The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Council wants more info on potential RTA tax increase
The Crested Butte Town Council members couldn’t even give Mayor Leah Williams a “gut feeling” about whether they would support a tax increase this coming fall for the valley-wide Rural Transportation Authority. Williams is a member of the RTA board and said that board is considering whether or not to ask voters to enact one of the three sales tax increases. Currently the RTA collects a .6 percent sales tax throughout the county but in the city of Gunnison, the rate is only .35 percent
“They want to at least equalize the rate so everyone pays the same .6 percent,” she said. “But there is also discussion about asking voters to raise the entire RTA sales tax to .75 percent or even 1 percent. Does the council have a feeling on that?”
Councilperson Dan Escalante said he would need more information to even give a preliminary response. “What does the change mean at the various levels? How much money does it collect and what will be done with it?” he asked.
“I agree that we need to understand it more,” said Councilperson Reed Betz.
“Being equal seems to make sense but let’s get more information,” added Councilperson John Wirsing.
“I know it is a hard time to think about raising taxes in this economy,” admitted Williams.
She will ask for more specifics and broach the subject with the council in the near future.
Count yourself
Town Planner John Hess said residents of town should expect to see a census packet on their doorstep in the next few days. He encouraged everyone to fill out the surveys. “April 1 is the target to get the information back to the census,” he said. “Our last census showed about 1,560 people in town and 292 dogs.”
Process overload
The council spent an hour in a work session talking process. They debated how to deal with council procedures such as how to get items on the agenda, how to conduct public comment at meetings and work sessions, how to deal with council packets and communication. The council got about one-third of the way through the discussion, so they will hold another work session on the matter. Party on.
