The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“For my support, I’d have to see some language that supports Mt. Crested Butte’s position”
The Mt. Crested Butte Town Council has some thinking to do before it signs on in support of the Gunnison County Land Preservation Fund (LPF) again, despite having nothing but good things to say about the program.
The Land Preservation Fund provides local organizations with an avenue to leverage a substantial amount of outside money that has helped protect more than 16,000 acres of open space in the county since voters approved the fund in 1997, with a 15-year sunset.
With that deadline approaching next year, Citizens Protecting Our Heritage, Open Space and Economy, a locally organized group made up partly of Land Preservation Fund board members, has taken to the Town Councils to build support for the reauthorization effort this fall.
But even with support from every other municipality in the valley, the LPF’s board of directors would have to make their case in Mt. Crested Butte.
William Buck, mayor of Mt. Crested Butte, told Jim Schmidt, Jim Starr and several members of the LPF board of directors at a meeting on Wednesday, August 22 he’s probably enjoyed every one of the 48 pieces of property purchased, at least in part, by the LPF.
However, with sales tax collections for the town coming in at 6.7 percent under budget for the year so far, he added, “We’re concerned about diminishing sales tax revenues in the town.” Buck said the council’s primary focus is on providing services, and some level of comfort, for the town’s residents and visitors.
“Sometimes going forward, especially in these times, we need to be acutely aware of every dollar—or dime, I should say. I have been considering other uses for sales tax funds in order to keep the town going,” he said. “For me that’s a priority.
“That said, there’s no question in my mind of the benefit of this fund and what it can do. I think we all would agree with that,” he continued. “But there are other considerations to be made.”
The Land Preservation Fund got its start 15 years ago at the urging of the late county commissioner Fred Field, who saw a need to start preserving open space from Marble to Tomichi Creek for future generations to enjoy, and in some ways exploit as a resource.
“Fred felt this was a good way to preserve land throughout the county and a good way to get the county to work together in this vision of protecting ranchlands, as well as open space,” Schmidt told the council, clicking through his PowerPoint slides. “Open space, provided in large part by our ranch community, is one of our most valuable assets.”
He pointed to the tourism economy that has built up around broad vistas and the sense that it’s all been protected. Since starting in 1998, the LPF has used $3.6 million to leverage $47 million in open space funds from partners such as Great Outdoors Colorado, a ratio of 12 to 1 and the second highest leveraging ratio in the state, he said.
Without the participation of the municipalities, which each contribute at least $50,000 annually, plus .5 percent of sales tax collections beyond that, to the fund, the county could do less in leveraging its own $80,000 contribution. LPF board member Ann Johnston added this shows a solidarity throughout the county that makes it more attractive for large funds to work here.
From the town’s side of the table, making monthly payments to make up their share of the contribution can be tough, especially in the shoulder seasons. “Some months we don’t make enough to cover it and on those months we are getting invoiced, so we contribute back out of our general fund to the county,” Town Manager Joe Fitzpatrick said. It would be helpful to the town to have the ability to pay when finances allowed, he said, and Starr said he would look into that.
If voters choose not to reauthorize the LPF in November, the county sales tax wouldn’t change, but the distribution would and that money would start going to the towns, “to do their own thing,” as councilman David Clayton said.
“I support the program … and I think we all benefit from it. But I certainly would like to see the ballot language before I will stand up and say I’m in favor of it,” Clayton said.
But the language was still being crafted. So the council gave him some suggestions on how the wording could be crafted to get the town’s support. For starters, the LPF could ask for a small contribution from Mt. Crested Butte, which signed over $66,000 last year.
“I’m concerned,” councilman Chris Morgan said, weighing the two sides of the argument. “When I put my Mt. Crested Butte hat on, as an entity with the lowest amount of sales tax generation, the smallest population, and we don’t have a project adjacent to our town. I can’t even see a project from my house. I’m kind of wondering why Mt. Crested Butte is paying a higher proportion of tax than other entities.”
Morgan pointed to the Rural Transportation Authority and the Housing Authority, which both draw a higher proportion of tax dollars from Mt. Crested Butte than from other county municipalities. Buck agreed, telling Starr, “I think you’d find more support if there were some proportionality to the sales tax contribution.”
Starr had heard the argument from Mt. Crested Butte before and turned to statistics he had compiled for the meeting. Addressing both Morgan’s concerns, Starr said he had looked at “the per capita sales tax numbers collected by each municipality. Because, perhaps with the exception of Gunnison, I think we’d all agree that our sales tax is derived primarily from our tourists and Mt. Crested Butte collects the highest per capita sales tax of any of the municipalities.”
Buck tried to counter Starr’s reasoning, but with no effect. “With the municipalities contributing the same amount, there are those that would argue that we in Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte receive a lot more benefit from that than the folks in Gunnison.”
With the points presented on both sides, Morgan, who was happy to extol the virtues of the LPF, wasn’t eager to see beyond the town’s boundaries, where a maintenance worker had recently been laid off for reasons of cost. “Our employees haven’t seen a raise in several years,” he said. “I’ve got to make tough decisions in this town. There are always 50 things to do and there’s only money to do 20 of them. So I have a hard time taking a look at the city of Gunnison’s budget and Mt. Crested Butte’s budget and understanding why we’re paying the same amount of money.”
Buck added, “We’re at max mill levies and we know what that would look like if we went to the people and asked for more.” Clayton pointed out, “We’re having to look at what new things can we do to keep employees. That’s getting to be a very critical issue with us.”
Starr tried to make his point again, but it fell largely on deaf ears. He said he would like to get together with Buck and Morgan to have their terms expressed in the ballot language, which needs to be finalized by September 7.
“For my support, I’d have to see some language that supports Mt. Crested Butte’s position,” Buck said.
