The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
There is enough political tension on the national level that it is becoming the norm. When that sort of tension and conflict bleeds into the valley, it is more striking and even disheartening.
That’s the weird situation at the moment on two fronts involving four good local groups: the fire protection district, the search and rescue team, the county library and the CB South property owners association board. I know and respect people involved on all sides of these conflicts and for the life of me, I don’t get it.
Let’s start with the Crested Butte Fire Protection District and the local Search and Rescue team. When voters approved a property tax increase in 2021 to pay for a new safety campus anchored by a new fire station, a clear part of the pitch was to provide a new building for Crested Butte Search and Rescue. The firefighters and EMTs have moved out of their old station at Third Street and Maroon Avenue in Crested Butte, but Search and Rescue remains in the public works shack. That new building has been built but there is no lease signed, so it sits basically empty with one vehicle in it, I hear.
The CBFPD through its legal counsel has put forth a few proposed leases that all included a termination notice that gives the fire district the right to kick out Search and Rescue with notice. They’ve most recently adjusted the notice period to five years. The rationale is apparently to protect the district as a landlord and possibly that CBFPD might need more space on that safety campus in the future. But that wasn’t the deal presented to voters. There is no doubt in my mind – zero – that voters understood their increase in property taxes would in part go to providing Search and Rescue a big building on the campus — forever — or as forever as government entities go which is usually something like a 99-year lease at $1/year.
Search and Rescue has argued to the board at its meetings that they can’t feel secure with that termination notice in the lease. Fair. Members of the CBFPD board indicate the notice period is a time in which to talk about changing circumstances — but leases are contracts and not a matter of friends trusting one another. For the fire district to offer that bait and switch when presenting the lease is sort of crazy. The promise was made and now doesn’t appear to be being kept. Yeah, the district might never invoke that proposed clause in the lease and I can’t imagine the CBFPD needing more space in the next decade after building that shiny new facility just north of Crested Butte…but that doesn’t matter.
Common sense to me is that the fire district and search and rescue teams were partners in advocating for a property tax hike to get new buildings for both. The CBFPD board should be clear with the admin team and lawyer at its upcoming board meeting and stand up for what was clearly messaged during a pretty close election — take out any clause giving them a right to boot S&R unless it is a mutual decision. Give that volunteer organization a 60 or 75 or 99-year lease. That’s the right thing to do and based on what was promised, it is the commonsense thing to do.
Now on to the Gunnison County Library District and the CB South POA. Everyone appears to agree on the proposed goal to get a new and modern library built in the north end of the valley in CB South. That’s great and honestly, CB South with its family and full-time resident population is a good place for it to be. But for whatever reasons — misunderstandings, legal bureaucratic wrangling — there appears a kerfuffle brewing between the library and the subdivision. To me it appears to boil down to lack of communication and putting timelines over relationships.
As I interpret it, the original plan for the 10,000-square-foot library includes an additional eight units of workforce housing. While that sounds good, it also squeezes everything onto the same lot which results in typical planning complications like a potential lack of parking, height issues, snow storage, sight line problems and rights-of-way conflicts. I’ve watched all sorts of planning reviews over the decades, and those sorts of concerns are not uncommon with plans but are also typically easily solved. Sometimes it’s as easy as moving a few lines on a map. Other times something has to go or be reduced.
The CB South board is extremely frustrated the plan didn’t go through its design review process. As a library district proposing a public facility, the approval process is streamlined and isn’t required to go through the regular process. Instead, it can be approved through the county in a so-called Location and Extent review process. It’s my understanding that about a year ago, representatives of the two entities met with county attorneys to lay out the process, and it was made clear by the county (for reasons I don’t understand) that all comments from the POA should be funneled through the county.
Not wanting to jeopardize that process, the library has held to that direction, but the POA board is frustrated their comments haven’t been addressed in a timely manner, or even that the library isn’t responding much to their comments. I get it. The vibe I get from the library is that will happen soon since the county’s Location and Extent process is done, but after the county’s current plan review looking at things like building codes or other county regulations tied to public health, safety and welfare is finished. That has stirred the stew of annoyance.
Add to that, it appears because of a county public noticing error, Gunnison County didn’t follow part of the process which called for a public hearing in front of the planning commission. That resulted in the library board being able to avoid a formal public hearing on the proposal and getting approval. Given the short building season, the library didn’t want to add 30 more days to the process.
Not rescheduling or holding such a public hearing, even if informally in CB South, was a mistake. There is a difference between even the perception of imposing something good on a neighborhood and integrating something good into a neighborhood. Trading a few days in construction versus giving up neighborhood goodwill is not a great deal.
I must say that out of this entire kerfuffle, the county’s statement about that error tweaked me the most. “While the missed notice is unfortunate, it is unlikely that the absence of a county hearing would have changed the outcome of the review process. Under the applicable timeline, the project is now considered approved through the Location and Extent review, and the county’s remaining role is limited to ensuring compliance with building codes and other public health and safety requirements.”
Geez. Why hold any public hearings ever? Come on commissioners.
Anyway…It seems these two boards are getting their hackles raised more and more, and lawyers are getting involved more and more. Escalation of tensions through attorneys rarely make things better. Common sense tells me that for both sides, it would be most productive and most in keeping with the way we do business in this valley, to drop the defensiveness, hold an informal public hearing in CB South and address the issues cited by the POA.
Separate the library and the housing and ensure the plans can be reviewed independently, especially since there is money to build a library and no funding right now for the housing. I’d also advise getting a master lease on a few Whetstone units for employees instead of squeezing units on the library lot. That’d be cheaper and clears up most of the issues.
There’s concern on the library side that the CB South POA recently threatened litigation. The POA says “it has only referenced litigation as something they are working to avoid in the face of the seriousness of the deficiencies within the plan.” Sigh.
Take a step back, use some common sense and communicate (directly, through the county or even through the paper) that you all want to find the best way to break ground on a library this spring.
Unlike nationally, we depend on honest communications to avoid conflict in our small community. It has worked. Stick to that core value, and for goodness sakes, use common sense in both of these situations…
—Mark Reaman
