''But at the same time,'' he continues, ''part of our success in the winter stems from the people we've attracted. I can't apologize for the fact that we attract jet-setters and Hollywood stars. Should I tell Rupert Murdoch not to come next year? You want me to stop the direct flights from Los Angeles? Those people are part of the image of Aspen.''

Bob Maynard adds that while glitz is an inherent part of Aspen, it is a smaller part than most make it. ''If a writer comes into town for a day, that's what he writes about,'' Maynard says. ''It's easy. Skiing with Jack Nicholson - everyone's going to read that. In the long run, that probably helps us; I don't mind it. But some of us feel very strongly about pushing other aspects of Aspen, so that there's a balance. It's not that we're antiglitz, let's just not leave out the other parts. Some people actually come here because the fishing is good.''

ULTIMATELY WHAT'S GOT Aspen's civic leaders - if not yet its visitors - quaking in their ski boots is not the current glory days, but the years that stretch ahead. Several complicated roadblocks stand between the town and future serenity.

Lack of affordable housing may be the town's biggest headache of the 90's. It has made it extremely difficult for the booming boutiques, restaurants, hotels and even the ski company to attract help. The new $35 million Little Nell hotel - and other employers - are busing help from as far as 70 miles downvalley, from Silt and Parachute, Rifle and Basalt. (In a Robin Hood-meets-the-80's tale, some employees living in housing set aside for them have illegally rented bedrooms to tourists, a kind of take-from-the-rich, rent-to- the-rich parable.) Several plans are on the boards to build employee housing; the county has a goal of building 100 affordable units in 1990 and at least that many in 1991. Some want to see that doubled. At the same time, taxpayers are revolting at the idea of their dollars being spent for the benefit of the profitable businesses in town. And it's not just the minimum-wage employee who is suffering. The last director of the town's art museum, for example, left in part because she couldn't find a two-bedroom apartment for less than $2,000 a month. Transportation in and out of the valley - especially since so much of the town's employment base must now commute - is the other big concern. Highway 82 - known locally as ''Killer 82,'' for the myriad car wrecks that claim lives each winter - is a two-lane road that winds southeast for 40 miles from Glenwood Springs, alongside roaring rivers and between close canyon walls. Because of congestion, during a winter storm it can take two and a half hours to travel. Along its narrowest stretches, expansion to four lanes will cost an estimated $2 million per mile. Plus, the increased commuting is causing more air pollution and the county is wrestling with a clean air bill that could cost $500,000.

Forecasts for slowing growth are bleak: the Colorado Department of Highways Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Highway 82 predicts 34 percent commercial growth in Aspen by 2010, 80 percent commercial and population growth in Snowmass Village, and 56 percent more cars entering the valley. But perhaps the most immediate threat is that the nonprofit organizations that are the base of the town's cultural heritage are getting fed up. The International Design Conference in Aspen, Music Associates of Aspen (sponsors of the Aspen Music Festival) and the Aspen Institute have all considered moving to other communities, largely because the city has grown too expensive to house visitors, faculty and students. Last winter, the Aspen/Snowmass Repertory Theater had to cancel its season because no affordable lodging could be found for employees. (Included in the Feb. 13 referendum that will decide whether Hadid's hotel should be approved as designed, whether to ban fur sales and which Highway 82 segment should be expanded, is the fate of a bond issue that would fund student and faculty housing for several nonprofit groups.) David T. McLaughlin is president of the Aspen Institute, which sponsors international conferences on political philosophy and policy issues. Though its year-round base is in Queenstown, Md., it operates in Aspen from mid-June to Labor Day and holds a couple of seminars in January and March. This summer the institute celebrates its 40th anniversary with a major symposium to be attended by national and world leaders. ''It's a rather significant event and here we're sitting not knowing if we'll have facilities to house it,'' says McLaughlin. The institute's current residential facilities are worn, and badly in need of renovation. But that won't happen anytime soon because of the struggle between the City Council and Hadid. Hadid owns the land, but he's not going to put any money into renovation as long as his dispute with the town over the Ritz drags on.

McLaughlin insists the problem is one of priorities, that the Council has been so absorbed fighting developers that it has ignored the town's roots. ''It's not like any political process I've ever witnessed,'' he says. ''The Aspen Institute convenes leaders from all over the world. We discuss monumental problems like arms control. Yet we can't seem to use our convening power to get anything done in Aspen.'' He maintains that the institute, as well as the other not-for-profits, are committed to remaining where they are ''as long as we can have facilities there that meet our minimum requirements.'' But he adds: ''Are the facilities adequate today? No they are not.'' And without improvements, he says, ''we have a very limited future in Aspen.''

THERE IS SOME SENTIMENT that the town's very feistiness -at one time an attraction - is starting to wear thin. The endless battles have taken their toll. Longtime residents are moving on, newcomers growing increasingly agitated. And if the town didn't have enough squabbling on its plate, in early December a band of locals - under the banners of the Citizens Recall Coalition and the People's Rights Organization - began collecting signatures on petitions to recall Mayor Stirling and three of four councilmen. Tom Klutznick thinks if matters are left completely to the current crop of elected officials, things may take a grave turn. ''I think they would like to see a very formidable gate put up across Highway 82 entering the community,'' he says, ''with representatives of the extreme left as the gatekeepers, determining who can come in and cannot and under what circumstances. They would probably issue visas of very short-term duration.'' Councilman Crockett would no doubt supervise the construction of such a barricade. As added fuel for his political stance, the small downtown house he has rented for 17 years was recently sold to a couple from Los Angeles, for $500,000. He's not sure where he's going to move. ''You know, I get accused as a politician of trying to make war, not peace,'' Crockett says. ''That's because I don't think there is room for peace here. Go back in history. Ask the Apaches or the Utes how successful they were in protecting their culture by compromising, by making peace. Their advice today, I'm sure, would be, 'It's war. Kill.' ''