by the county and a neighbor. But I ask you, would you not fight for your business and livelihood if you were put in the same situation?

In 1991, The County summons me and other local excavators that ran their businesses from their homes and said they weren’t allowed to store their heavy equipment on their property. When it went to court, they said we could keep our businesses if we had over 5 acres of land and didn’t have over 10 pieces of equipment stored on our property.

Now The County, based on an unsigned “anonymous” complaint, is saying that they don’t have records of our agreement and even if they made one, it wasn’t an official agreement. It’s been argued by both our neighbors and the county the agreement in 1991 didn’t happen or wasn’t official. I ask them both, if it wasn’t official how could they shut down someone’s business if it wasn’t official or if it never happened? They continue to say this in light of testimony from five people that said they were there and that the agreement did happen.

The first is a letter from Frogg Excavation (shown to the right), that told the Board of County Commissioners that the decision in 1991 did happen, and that as a result of that decision he was forced to close his business. The county chooses to ignore the fact that they put someone out of business. How can this go uncontested and ignored? We’re talking about people’s lives!

The second is a letter from Joe Zamora (shown to the right), another excavator that was allowed to keep his operations as long as he put in a gravel road. The county continues to ignore his testimony as well.

The third is my own testimony of what happened. Many of the other people who didn’t have a big stake in this might have a hard time remembering the details, but if someone was trying to shut your business down, you’d probably never forget that either. I’ll never forget what happened in 1991, especially now I’m being put through it second time.

The fourth is my then employee and friend, Bruce Hammer, who testified that he sat side by side with me and recalls the specifics of the agreement and what happened. He extends an open invitation to The County to continue to testify (again) to this, but yet, the county doesn’t want to acknowledge his testimony either. He even offered his testomony under a polygraph machine.

The fifth is Eagle District Judge Gannett, who testified that he represented Joe Zamora and me, and he recalls that there were two groups, those that were allowed to continue and those who weren’t. He also testified that he recalled me as being part of the group that was allowed to continue. This seems hard to ignore, but the county has ignored this as well.

We must ask the question… Why? How could the county be allowed to shut down a business that’s been operating at the same location for over 25 years? Could this really be based off of one anonymous complaint? Is that fair to ignore so many people to shut down a business and livelihood of someone who’s lived in Garfield County for over 40 years?

How can you ignore the testimony of five people, one including an Eagle Court District Judge?

We want to make it clear to our community that we are always here to lend a hand to our community when and where it’s needed. We’ve donated our time and labor for many causes here in the valley and hope to continue to do so for many years.

I moved here in 1987, well before Mike Kenney purchased his adjacent property in 1998 (we looked it up), which was conveniently skewed in the paper and in front of the county to further his cause. It seems to me, that he along with others, are trying to control what we do on our property long after we’ve been well established here. Even in light of all the public attacks by Mr. Kennedy and others, I still extend the offer to try and work on how we can minimize the
impact he may have to work out a resolution, which doesn’t seem likely at this point.

I believe that we live in the most amazing place on earth and what makes our community the best is the people who make it up. I hope that everyone who lives in Garfield County is aware of the atrocious actions of The County because a few people want to change a business that’s been here for 25 years – simply because they don’t like the trucks that have been here since 1987. I hope this never happens to anyone else, but if we don’t make a stand with our County now, who knows what they’ll be after next.

I urge everyone to call, email, or fax our two commissioners behind this, Trési Houpt and Larry McCown, as well as Fred Jarman director of Building and Planning, and ask them how can they ignore what happened? How can they ignore five people’s testimonies, especially when shutting down a 25-year old business? Shouldn’t they error on the side of caution instead of destroying a local business over an anonymous complaint? How much money have you spent on this and
would it not be better spent on education, public saftey, or other programs more in need of our tax dollars? If you vote for them again, will they protect your rights against an untrue “anonymous” complaint?

We plan on continuing our persuit to re-establish our rights that were taken from us, but we have to ask how could this be allowed to happen in our precious valley, and if we let this happen where do we draw the line? Who will they try to shut down next?

Sincerely,

Bill Vezzoso
Independent Trucking & Excavation