Cottonwood paving plan not dead yet

County looks to make a deal

The struggle to pave Cottonwood Pass continued this week as Gunnison County Commissioners sent a letter to the Federal Highway Administration explaining that while the county would love to move forward with the project, it is not feasible for it to do so if the price tag continues to include a 17.21 percent match for funds.

“We do not have the financial resources and we are concerned that if we tried to raise that amount of money and committed to that amount and the match changed in a future transportation bill … we would face a very angry public,” wrote the commissioners.
The county then reiterated the value it sees in the project and suggested it would move forward if the financial requirement were significantly lowered.
“We have worked with our public works staff and our finance staff and we can provide a 5 percent tapered match,” they wrote. “It is much different for a small local government to look at $818,000 rather than multiple millions of dollars.”
If the FHWA accepts the county’s terms, engineering for the project would begin almost immediately; however construction would not occur until 2017, said Marlene Crosby, Gunnison County Public Works director.
“Annually we try to put about $200,000 in our construction budget,” said Crosby. “[If we move forward with Cottonwood] we would not be able to do some other projects, but for the next four to five years that construction budget could be used to pay the tapered match if the FHWA would agree.”
The current plan being suggested by the FWHA includes the widening and paving of the upper 5.5 miles of Cottonwood Pass in Gunnison County and preliminary engineering on the remainder of the road.