Briefs County

After four years, the coroner’s office finds a home
The County Commissioners have an approved additional expenditure this year—just under $25,000 to move the county coroner’s facility to an empty space in the County Courthouse. The space was vacated when the jail moved to its new location on Bidwell, and brings the county coroner’s four-year quest for a new facility to a close.

Coroner Frank Vader found himself without a proper facility when the LeChot Funeral Home moved out of the space it shared with the coroner. Since then, office space has been housed at the Blackstock Government Center and the temporary morgue has been set up primarily in coroner Frank Vader’s home. In some cases, he’s operated out of the coroner’s van, running the air conditioning to keep it cool and working in remote parking lots. He has stored his supplies in four locations, including his garage.
Previous attempts to find a new location never panned out, but now Vader will bring all of his supplies back to one place in the kitchen of the old county jail. As part of the move he will get a new body cooler and a body lift—sorely needed supplies Vader put off ordering until he had a place to store them. Vader is so appreciative of the new space that he has even offered to do some of the renovation work himself.
“There seems to be a clear need,” said Commissioner Hap Channell.
Fire regs too stringent?
Fire codes came under attack at a Board of County Commissioners meeting on June 26 when Commissioner Phil Chamberland questioned whether the applications of the regulations made sense. He wondered why a yurt would require the same fire protection as a house. But the discussion quickly focused on regulations in Riverland Industrial Park as property owner John Nichols explained his frustration that the International Fire Codes adopted at the end of 2008 place undue economic hardship on property owners.
If he were to build a new 3,700-square-foot building, the regulations would require he have 16,000 gallons of water on site with a pump capable of delivering water at a rate of 440 gallons per minute for 40 minutes. Nichols said that kind of installment would cost close to $100,000. Meanwhile, he added, “We haven’t done anything to address substandard conditions in existing buildings… If I’m in a preexisting non-conforming lot and I’m just one lot owner in a whole big group of people, this is basically an unfunded mandate.”
Nichols suggested that if the goal is to make the entire subdivision safer, it would make more sense to make changes that made everyone safer rather than focus on individual lot owners. Yet offers to put in a dry hydrant or a new water tank have not been accepted.
“You spoke to the board?” Commissioner Hap Channell wanted to know.
“I spoke to two board members individually,” Nichols said.
When it became clear that the boards of both Riverland and the Crested Butte Fire Protection District had not yet met formally, Channell urged them to do so—particularly since there is a waiver option that had not yet been exercised. County Manager Matthew Birnie agreed.
“It doesn’t make sense to change the regulations when there’s already this off ramp,” Birnie said. Chamberland took some responsibility for bringing the matter to the commissioners too soon.
“My only hope in for this discussion was to try to get some dialogue going and maybe speak with the fire protection district, to see if maybe there’s a way to tweak the codes in writing. But from what I read it has to be done on a case and case basis,” Chamberland said.

Linkage fees
In the latest evolution of the workforce housing linkage fee, the Board of County Commissioners is looking at crawl spaces size and how it affects calculations of the fee. Commissioner Phil Chamberland requested they consider the matter. If a crawl space is five feet tall or less it is not considered part of the gross square footage, but Chamberland wondered why a crawl space or unfinished basement of six feet would be. The commissioners directed county staff to bring back a recommendation that better defines crawl spaces and basements.