Mt. Crested Butte approves Housing Authority agreement

Final version expected July 3

The Mt. Crested Butte Town Council threw its support behind a regional housing authority, adopting an ordinance to approve the intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between Mt. Crested Butte, Crested Butte, the city of Gunnison and Gunnison County laying the groundwork for the revitalized organization.

The IGA envisions a more regional approach to governing the Housing Authority, which is charged with creating affordable housing for the valley’s working people. Until recently, Gunnison County administered the program with financial support from the other governments in the Gunnison Valley. Now, elected representatives from each town will have a vote on the board.
“It’s a three-year commitment based on annual appropriation of funds at budget time. It does allow somebody to back out, but you have to do it pretty early in the budget process,” Town Manager Joe Fitzpatrick said, “and we have already committed the first year’s funds.”
Councilman David Clayton said the latest agreement stipulated the financial commitment for the three years at $30,000 for the municipalities and $90,000 for the county, instead of leaving the cost unknown until budget time, as they had in the past.
“The way the old system worked, we kind of got a request for how much money every year and it kept going up every single year without any real details on it,” Clayton said.
Fitzpatrick pointed out that one of the “keys to this whole regional Housing Authority approach is the long-term financial future. It establishes a governance … appointing elected officials from each of the entities [to serve on the Housing Authority board]. That group will really then hone down the responsibilities of this Housing Authority; then they will tackle the long-term funding situation, either a mill levy, a sales tax or a combination or whatever comes up.”
Councilman Chris Morgan said, “Those are all four-letter words, Joe.”
The instability of relying on each government to appropriate enough money every year to keep the Housing Authority viable is the concern, Fitzpatrick said, leaving leaders to consider a more consistent flow of funding.
Mayor William Buck said, “I know we’ve gone back and forth on this with a fair amount of discussion. But I think we’ve reached a consensus on this.” The council voted unanimously to approve the ordinance, although with some reservations from Councilmen Morgan and Danny D’Aquila, who both thought the timing of the initiative was misplaced.
“It’s a lot of money and we’ve got a very tight budget,” Morgan said. “I’m very sensitive to the fact that we haven’t been able to fund certain very important things in this town.”
Addressing part of Morgan’s concern, County Commissioner Phil Chamberland said, “Although your population might be smaller here, I think the need is created here for housing. I think the structure that’s envisioned could create an entity that would alleviate doing some of your own in-house [program]. What I would envision is a countywide program that looks at the whole picture and works on that from a countywide perspective.”
“I’m just saying I don’t see the need to push so hard for it,” D’Aquila said. “Although if we don’t have anything in place and all of a sudden things turn around, we’ll be scrambling like we did in the past to put something together.”
A final agreement came back to the town after it is approved by the Board of County Commissioners, likely for the Tuesday, July 3 council meeting. The managers of the four participating governments are currently looking for someone to lead the organization, conducting interviews throughout the month.