Briefs Crested Butte

Council accepts Baxter Gulch trail easement
The Town Council voted Monday, October 18 to accept the easement for a new Baxter Gulch trail easement. They also approved a funding agreement with the 1% for Open Space group that is contributing most of the money for the easement. The closing for the transaction is set for November 4. The council also sent the Trapper’s Crossing Homeowners Association a letter addressing and trying to alleviate the concerns of some of the board members.

Dan the Sign Guy shot down
Councilperson Dan Escalante suggested the town do its neighbor to the south, Western State College, a favor and hang a banner in Crested Butte promoting the college during spring break. The idea earned no support from fellow council members, who pointed out banners have been a hot issue in the recent past. “I don’t want us to be so rigid,” said Escalante. “This is just an idea to help promote them and the valley.”
Mayor Leah Williams said it seemed to go beyond the scope of what the town does with signage. “Banners are a controversial topic here and to open it up to something not even in town, I don’t see it.”
Neither did the rest of the council.

Leah the Master Planner shot down
Williams wanted the council to move toward a Master Plan Light concept with some future “visioning” for the town. She said it is sometimes awkward to sit at a roundtable of elected officials and not have an official vision statement about the goals of Crested Butte, and wanted to move toward development of such a statement. That too went nowhere with the rest of the council. “Those kind of vision statements all sound the same,” said councilperson Jim Schmidt. “Let’s just borrow someone else’s vision statement and change a few words to say Crested Butte.”
“I’ve learned everyone here has their own vision,” said councilperson John Wirsing. “There’s not a whole lot of cohesion. I don’t want to spend $100,000 to see not just one Snodgrass issue but 50 of them.”
The council as a whole had no desire to spend any time or money developing a future visioning master plan at this time.

Bringing the orange to CB
The Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association gave an update of its activities. When asked if more people would be coming this winter season than last, executive director Jane Chaney said she couldn’t answer. She pointed out CBMR provided the vast majority of the winter marketing dollars.
Councilman Escalante asked if the TA could get the businesses around Crested Butte to pick it up during hunting season. “It is huge in Gunnison. They have the hunting culture. You are hard pressed to even see some hunter orange on the streets up here. I couldn’t even buy a hunting map of this unit.”
“I’m not sure we’re set up for hunting promotion up here,” said Chaney. “I don’t know what the silver bullet is for that at the north end of the valley.”

Pooch friendly expansion
The council will hold a public hearing on changing its town ordinance to allow more dog-friendly parks in town. The council agreed to make the new Verzuh-Rotary park dog-friendly, along with green spaces near that park. The site of the old Crested Butte Academy will also turn into a pooch-friendly park.
Speaking of pooches…the town released population numbers as of December 31, 2009 and there were 327 dogs living in town and 1,522 people.