Crested Butte parks and rec plan in the works

Tight money and expanded partnerships

By Mark Reaman

The Crested Butte Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Trails (PROST) department has started a new 10-year planning process, and gathered initial feedback from the council at its June 16 meeting before embarking on collecting major public feedback. An update on the effort is slated for Tuesday, August 5 with the town council.

In its initial “challenge statements” the emphasis seemed focused on how the department’s capacity is not keeping up with community demands. Facilities and programs are packed while there is not much opportunity to expand space in town. Crested Butte is the recreation provider for most of the North Valley and as the valley population grows, town is being stretched.

“As demand from surrounding areas increases, our limited resources are stretched thin, creating pressure to meet growing regional needs,” a memo to the council stated. “Demand is outpacing our capacity to deliver.”

PROST director Janna Hansen told the council that the guiding goal statement was to “optimize town’s parks, recreation, open space and trails resources to better meet community needs while actively partnering to support the growing demands of the broader region.”

“How can we meet the needs of a growing community?” she asked emphasizing Crested Butte has always had to share its limited facilities for multiple purposes. “Still, we are over capacity, especially at peak times.”

Hansen said part of the plan was to try and develop a concrete vision on how to fund open space as well as have town be a primary trailhead hub for the upper valley trails.

“The growing population is so challenging with the limited resources,” said councilmember John O’Neal. “We have to prioritize. I appreciate the emphasis on partnerships in this draft plan. I’m not sure we can meet all the community needs with the current funding structure. We need to focus on what we can do. There will be hard decisions.”

The Crested Butte Parks and Rec is funded primarily through ales tax, both in the general fund and through a .5% sales tax specifically earmarked to parks and rec. The real estate transfer tax (RETT) is the primary revenue source for open space acquisitions.

Mayor Ian Billick asked for more specifics in terms of “stress points and financing” whether on things like fields or operating costs.

“There is no question the value of the programming, but we have limitations,” reiterated O’Neal. “We can’t do it all.”

“The plan is a good opportunity to do things within our boundaries and have influence on gathering public feedback,” noted councilmember Anna Fenerty.

“We need the connection between funding and services,” said councilmember Mallika Magner. “I want to make sure people living in the town of Crested Butte have priority access to the programs we are funding.”

“I disagree since a lot of the programming is funded through sales tax that is collected from people in the North Valley,” countered Billick.

“Exactly. I just want to see where the connection with funding is,” said Magner.

Billick pointed out the RETT is funded exclusively by town residents and that is different than sales tax-funded programming. Hansen said the town parks are almost 100% funded with sales tax.

“I’m interested in the MetRec (Gunnison County Metropolitan Recreation) district’s role in the future,” said Fenerty. “We will get to a point where we have to decide whether to spend money on parks and recreation or on something like town streets.”

“We can’t do it alone and we need critical partners like MetRec,” said Hansen. “The community needs to understand we have different scopes of service.”

“I agree with Anna and would like the plan to include an aggressive timeframe with MetRec,” said Billick. “I’d like to see how we can collaborate in the next five years, not after 10 years.”

“The town does provide services for the whole North Valley so collaboration is important,” agreed councilmember Gabi Prochaska. “We need to collaborate with MetRec from the get-go. To Anna’s point I feel like we are already at the point of having to decide whether to spend money on roads or parks. Parks are one of our most public-facing amenities but what can we afford? What are our priorities, especially as money is tighter.”

“We already partner closely with MetRec,” Hansen assured the council. “There are other opportunities for further collaboration. A regional approach is needed with every challenge in the plan.”

“What is Crested Butte uniquely positioned to do?” asked Billick. “MetRec has a huge amount of funding. We need to keep up with how the world and our partners are changing.”

He also again stated the need to have money set aside to replace aging amenities and cited the new turf field at the school as an example of something that will need to be replaced in a decade.

As for open space strategy the council voiced priorities for trails close to town and protecting water sources. They also wanted to prioritize spaces contiguous to one another.

Fenerty suggested that as part of the public outreach process, the town should ask if its policy about naming parks or facilities is adequate.

Hansen said stakeholder focus groups would meet to discuss the plan and she will update the council on August 5.