Time to pay attention to Telluride

On its face, legal wrangling over Telluride’s Valley Floor may have caused some eye-rolling or tongue clucking down here in Montrose. It seemed to have much of the stuff that makes the resort town seem like part of a neighboring planet and not a neighboring county. To wit:

- Mind boggling real estate prices: The Delta County jury’s valuation of the 570 acres on the west side of the town came in at $50 million. That’s nearly $10 million more than the entire amount of revenue the city of Montrose expects to collect in 2007.

— Starpower: Among those backing the town’s quest to acquire the land were movie star Daryl Hannah and Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. who helped broker the Dayton Accords.

— Fall-on-your-sword-style politics: Telluride voters set the stage for last week’s drama by voting in February to proceed with condemnation and decline a settlement offer from the landowner - San Miguel Valley Corporation - that would have allowed development on nine percent of the land. But to toss off the decision without much thought would be a mistake.

If you’ve been in the airport on a winter weekend you’ll see a flood of tourists crowding the terminal.

If you’ve driven down Townsend in the wee hours of dawn, you’ve noticed the caravan of framers, roofers and hotel workers who travel up the mountain every workday.

As disparate as our politics may be, our economies linked.

Telluride can still raise the money to buy the land for $50 million, although the window to do so may shrink. SMVC’s lawyers filed a brief Tuesday arguing that the town should pay within 41 days.

So, whether future development of the Valley Floor takes place or the preservation backers manage to pull the big bucks together, it’s worth the time to pay attention.