The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“A mechanism of bringing everybody to a level ground”
by Kendra Walker
As planning kicks off for the county’s Gunnison to Mt. Crested Butte Comprehensive Corridor Plan, leadership in the north valley is pushing for a formal, binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the county to protect local interests and clarify staff workloads.
During the Mt. Crested Butte July 21 town council meeting community development director Maeve Nevins-Lavtar, who serves as Mt. CB’s representative on the plan’s Project Advisory Committee (PAC), proposed that the town seek a binding agreement that would establish clear expectations and obligations and prevent the county from exercising overarching authority. She stressed the need for a legally enforceable framework rather than the non-binding draft charter currently provided by the county and the project consultant HDR.
County commissioners presented an overview of the corridor planning process with the Mt. CB council earlier this summer, stressing the importance of regional collaboration and alignment throughout the entire process. However, they also acknowledged that the county holds ultimate adoption authority.
“By having a binding agreement, we would be able to have some sort of enforceable agreement to work together in a certain way,” explained Nevins-Lavtar. “Unbeknownst to us the workload is quite substantial. We haven’t even entered into the technical planning stage. It’s quite robust. We want to have some parameters around that. This is a mechanism of bringing everybody to a level ground, so the county isn’t overarching. It also offers a better mechanism for how to work through disagreements,” she said. “Also, so we don’t end up doing all this work over the next year or longer as your staff, and we get to the end and none of this gets adopted.”
Mayor Nicholas Kempin agreed, “My concern is we could put in a ton of work on this and a bunch of input that has no impact. “That’s not the scenario I’m interested in.”
Nevins-Lavtar noted that the town of Crested Butte and the Crested Butte South Property Owners Association, which alongside Mt. CB are part of the corridor plan’s PAC, have reached similar conclusions regarding the need for a formal agreement (see story on the Crested Butte council’s perspective on page 12). Mt. CB staff is working with those jurisdictions to collaborate on drafting the MOU, proposing five written commitments including: a binding structure, not just a shared understanding; protection of town staff capacity; a real say in regionally significant decisions; meaningful elected body engagement at key milestones; and clear communication and no surprises.
The council expressed full support for developing structured MOU terms. “Hopefully we can reach common ground there and we will bring the MOU to you for formal consideration,” said town manager Carlos Velado.
Nevins-Lavtar noted that town staff is not raising this out of concern that the county is acting in bad faith. “I will say they are very transparent about every single step of this process,” she said. “They are working with us and very open to suggestions and feedback. Every iteration of this plan is a collaborative process. It seems a bit painful, but I think it will result in a much more transparent and collaborative process.”
The county has scheduled a listening session with the Mt. CB council on August 4 so council members can share Mt. CB’s values and what’s important to them as it relates to the Corridor Plan.
