Town and school still plodding

Document should be ready for approval soon

Seven months after the RE1J school district and the Town of Crested Butte began negotiating an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) that would allow the school to receive land it needs for a planned expansion, the document is still being passed between the attorneys for either side.

The school board expected to have a copy of the IGA ready for possible approval at a meeting Monday, January 26, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the district’s attorney had made further changes to the document that had to be reviewed by the town’s staff and attorney and approved by the Crested Butte Town Council.
“They have a couple of changes that they are making to a couple of changes that we made [previously] and so it’s coming back to us, hopefully, on Wednesday [January 27],” said superintendent Jon Nelson.
Approval of the IGA has been held up on several points throughout the negotiations, starting with the town’s insistence—and the district’s reluctance—to have the expanded area of the school LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Design) certified.
However, Nelson said he would not divulge the nature of the changes that were being made to the IGA until the Crested Butte Town Council had finished reviewing the document and it was ready for approval by the school board.
From the town’s perspective, the Town Council wants to make sure they get what they want in the document. “We are close,” town attorney John Belkin promised the Crested Butte Town Council at their Tuesday, January 20 meeting. “We are still waiting on a draft from the school district. It’s been almost a month since I sent a draft with changes, but I think we are close. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
The town received a revised copy of the IGA with changes from the school district on January 23.
At their meeting, the council members did not voice concern about how long it was taking to get an IGA signed, but councilmember Skip Berkshire wanted to make sure the town got the conditions it wanted.
“We’re in the driver’s seat and it feels like we’re not controlling the process,” he said. “I feel like we are being steamrolled over some issues.” He was referring to a sticking point over whether or not to include an easement for a Nordic trail through the school property. He was also concerned about making sure that an access road was built on the west side of the property.
While town manager Susan Parker had been given authority to sign the IGA if there were no major changes, she promised that the council would get to look over the revised document before signing.
Parker also told the council, “At this point in time, the school expansion will certainly meet LEED certification. In fact, they are very close to meeting Silver status,” she said. (See story on page 11).
The IGA needs to be competed and signed before a 3.77-acre piece of land, where the expanded section of the Crested Butte Community School will sit, is transferred from the town to the district. Until the transfer is made official, no construction can start on the property.
Roy Blythe, principal and owner of the Blythe Group and Company, which is managing the project, has said that by delaying the approval of the land transfer, construction could be pushed into the winter months and could end up costing the district more money to support the operation.
“There are a couple of things that need to be done for us to get the conveyance of land and the Blythe Group is working on those things right now. The timing of our approval of the IGA, hopefully in February, will coincide with the things that they need to do to start construction,” said Nelson.
“So all we can do is just wait until we get the IGA. My conversation this afternoon with the Crested Butte town manager would lead me to believe that we are not very far away from getting this thing nailed down,” Nelson says.