The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Taking on property management first
By Katherine Nettles
The Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority (GVRHA) board of directors and Gunnison County are working out the details to move forward with decommissioning the GVRHA and transitioning most, if not all, of its work to the county’s Gunnison County Housing Authority (GCHA). The first steps will be to shift property management over to the county, while also maintaining some oversight for the GVRHA’s operations that are funded through the end of 2025.
The GVRHA’s executive director Melissa LaMonica has taken a job as finance director for Gunnison County, and her last day with the GVRHA is July 29. Last month, the GVRHA board voted not to recruit another director, considering heavy turnover in the past several years, and to instead essentially dissolve itself and transition its various roles to the county or to all the separate government entities with which it has worked.
The GVRHA was established in 2012 with an intergovernmental agreement 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.
Gunnison County commissioners indicated their tentative support in June for taking on at least some of the GVRHA’s work within their own GCHA, and plans started to develop in earnest during the GVRHA’s board meeting on Thursday, July 10. GVRHA board chair Laura Puckett Daniels recapped to Gunnison County commissioners this week that the board agreed to several aspects for transitioning GVRHA’s responsibilities to the county.
First, Puckett Daniels reviewed that the GVRHA board and the county have authorized LaMonica to spend approximately 10 hours per week in her new role with the county through the end of the year dedicated to the GVRHA transition of services and supporting the GVRHA staff in their day-to-day work.
Puckett Daniels reported that property management would be moving over to Gunnison County as soon as this fall, and LaMonica confirmed that while there is no set date, that is the plan.
“The GVRHA is working with the ownership of all managed properties to execute new property management agreements with the County Housing Authority – start dates to be determined,” she said. “We are currently assessing the transition timeline for county-owned and non-county-owned properties.”
Both Puckett Daniels and LaMonica emphasized that the GVRHA’s current programs, services and its recently launched efforts to audit deed-restriction compliance in areas such as Mt. Crested Butte’s Pitchfork neighborhood will be maintained. “All GVRHA programs and services including deed restriction compliance efforts will continue without interruptions,” said LaMonica.
“We’re trying to ensure continuity of service for the community,” said Puckett Daniels.
“I would reiterate that this is a transfer of services from GVRHA to the County Housing Authority with the focus and goal of continuity of services to our community, including but not limited to existing tenants,” concluded LaMonica. “The transition plan is a work in progress, and we are getting more clarity every day on a more precise timeline, and how it will look post-transition, but the current intention is for all existing services to continue during the transition and post-transition.”
