County approves letter destined for Forest Supervisor Richmond

“We’re not sure how he got to that conclusion"

After a week of simmering on the county stove, the decision to send Forest Service Supervisor Charlie Richmond a letter about the way he denied Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s proposal to put lifts on Snodgrass Mountain came to a boil.

At a regular meeting Tuesday, December 15, the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) reiterated many of the points they made at last week’s work session, when they agreed to send a letter that detailed where they felt Richmond went wrong in his decision.
At the time, CBMR and several members of the public hoped the commissioners would urge Richmond to reconsider his Snodgrass decision and allow the proposal into a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. Another segment of the public wanted the commissioners to maintain their previously held silence. But neither side would get their way.
Commissioner Hap Channell had some concerns with the foundations of the arguments people were using against the Forest Service decision, whether they wanted lifts on Snodgrass or not.
“There are eight parts to Charlie Richmond’s rationale, but we seem to be focusing our attention on just two,” Channell said. “Did we not have any thoughts on the other six or seven? But for us to focus so much attention on one-eighth of Mr. Richmond’s rationale seems… weak at best.”
But Channell wasn’t saying he disagreed with the recent effort to have the Forest Service reconsider the Snodgrass decision. Instead, the BOCC will send the Forest Service a letter to set the record straight on two of the major foundations of Richmond’s letter.
The first issue the county has with Richmond’s decision is the assertion that there was little public support for CBMR’s expansion onto Snodgrass.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 50 people from both the pro- and anti-lift Snodgrass camps, Commission Chairperson Paula Swenson said, “After looking at all of the information, we have come to the consensus that there was no consensus on the Snodgrass issue, and there is a strong feeling that the community support portion of Mr. Richmond’s letter was not supported in its entirety, and we’re not sure how he got to that conclusion.”
In a memo released last week, County Attorney David Baumgarten told the commissioners that there is no place in either the first or second level of the pre-NEPA screening process that requires public input.
Because a public comment period was not part of the official procedure, members of the public who wanted to be heard on the issue had no formal way of speaking out. Those who did speak out, the commissioners reasoned, were doing so out of turn.
In their letter to Richmond, the commissioners write, “[The county’s] concern is based in part on the twin facts that while the formal Forest Service initial and second level screening process… do not provide for a formal public comment component, the Forest Service decision document relies in part on the characterization of public support.”
Channell says, “In other words, pre-NEPA does not call for public input. And yet, Charlie turned around and cited community support as one of his areas for concern.”
So commissioners went on to write, “To help insure that Gunnison County community is fully informed on the basis for that Forest Service characterization, we request that the Forest Service explain how, when and by whom the public comment opportunity was conducted and that you confirm a clearly defined, accurate, complete and useful public comment process that formed the community support portion of your decision letter.”
The other half of the county’s letter to Richmond takes issue with his use of the Special Development Project Resolution (SDPR) as a rationale for the denial. “We’re in agreement that his rationale regarding Gunnison County Special Development Project Regulations was inaccurate to say the least,” Swenson says.
Richmond’s letter denying the Snodgrass proposal states, “Gunnison County recently established Special Development Project Regulations asserting procedural and substantive authorities which are at odds with cooperative planning of large projects on National Forest lands.”
After reading that portion of the letter, Channell says, “This one we totally disagree with.”
In response, the county’s letter to Richmond points out nine specific sections of the SDPR that encourage cooperative planning on National Forest lands and other sections that allow applicants to provide the county with data and information they would be collecting for a cooperating agency.
The county’s letter says, “The document did not accurately characterize the Gunnison County Special Development Project Resolution regarding the ability to coordinate county and federal review. The regulations have required such coordination since their initial 1990 adoption.”
“We really take him on in his assertion that the county’s Special Development Regulations do not support concurrent review. We want concurrent review,” Channell said.
Along with the two major parts of Richmond’s rationale the county attacks in its letter, the issue of compromising the county’s objectivity in a quasi-judicial setting was raised again.
The letter to Richmond quotes from an earlier letter the BOCC sent the Forest Service, addressing the BOCC’s position as a potential judge of the project for a separate and independent county review process.
It says, “Any comment from the [BOCC] regarding the expansion of CBMR onto Snodgrass would be considered an ex parte communication outside of the County review process and would cause damage to the applicant, the public and the integrity of our process.
“Therefore, the [BOCC] cannot submit a letter of support or opposition regarding this application, nor should the U.S. Forest Service construe the lack of such a letter as lack of support and deny the application based on the County’s inability to weigh in. Please do not use this inability on the County’s part as a cause for any U.S. Forest Service decision that is yours to make.”
Channell repeated the last line of the letter for emphasis, then said, “It’s a U.S. Forest Service decision, not ours. We stated our position clearly—we have maintained independence in this process consistently. My recommendation is that we continue to maintain our independence in this process.”
Part of maintaining that independence by the BOCC is stopping short of requesting the Snodgrass proposal be entered into NEPA, which is what CBMR officials and some members of the public were hoping for.
Commissioner Jim Starr felt like a recommendation by the BOCC that the proposal enter into NEPA would be a compromise of the board’s impartiality if the proposal were ever to go into the county’s SDPR review process.
Starr said, “I think that the important thing here is that because we do sit in a quasi-judicial setting [in the county’s review process], we really do need to remain impartial. I know this issue has engendered a lot of passion in the community, and rightfully so.
But I really think for us to remain neutral, we shouldn’t weigh in on the NEPA issue, as many people have asked us to do.”
He continued, “In my mind, the federal regulations that are applicable to this process state quite clearly that if you go into NEPA, that becomes then a Forest Service goal. Whatever project is proposed, NEPA is no longer the issue of should this happen or not—it is the issue of how is it going to happen. If we were to weigh in, as a number of you would like us to do, that would be tantamount to us saying that we think this project should go forward… and to me that is prejudging the project.”
Although she hadn’t read the final version of the letter and wouldn’t pass judgment on its contents, Crested Butte resident Sue Navy, who hopes to keep lifts off Snodgrass Mountain, said she thought the county needed to keep a neutral stance in their letter and was pleased to see that they had.
CBMR Director of Planning and Permitting John Sale said the resort had also questioned the public support element of Richmond’s rationale, believing that would be an issue to be worked out in the NEPA process.
“The whole point of the NEPA process is to gauge public support and the Forest Service’s reasoning was based on public support and geology. So we’re happy to see the county weigh in on the public support issue,” Sale said.
The commissioners voted to approve the letter as it was amended at the meeting and send it to Richmond, along with copies to the county’s congressional delegation and the Forest Service administration, as soon as it is finalized.