Insurance snafu puts Big Air on Elk in limbo

Big Air exposes council’s frustration with events

By Mark Reaman

Big Air on Elk organizers just couldn’t get all the pieces together on time and as a result, the event looks to have crashed and burned for this year. Organizer Corey Tibjlas was told by the town council last week that they would approve the event on the condition he paid event sales tax from 2015 and provided a certificate of insurance by Tuesday, February 23 at 5 p.m. Tibjlas paid the $51 sales tax just before 5 o’clock Tuesday but did not produce the insurance certificate at that time.

The event was scheduled for March 5. The council doesn’t meet in regular session again until March 7 and it is up to the council to approve major events on Elk Avenue.

“Given the conditions for the approval by the council, we can’t issue a special event permit,” explained town manager Todd Crossett. “So as it stands right now, the event, unfortunately, won’t take place this year. The council stipulated in their motion to approve the event that certain loose ends had to be tied up by Tuesday at 5 p.m. in order for the event to be approved. Staff does not have the ability to supersede that motion on its own.”

Tibljas maintains his insurance was bound in time. A certificate was supplied to the town via email on Wednesday morning, February 24. He hopes there is still time to work something out with the town so the event happens in two weeks.

Several Crested Butte Town Council members scolded the Big Air organizers and themselves at the Tuesday, February 16 meeting for being slack when it came to the timeliness of completing the special event application—and not seeing any consequences.

On the afternoon of the Tuesday, February 16 meeting, Big Air organizers had several outstanding issues, including that they hadn’t paid 2015 sales tax from the event; there was no certificate of insurance and no payment for the risk manager; some missing details on the liquor permit application; and inconsistencies in the application and event documents.

The staff recommendation to the council was to not approve the event, given the number of outstanding items. Many of the issues were hastily taken care of before the Tuesday evening meeting but three remained in limbo at the time of the council review, including insurance, sales tax and payment for the safety director.

“If I had known you hadn’t paid the 2015 sales tax I wouldn’t have even listened to you two weeks ago when you came in asking for money and we gave it to you,” councilman Jim Schmidt told event manager Tibjlas.

“There was some confusion with the turnover in organization of the event and the post office box was different,” explained Tibjlas, “so we never received the notification. We can certainly pay that before the event.”

“I find this all very frustrating,” said mayor Glenn Michel. “Each year the things needed to approve Big Air on Elk are delayed and it takes up a lot of the town staff’s time being wasted. I’m pretty much over it. We can’t be approving events like this at the eleventh hour. It is very problematic. I’ve been on council five years and every year it has been a problem. It is hard to think about approving this.”

“The sales tax issue really irks me,” reiterated Schmidt. “We just gave you $2,000 two weeks ago to help with the event. I’m with Glenn. I’m really troubled. I’m a procrastinator too, but some things you have to do on time.”

“I’ll vote to approve this but it is definitely disappointing,” added councilman Roland Mason. “I love the event but every year we run into the same thing. Hopefully you as the event planner know that you need to get your stuff in early, and here we are again. This sets a bad precedent that we always let slide.”

“It’s not just this event, it is every event,” noted councilman Chris Ladoulis. “We need to take some responsibility as the town. We need an event planner. Or we need to start imposing stiff penalties. We should have someone in town chasing everything down to make sure it gets done. We are enabling this behavior. Please help us, Corey, because we can’t help ourselves.”

“The burden for organizing events doesn’t fall on the town,” countered Michel. “It falls on the organizer. We aren’t his mom.”

Town manager Todd Crossett assured the council that the staff spends plenty of time trying to track down event organizers to make sure their documentation is complete.

“We need consensus that we need to treat every event the same and not just punish this one,” said Ladoulis. “We need teeth behind our words. Maybe impose really big penalties for not getting a complete application in on time.”

“Lynell Stanford is a great resource in the clerk’s department. Use her,” councilwoman Laura Mitchell encouraged Tibjlas.

“Big Air is a fun event with a lot of exposure but it just seems so haphazard at this point,” said Michel.

The council gave Tibjlas until the end of the business day on Tuesday, February 23 to pay the 2015 sales tax and produce a certificate of insurance for the event that names the town as additionally insured. If the documents weren’t submitted to the town by then, the motion was clear that a special event permit would not be issued.

The council voted 4-1 to approve the event under the contingencies, with Michel voting against the move.

Because the contingencies weren’t met, the event will not occur in 2016…unless the council capitulates from its motion and holds a special meeting – which is always a possibility. We will let you know.