Gunnison County commissioners prepare Strategic Plan

Goals include a road and bridge ballot issue, wildfire prep and 300 housing units

[  By Katherine Nettles  ]

Gunnison County commissioners are recalibrating their short and mid-term plans for building and maintaining infrastructure, protecting air, water and land quality, addressing public health needs and managing county-run services for their constituents.  During a work session on May 24 commissioners reviewed the current plan and offered their feedback, and a final document will be drafted for approval in an upcoming commissioners meeting. One main question applies to putting a ballot issue forward this year for dedicated road and bridge funding versus waiting a year on it.

The Gunnison County Strategic Plan was first adopted in 2008, and is revised about every two years. Commissioners and county staff participated in a retreat as part of the process as well. “Though many organizations have strategic plans many governmental organizations don’t work their strategic plans really at all,” said county manager Matthew Birnie. “It allows us as leaders in the organization at the staff level to go forth and work. We keep you [commissioners] informed but we know what you want.” 

Birnie reviewed that the county has used the same four priority areas for several years: to ensure sound infrastructure, protect the environment, promote prosperous, collaborative and healthy communities and deliver high quality services. “Many of these priorities could be shifted among those categories,” he said. 

Infrastructure

Within the infrastructure category, commissioners assessed three goals. First they examined the goal of putting a ballot measure forward for road and bridge funding. Birnie said he had wanted to explore redirecting sales tax revenue but concluded after researching it further that this would not suffice. The county cannot spend general fund dollars on such projects based on state law and faces a $1.3 million annual shortfall.

“We really need a source of dedicated funding,” said Birnie. “Before we cut anything we need to give the citizens the opportunity to choose what level of service they want.”

The goal of getting a ballot measure has a two-year timeline to allow for either November 2022 or 2023 as commissioners anticipate other ballot questions coming in this year such as those for the school district, Gunnison fire district, Met Rec or others. 

The other two goals are to complete the Shady Island River Park infrastructure by the end of 2024 and to improve the Gunnison County Fairgrounds as described in the recently updated Fairgrounds Master Plan as previously reported by the Crested Butte News. 

Environment

Commissioners agreed with three goals related to protecting the environment. The first was to continue working with partners to protect water quality and quantities in the Gunnison River Basin through specific measures. The second was to expand conserved private ranchland in the county by 10,200 acres from the 2018 baseline by 2024, “to protect open space, watershed, public lands access and agriculture.” The third goal was to reduce energy use impacts and lower county-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by the end of 2024, “thereby improving air quality and addressing climate change.”

Community health and prosperity

Under the category of promoting prosperous, collaborative and healthy communities commissioners created five goals. The first is to “build on a welcoming and inclusive organizational culture” by formalizing the county’s commitment to equity, discrimination and inclusion (EDI) in an EDI values statement by the end of 2022. 

Second is promoting various health and human services measures by the end of 2024. These measures related to childhood vaccinations, welfare case success, birth and death record accuracy, responding to food assistance needs and preventing elder abuse. 

The third goal is for the county’s juvenile services department to work toward reducing youth substance use through measurable Choice Pass, family advocacy and early intervention successes by the end of 2024.

The fourth goal is, in that same period, to stabilize and increase early childhood education, childcare and preschool availability. This includes a plan to maximize current capacity and develop a plan to implement universal preschool by the end of 2024.

 Last is a goal to capitalize on the current airport facility improvements. This would be done by increasing the airport’s economic impact to the community by 20% (achieving $145 million by the end of 2025) based on the results found in a 2020 CDOT study. This goal would also aim to increase enplanements to 50,000 annually through reducing passenger leakage to other airports and fostering more corporate and general aviation activity.

Services

Commissioners and county staff identified three goals for how to deliver high-quality services: increasing housing, adopting wildfire related measures and establishing a north Gunnison area master plan. 

First is the goal to facilitate 300 new housing units by 2030. That would be in addition to the 88 units the county expects to have facilitated by the end of 2022. Second is the goal to adopt wildfire risk reduction and mitigation policies to ensure defensible space and ignition resistant structures as wildfire risk increases across the Western Slope.

Third is a goal to establish a north Gunnison Area Master Plan that aligns with the City of Gunnison’s 2030 comprehensive plan by end of 2023.

Feedback

As Birnie reviewed various goals, each department head and the commissioners weighed in. Based on minor adjustments, the document will be tweaked slightly to reflect that and brought back to commissioners for approval in the coming weeks. Goals that were discussed but not necessarily committed to for the current document included commissioner Roland Mason’s request for the addition of short-term rental policy planning, and commissioner Liz Smith’s request for sustainable tourism goals for the future.