Going local is a goal of Chamber

“There’s nothing worse than passing a law that everyone knows won’t be enforced”

Both the Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte Town Councils will consider a so-called “local hiring policy” at their regular meetings in November. Kristen Van Hoesen of the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce, along with Kim Raines and Alicia Davis of the local Building and Design Council, brought a formal request to the Crested Butte council on Monday, October 4 for consideration. Van Hoesen and Chamber director Richard Bond attended the Mt. Crested Butte council meeting October 5 for the same purpose.

They outlined various ways towns could enact policies to encourage local hiring, avoid outsourcing work if the talent is available in the valley, and enforce rules preventing illegal aliens from performing jobs.
“Such a policy is not uncommon in many municipalities,” said Van Hoesen. “We suggest when doing projects, the town of Crested Butte give additional ‘weight’ to local businesses.”
Raines said the primary impetus was to help local tradesmen and workers. “We hope it spreads to all the public entities and the private businesses in the valley, but this is the place to start,” she said.
“I think it is great and we should look at how other places pursue it,” said Crested Butte councilperson John Wirsing.
“We take these things into consideration now,” said Crested Butte mayor pro tem Dan Escalante, “but we can discuss it further at another meeting.
Up in Mt. Crested Butte, the council and town attorney Rod Landwehr expressed concerns about some of the things Van Hoesen was proposing, but agreed that supporting local workers was important.
“You have a responsibility to the taxpayers to spend the money wisely, but that’s not to say there can’t be some reasonable weighting of the policy to favor the local supplier of goods or services,” commented Landwehr. “A bid, for example that comes within 5 percent of the lowest one. If it was a local supplier versus out of town, it would be considered equal.
“The illegal labor, that’s going to be a much tougher [one] to get us involved in,” Landwehr continued. “Look at the effectiveness—there’s nothing worse than passing a law that everyone knows won’t be enforced. You’re going to have to come up with a system we can reasonably enforce, and actually make a difference. We’d have to adopt ordinances that prohibit use of illegal labor in the town by anyone. Right now [the responsibility] is on the developer.”
“When you say the burden is on the contractor, there is no burden,” said Van Hoesen. “No one is checking up on it. I understand this is a sensitive subject and some extra work, but who else is going to do it? In an economy where building is second to tourism, it’s a big revenue component. Who else is supposed to do it?”
As for the local hiring initiative, Mt. Crested Butte Community Development Department director Bill Racek asked Van Hoesen if the local Building and Design Council and Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce members were willing to commit to the same policy. “If the town were to establish this sort of policy, is your membership prepared to do the same thing with the contractors they enter into? If it’s a good idea for us, it’s a good idea for the membership that’s bringing it forward,” said Racek.
Chamber director Richard Bond said, “We’re not trying to stir up a lot of mud, but encourage the hiring of local [people] whenever possible.”
“I support what this local hiring policy is trying to accomplish,” said councilman Chris Morgan.
Bond asked that the Mt. Crested Butte council consider the local hiring policy as a future agenda item, so the Chamber of Commerce could come back with a complete presentation.
Both councils will have this item on their agendas in November.