Livestock allowed but idling curtailed by Crested Butte Town Council

Goats still banned in Crested Butte

The Crested Butte Town Council Monday unanimously approved a livestock ordinance for the town and barely approved an anti-idling ordinance.

Under the new livestock rules, residents will be able to raise animals such as chickens, rabbits and pot–bellied pigs. As long as they aren’t loud or smelly they will be legal in town.
Resident Val Jaquith asked the council to allow goats. “Goats are clean and not too loud,” she said. “I don’t think there should even be rules regulating livestock but if you are doing it, I think goats should be allowed.”
Councilperson Reed Betz advocated for allowing goats as well. “I’d like to see goats in here,” he said. “They are a totally versatile animal. There are a lot of benefits to a goat. I know it sounds silly but it’s true.”
“We wanted to start out from the narrowest point,” explained mayor Leah Williams. “The concern with the goats was that they would be too hard to contain. They could jump the fences. We thought it best to keep it narrow at first and expand it in the future to allow goats or quail or whatever.”
Councilperson and quail advocate Dan Escalante suggested a community farm during the livestock discussion. “We have a community garden—how about taking some of the open space we have near town where we hold the conservation easement and allowing people to have livestock there? We have a lot of land.”
“We allow horses on the town ranch,” pointed out councilperson Jim Schmidt. “Could we consider using some of that property for something like that?”
Town manager Susan Parker noted that the ranch was “under an exclusive lease” arrangement at the moment but if they wanted, the council could consider a community farm in the future.
As for the livestock ordinance, the council felt the current ordinance was a good starting point and approved it unanimously.
The anti-idling ordinance passed on a 4-3 vote. That ordinance will essentially make it illegal to idle a vehicle for more than three minutes unless ice needs to be melted on the windshield to make it safe to drive. It will be illegal for vehicles to be left alone and idling for any amount of time.
There are a number of exemptions in the ordinance but if convicted, a fine of $100 could be imposed.
“We hope to use it as an educational tool,” explained Williams.
“I have a bunch of concerns and if it is meant to be educational, I’d rather see education efforts made before handing out $100 tickets,” said councilperson Phoebe Wilson. “And have we consulted with the delivery vendors that have the semi-truck delivery vehicles?”
“This is not cutting-edge legal work,” said town building official Bob Gillie. “A lot of the mountain towns have such ordinances and the vendors are familiar with such rules. It is mostly intended to deal with the repeat, egregious offenders. If we issue more than two of these tickets a year, I’ll be surprised. Like it’s been said, this is meant to be more of a values statement. There always seems to be a fear that the staff will go wild and I don’t think anyone will do that.”
“I would expect we would have a typed-up warning we would put on a windshield,” added chief marshal Tom Martin. “We don’t rush out and start ticketing right away with anything. I can assure you that no one will be ticketed the first time out.”
“Education is important but a $100 fine hurts,” said Escalante. “The message can still get across with a $50 fine.”
“My concern is that ordinance doesn’t really have any teeth,” said councilperson Roland Mason. “And there are a lot of people in the town in construction with diesel trucks. They need to idle. My truck has to idle 10 minutes in the winter, especially when it’s 30 below.”
“There is some common sense,” said Gillie. “You can’t write everything into the ordinance or you go crazy but there are some people who will abuse it.”
When it came time to officially make the motion to approve the ordinance the council itself idled and no one jumped on it. After a few seconds of delay, Betz and Schmidt finally moved to approve it. They, along with Escalante and Williams, voted for the motion while Wilson, Mason and John Wirsing voted against it.