The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Reestablishing dialogue on current issues
by Kendra Walker
During the Mt. Crested Butte June 16 meeting, Gunnison County commissioners met with the town council to reconnect on valley-wide issues and discuss some of the county’s upcoming projects, including its corridor plan and potential November ballot initiative aimed at fixing a $38 million deferred road maintenance backlog.
“Prior to COVID, the Board of County Commissioners had a regular cadence of meeting with the different town councils,” said commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels. “We want to reestablish and reaffirm our communication with you all and reestablish a cadence of meeting regularly.”
As previously reported in the Crested Butte News, the commissioners also met with the Crested Butte town council that same week to strengthen community engagement and regional partnerships.
Corridor plan
Commissioners walked the council through the county’s corridor plan, a strategic effort aimed at overhauling the county’s Land Use Resolution (LUR) and creating a long-term vision for how to integrate housing, transportation, utilities, conservation and recreation along the Highway 135 corridor.
“Historically speaking, this is the largest planning effort the county has ever undertaken. And the significance of the input of information coming from local governments and our partners especially is really important,” said commissioner Jonathan Houck.
To guide the effort, the county has established a Project Advisory Committee (PAC) featuring representatives from local governments and key partners. The PAC will work together to decide a shared communication framework for communication within the planning process and between organizations and the public.
Council member Roman Kolodziej asked how the county’s overarching plan would interact with both the Mt. Crested Butte and Crested Butte three-mile plans. “They don’t necessarily have to be recognized by the county. How will this process better honor most of the milestones?” he said.
Puckett Daniels acknowledged that while the county holds the ultimate authority to adopt the final plan, the goal is to align regional interests through a collaborative effort in the engagement process. “My hope is that what comes out of the actual plan that we get at the end is something that aligns with your vision for your three-mile plan as well as (Crested Butte’s), but also the broader communities. I believe that we’re going to have really hard points of conflict where we might have disagreements, but I also believe we have a lot of shared values.”
Town manager Carlos Velado voiced town staff’s support for the collaborative approach and asked for guidance from the council to help define staff roles, responsibilities and expectations in the communication process.
Kempin asked the commissioners if there were any frontrunner areas of focus as they consider changes to the LUR.
“There are two questions I really want to examine: where should things be, and what are the limits,” said Houck regarding carrying capacity in the valley. He expressed a strong interest to understand where development is possible in a way that meets the needs of the community without sprawling down the road the way other resort communities do. “When is enough enough, and how big is big enough?”
Puckett Daniels highlighted wildlife as a specific priority for her in that balancing act. “One of the things I’m trying to look for is where are those places where it’s really important that we retain habitat connectivity so that we don’t accidentally allow a development in a place where hundreds of elk are flocking every year,” she said.
However, she also cautioned the challenges with halting development. “If you decide that that’s it, no more growth, no more building… you have a limited supply. And we are still a highly desirable place to live,” she said. “And with that limited supply the prices go up and up and up. So while you might not have grown the footprint of your community, the community has still changed because the people who can afford to live here are not the same people who could live here 30 years ago when there was some growth. So for me, that is one of the inherent tensions of this whole process.”
Proposed road and bridge tax increase
Commissioners also shared more insight into the county’s proposed 0.5% sales tax increase for the November ballot to help support the dire state of the county’s roads and bridges.
The county has accumulated an estimated $38 million in deferred maintenance of existing road and bridge infrastructure. The county estimates 64% of Gunnison County roads are in fair or poor condition. To bridge this funding gap, the county is finalizing language for a proposed 0.5% sales tax increase to spread the cost between locals and visitors, generating an additional $3.3 million per year. Commissioners noted that the tax would exclude groceries and utilities to lessen the burden on local working families.
“We spend $6.5 million on road maintenance a year right now. We anticipate in year one that this is going to generate around $3 million. So it’s a 50% increase in our budget and our ability to do good work in the county,” Puckett Daniels explained. “We think it’ll take about 20 years to close that divergence. It’s not going to be overnight.”
“What’s the first thing you guys are going to get for a million bucks in the first year?” asked mayor Nicholas Kempin.
“Super sexy. We’re going to mag chloride some roads,” Puckett Daniels responded. County representatives also noted graveling roads and addressing safety issues.
When asked how the county plans to recalibrate if the ballot issue fails, Houck warned, “Ultimately, if it doesn’t pass, what we’re going to see is road conditions continue to deteriorate,” he told the council. “And as they go further, you know, there are going to be some roads that we’ll lose.”
