Briefs Crested Butte

by Mark Reaman

New line-up takes their seats

Town manager Todd Crossett gave a little speech of appreciation November 16 to departing mayor Aaron Huckstep and councilmen Shaun Matusewicz and Skip Berkshire. New council members Paul Merck, Laura Mitchell and Erika Vohman were officially sworn in, along with new mayor Glenn Michel. Councilman Roland Mason was voted in as mayor pro tem.

Learning to be a member of the council

The staff will be given a few tutorial sessions on how to be good council members and work with the town staff. Crossett plans to hold a seminar over the basics at the next council meeting in December. There is also the potential for a retreat that would include some team building exercises. Crossett said he and mayor Glenn Michel have touched on the idea of the council moving toward developing a long-term strategic plan for the town.

Sales tax tops Whatever

Sales tax was up in September over the same month in 2014. That even included comparisons with the Whatever, USA bump. September 2015 sales tax revenue was up 3.5 percent and so far for the year is up almost 12 percent.

Affordable housing guidelines

Town planner Michael Yerman said about 20 people took part in the second class dealing with affordable housing. He said there will be a two-hour work session with the council to go over the latest affordable housing guidelines. That is scheduled to take place Monday, December 7 at 5 p.m.

Executive sessions

Town attorney John Belkin gave each new council member a summary of the state open meetings law and talked about the use of executive sessions by the council. Such sessions are held behind closed doors without any public present. The council then went into an executive session to talk about possible negotiations about the Mt. Emmons project and the former Slate River annexation proposal.

Cats

The council last month approved the designated snowcat routes in town for both the Irwin group and the Crested Butte Nordic Center. At the request of Irwin’s Alan Bernholtz several council members had wanted to take the approval process out of the public hearing process and make it an administrative approval instead to simplify the process. Town attorney John Belkin argued against that and the council decided to punt and let the newly elected council deal with the request.

Other stuff

—The town hopes to start making ice at Big Mine ice arena on November 23. A new blue Zamboni is waiting in the wings.

—Crested Butte water systems manager David Jelinek was publicly recognized for graduating from the Colorado Public Works Institute. The 90-hour training course has already come in handy, according to Jelinek.