GVRHA recommends county take over services

Municipalities, county still analyzing

By Katherine Nettles

It is no simple matter to dissolve or reorganize an entity such as the Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority (GVRHA), but the subject was breached last week by the organization’s board of directors and now the government agencies involved are each analyzing their service needs and assessing the possibility of bringing those under the purview of Gunnison County.

During a two-hour discussion last week that was at times contentious, the GVRHA board discussed some pressing issues related to its high turnover rate for executive directors before ultimately agreeing to recommend to its stakeholders that its work be taken over by the county. That concept was contemplated in a subsequent county discussion this week as everyone further analyzes a potential new structure.

But it involves a complex set of circumstances with numerous GVRHA responsibilities potentially in need of new oversight, and county staff to do it.

The GVRHA was established by an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) in 2012 between Gunnison County, the city of Gunnison, the town of Crested Butte and the town of Mt. Crested Butte. It is funded by the four stakeholders through annual appropriations, and its board is made up of two representatives from each and one at-large member. It oversees hundreds of workforce housing units between the four stakeholders.

The GVRHA has seven full-time staff members, one Americorps member and operates with a current annual budget of  $1.48 million.

Dissolving or dismantling it would require concerted efforts by each stakeholder, and the discussion came up for the GVRHA board primarily based on the pending resignation of its executive director, Melissa LaMonica (see story on page 13). LaMonica is the third person in as many years to resign from the position, with additional interim directors who held the position for many months at a time in between. The board openly questioned whether to recruit yet another person to fill that role or to reorganize the GVRHA’s roles in the community and perhaps be housed within each separate government entity or all within the county.

LaMonica’s last day with the GVRHA is July 29, and the GVRHA has been funded through the end of 2025. LaMonica is taking on the role of chief financial officer for Gunnison County, and the county has recently reactivated its own Gunnison County Housing Authority, which for years was dormant, to house funding and operational expenses for its Whetstone and Sawtooth community housing projects.

County manager Matthew Birnie has also expressed an interest in eventually rolling all other county workforce housing units into the county housing authority and handling their operations internally.

During its regular meeting on June 12, the GVRHA board discussed LaMonica’s departure and the next steps to begin searching for an interim director as well as a permanent director. The board discussed at length the challenges in finding a new executive director, given the different needs of each jurisdiction and their workforce housing structures and deed restrictions. 

“But then the fact is that I am going to be moving to the county, and a large portion of what we [the GVRHA] do for the county is property management through a separate management agreement outside of the IGA,” said LaMonica in conversation with the Crested Butte News this week. “So the county sent us a notice of cancellation of the property management agreement. They will be doing it internally going forward.”

“Our board didn’t necessarily decide to dissolve it, but they did decide to make a recommendation to our councils (Crested Butte, Mt. Crested Butte, city of Gunnison, Gunnison County) to ask the county to take on the work that we do for them,” continued LaMonica. The motion was “to recommend that the County take over all of the functions of the Housing Authority and continue to provide the services that are currently being provided to the jurisdictions.” GVRHA’s vote was split, 7-2 with CB representative Gabi Prochaska and Mt. Crested Butte representative Valeda Scribner voting against.

The board also decided to hold off on recruiting an interim or full-time replacement for LaMonica.

Board members were then tasked to go back to their jurisdictions and initiate a conversation with the other members of the IGA.

According to the IGA, the housing authority was established “to effect the planning, financing, acquisition, construction, reconstruction or repair, maintenance, management and operation of housing projects or programs pursuant to a multijurisdictional plan to provide: a) dwelling accommodations at rental prices or purchase prices within the means of families of low or moderate income and b) affordable housing projects or programs for employees of employers located within the jurisdiction of the authority.”

The IGA also states that the jurisdictions involve recognize the benefits and advantages obtained by working together to those means. According to the agreement, the base proportional share of funding as amended in 2025 is $245,500 from Gunnison County, $224,400 from the city of Gunnison, $122,000 from the town of Crested Butte and $181,125 from the town of Mt. Crested Butte.

The IGA also states that the IGA can be terminated by the approval of 75% of the full board of directors, or when less than two parties are willing to remain as parties to the agreement.

Three of the four jurisdictions could decide not to fund the GVRHA in 2026 and effectively dissolve at that time, but they are committed through the end of the year through the 2025 IGA.

In the time since the GVRHA’s meeting last week, Gunnison County commissioners, the Crested Butte town council and Mt. Crested Butte town council have separately discussed the idea, and all are taking some time to consider their options.

The county commissioner discussion, which included GVRHA board president Laura Puckett Daniels, centered around the concept of the county’s plans. Birnie advised commissioners that each fall, there would be an opportunity for each stakeholder to give a 90-day notice to terminate their participation.

“Any attempt to try and eliminate the GVRHA before then is not necessary,” said Birnie. “Each of us are all obligated to fund it until the end of the year.”

Commissioner Puckett Daniels said the GVRHA board did not take the situation lightly, and recognized that the work it does is difficult and lack of continuity in leadership is challenging.

“The biggest concern was loss of representation of partnership if we move to a county model versus a regional housing authority model,” she said. “I recognize those concerns, I recognize people have worked really hard for this. Sometimes there are different priorities from the different jurisdictions, but ultimately, I think the work on behalf of the people of the valley is a shared priority.”

“We’ve got a lot of work to do and analyze,” said Birnie. He added that he expected to hire county employees to do this work for the county, but that he would not recommend the county take on the workforce housing oversight for any other jurisdiction in the county until or unless fees for that service were determined and the scope of work were fully understood.

Commissioners Jonathan Houck and Puckett Daniels agreed to continue analyzing the situation, and commissioner Liz Smith was absent.