Town and school on same page

“No big hurdles”

After a few hiccups appeared between documents drafted by attorneys for the town of Crested Butte and the RE1J school district, everyone seems to be back in the same ballpark concerning the proposed land swap that will take place if the school bond issue passes this Tuesday.

The Crested Butte Town Council has agreed in principle to allow the school to grow onto the current Tommy V baseball field if the voters approve a bond that allocates money for a school expansion. The school district will pay to move and rebuild the Tommy V field across the road from its current location just south of the school at the entrance to town.
Crested Butte town attorney John Belkin and town manager Susan Parker had indicated to the council at their last meeting that some issues had come up in the drafts of the proposed Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) document, despite general consensus between the council and school board.
School board president MJ Vosburg, along with Parker, agreed it was best to get the main players, with the attorneys, in the same room to hammer out an understanding. That meeting took place last week and ended with an IGA that everyone appeared to like.
“We met with the town and the lawyers and the meeting went great,” said Vosburg. “We are a bit concerned about the engineering for the proposed road on the west side of the property but overall the IGA issues are pretty much good. The two boards are in agreement.”
Parker felt the same way. “It was a good meeting,” she said. “We are back on the same page and I don’t see any big hurdles.”
Parker and Vosburg said a similar exercise would take place over the energy efficiency aspect of the proposed school building expansion. Representatives of the town, the school board and the Office for Resource Efficiency will all get together in the same place Thursday to work out an agreement over whether the building should get a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification or simply meet the same standards.
“Once we get together in the same room and talk it out, I am sure we will come to a good understanding,” said Vosburg. “We all want a good, safe, energy-efficient building for Crested Butte and that is what we will accomplish.”