Town and school close to a contract for land exchange

Did Skip really say “tar baby?’

Despite one Crested Butte councilmember’s grave concerns over how much power the town is retaining in the proposed school expansion, the council agreed to sign an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the RE1J school board outlining conditions to allow the school to expand onto the current, town-owned Tommy V baseball field.

The agreement has been months in the making and essentially requires the school to take the lion’s share of responsibility for making the land transfer happen. The school district is required to pay for all costs of moving the baseball field across the road.
The contract calls for a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards certification for the newly built portion of the school expansion.
In addition, it requires the school to take over maintenance currently performed by the town. It states the school will address traffic congestion issues on Red Lady Avenue. It says the school will relocate the current barn structure and rebuild the baseball field with lights. The town will be able to review plans for the expansion and will have the right to inspect the project at any time.
“Would you sign this if you were on the other side?” Crested Butte councilperson Skip Berkshire asked town attorney John Belkin. “We’re in a strong position on this and I don’t want to get in the position where our requests result in massive cost overruns for the school district. They don’t have a lot of money to begin with. Pushing them to do things that end up with huge cost overruns will give everyone big black eyes.”
Belkin explained that he thought it was a fair agreement. “The important thing is that the government has leverage but the town will be reasonable if it is in the people’s best interests,” he said.
“I see this as a tar baby,” said Berkshire. “I wouldn’t sign this if I were them.”
Town manager Susan Parker assured Berkshire that the document had gone through hours and hours of negotiations. “They said at the last meeting that they were comfortable with this agreement.”
Councilperson Kimberly Metsch reminded Berkshire that it was the school board that had approached the town. “They asked for this and we are essentially giving them the land,” she said.
“It just looks like a massive amount of work for them,” said Berkshire. “We could easily put them into an overrun situation and nobody benefits from that.”
“They know what they are getting into,” said mayor pro tem Leah Williams.
Berkshire then wanted to make sure items in the IGA didn’t bind the town to certain conditions at this point. “I don’t want lights at the new field,” said Berkshire. “It flies in the face of our ordinance protecting night views. Why is it even in there?”
“It reserves the rights of the town to have have lights if you want it,” said Belkin. “That doesn’t mean you have to have lights.”
Parker said the town staff wanted to address as many potential issues as they could think of resulting from the transaction.
“You can release the school district from that request and they’d probably like that,” said Belkin.
But Parks and Recreation director Jake Jones said the council should expect “compelling arguments to include lights at the new field. The Parks and Rec staff likes what it does with the expansion of the program and the options it provides,” he said.
“Will we also hear arguments why we shouldn’t like the lights?” asked councilman Dan Escalante.
“I’ll give both sides but I’m an advocate of lights on that field,” said Jones. “I think it can make sense.”
Parker said details would be negotiated for months. “I anticipate a lot of my life over the next eight months or so will be spent with the school,” she said. “This project will take a lot of coordination and it won’t always be perfect. This is huge for us but we will get it done and get it done right. The council will have a lot of checks and balances in this process.”
The IGA will be considered by the school board and Belkin predicted the document could be signed later this week.