A view of Polhamus Park in downtown Granby with City Hall at right. (Google Maps)

This commentary comes to Newsline via Big Pivots.

A confounding aspect of the climate change challenge has been disagreements about the most basic of facts, namely human complicity. We had the same fact-based problem with the last presidential election.

Then there’s what happened in Granby, the Colorado mountain town that continues to be at the center of alternative realities.

Granby lies between Winter Park, the ski area, and Grand Lake, the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It has changed little since I lived there 40 years ago. It has tried to be a resort town, but the DNA is different. It’s a commercial and services center. The mayor when I lived there was Dick Thompson, who owned an excavating business and showed up at town board meetings in a blue work shirt wearing suspenders to hold up his jeans.

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The sky was blue the morning of June 4, 2004, the day of the bulldozer attack. The Fraser River, nearing the peak spring runoff, rushed to join the Colorado River. At the newspaper office, Patrick Brower was mapping out the next week’s issue of the Sky-Hi News.

Brower, like many people in Granby, a town then of 1,500, wore several hats. Walking down Agate Avenue, the main street, you were likely to encounter town trustees and sewer board members in different roles as store managers and accountants. Brower was the newspaper’s publisher but also its editor and a reporter. He attended many meetings of the town board. A relatively minor issue of several years before had been a land-use dispute on the town’s industrial fringe, where a concrete batch plant was permitted on property adjacent to a muffler shop.

That afternoon, Brower heard somebody had gone crazy in a bulldozer on the town’s edge. The Komatsu was like no bulldozer seen before, the driver encased in concrete save for two rifle barrels and clearly bent on destruction. It first attacked the batch plant, then it rumbled up the road to attack Mountain Parks Electric, followed by the town hall and library.

Cooperation, not conflict, defines every successful community I have known.

People had been advised to stay indoors because the bulldozer operator — whoever it was — had shot at police and the batch-plant operator. Children had fled the library only a minute before the giant Komatsu crashed into the building.

At the newspaper office, Brower was trying to figure who the terrorist was. He was standing in the front of the office when the blade caved in the building’s two-story front. Bricks and concrete blocks fell like shattered glass. He ran out the back, the bulldozer roaring at his heels. He didn’t trip. Had he done so, he says, he would have died.

The bulldozer also ripped into the home of the former mayor. His widow had been sleeping until shortly before. Then came an attempt to create an explosion of propane tanks. Finally, the bulldozer overheated and got stuck in the Gambles store basement. The terrorist shot himself. He was the owner of the muffler shop who thought he deserved special treatment. All of his victims played into that grudge-based narrative.

Strangely, others almost immediately cast him as a martyr, a hero, the underdog getting back at a government elite. That’s laughable on the surface. I stress that the mayor when I lived there dug trenches. Nobody was wealthy. If anybody had a Ph.D., they certainly did not announce it.

Admirers of this terrorist pointed out that he killed nobody. It was a matter of luck. Dozens could have easily died from gunfire, explosions, or — like the children in the library — crushed by bulldozer treads.

Several years ago Brower wrote a book about this. It’s called “Killdozer.” He lays out the facts. Facts don’t matter to many people. They want to believe in a little guy battling a big, bad government until he finally snapped.

Facts do matter, but so do broader truths that we agree upon, as David Brooks observed in a 2021 column. “It is a moral framework from which to see the world,” he explained.

Cooperation, not conflict, defines every successful community I have known.

Violence achieved nothing for the terrorist in Granby, nor did it achieve anything on Jan. 6 in Washington D.C. Communities large and small are built on cooperation that dwarf narrow, short-term interests. Happily, American leaders have come together in bipartisan agreement in how to resist Russian aggression in the Ukraine.

Climate change poses a broader, more difficult and dangerous challenge. From my perspective in Colorado, sometimes I can be optimistic. I see bold policies, great courage and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.

Other days, I see narrow me-first grievances and entitlement hold sway. I’m still mystified how people can look at the facts and reconfigure this petty terrorist into a hero.

by Allen Best, Colorado Newsline June 3, 2022

by Allen Best, Colorado Newsline June 3, 2022

This commentary comes to Newsline via Big Pivots.

A confounding aspect of the climate change challenge has been disagreements about the most basic of facts, namely human complicity. We had the same fact-based problem with the last presidential election.

Then there’s what happened in Granby, the Colorado mountain town that continues to be at the center of alternative realities.

Granby lies between Winter Park, the ski area, and Grand Lake, the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It has changed little since I lived there 40 years ago. It has tried to be a resort town, but the DNA is different. It’s a commercial and services center. The mayor when I lived there was Dick Thompson, who owned an excavating business and showed up at town board meetings in a blue work shirt wearing suspenders to hold up his jeans.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

The sky was blue the morning of June 4, 2004, the day of the bulldozer attack. The Fraser River, nearing the peak spring runoff, rushed to join the Colorado River. At the newspaper office, Patrick Brower was mapping out the next week’s issue of the Sky-Hi News.

Brower, like many people in Granby, a town then of 1,500, wore several hats. Walking down Agate Avenue, the main street, you were likely to encounter town trustees and sewer board members in different roles as store managers and accountants. Brower was the newspaper’s publisher but also its editor and a reporter. He attended many meetings of the town board. A relatively minor issue of several years before had been a land-use dispute on the town’s industrial fringe, where a concrete batch plant was permitted on property adjacent to a muffler shop.

That afternoon, Brower heard somebody had gone crazy in a bulldozer on the town’s edge. The Komatsu was like no bulldozer seen before, the driver encased in concrete save for two rifle barrels and clearly bent on destruction. It first attacked the batch plant, then it rumbled up the road to attack Mountain Parks Electric, followed by the town hall and library.

People had been advised to stay indoors because the bulldozer operator — whoever it was — had shot at police and the batch-plant operator. Children had fled the library only a minute before the giant Komatsu crashed into the building.

At the newspaper office, Brower was trying to figure who the terrorist was. He was standing in the front of the office when the blade caved in the building’s two-story front. Bricks and concrete blocks fell like shattered glass. He ran out the back, the bulldozer roaring at his heels. He didn’t trip. Had he done so, he says, he would have died.

The bulldozer also ripped into the home of the former mayor. His widow had been sleeping until shortly before. Then came an attempt to create an explosion of propane tanks. Finally, the bulldozer overheated and got stuck in the Gambles store basement. The terrorist shot himself. He was the owner of the muffler shop who thought he deserved special treatment. All of his victims played into that grudge-based narrative.

Strangely, others almost immediately cast him as a martyr, a hero, the underdog getting back at a government elite. That’s laughable on the surface. I stress that the mayor when I lived there dug trenches. Nobody was wealthy. If anybody had a Ph.D., they certainly did not announce it.

Admirers of this terrorist pointed out that he killed nobody. It was a matter of luck. Dozens could have easily died from gunfire, explosions, or — like the children in the library — crushed by bulldozer treads.

Several years ago Brower wrote a book about this. It’s called “Killdozer.” He lays out the facts. Facts don’t matter to many people. They want to believe in a little guy battling a big, bad government until he finally snapped.

Facts do matter, but so do broader truths that we agree upon, as David Brooks observed in a 2021 column. “It is a moral framework from which to see the world,” he explained.

Cooperation, not conflict, defines every successful community I have known.

Violence achieved nothing for the terrorist in Granby, nor did it achieve anything on Jan. 6 in Washington D.C. Communities large and small are built on cooperation that dwarf narrow, short-term interests. Happily, American leaders have come together in bipartisan agreement in how to resist Russian aggression in the Ukraine.

Climate change poses a broader, more difficult and dangerous challenge. From my perspective in Colorado, sometimes I can be optimistic. I see bold policies, great courage and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.

Other days, I see narrow me-first grievances and entitlement hold sway. I’m still mystified how people can look at the facts and reconfigure this petty terrorist into a hero.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

Allen Best is a Colorado-based journalist who publishes an e-magazine called Big Pivots. Reach him at [email protected]

Colorado Newsline provides fair and accurate reporting on politics, policy and other stories of interest to Coloradans. Newsline is based in Denver, and coverage of activities at the Capitol are central to its mission, but its reporters are devoted to providing reliable information about topics that concern readers in all parts of the state, from Lamar to Dinosaur, from Durango to Sterling.

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Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.