Wait and see…

It’s wait and see mode for a couple issues tied to the North Valley.

The Gunnison County commissioners sent the review of the proposed Lower Verzuh Ranch subdivision back to the planning commission and will wait for a more detailed analysis before deciding what to do with it as the Sketch Plan phase gets closer to finishing.

The Crested Butte council is figuring out how to proceed with a tax on second homes in town and what exemptions to make and how to do it. That means the town and citizens wait to see what form the potential tax will ultimately take.

Crested Butte’s Elk Avenue sugar daddy, Mark Walter, is in wait and see mode as it’s been recently reported his group is under investigation for its finances. According to various reports, he is apparently under federal investigation for potential financial improprieties at two insurance companies controlled by Walter and his Guggenheim Partners company where he is chief executive officer. The Securities and Exchange Commission is running a parallel investigation. No one has been charged, and Walter has not been accused of wrongdoing, and it should be made clear that probes like this can end without charges or enforcement actions. But according to reports in Bloomberg, the investigation goes to the heart of how Walter built the fortune that bought the Dodgers, the Lakers and the WNBA’s Sparks, financed the entire PWHL and pieces of Chelsea FC and the Cadillac Formula 1 team (and a lot of Crested Butte). Bloomberg reports that the feds seized his phone and computer last fall, and while I don’t know a lot, some in that high money realm say that’s not a good sign.

Instead of sitting by the phone waiting for Mark to call me to clear the air about all this, I sent him an email. I asked if the properties he bought in and around CB that include the Forest Queen, the Princess, the Wooden Nickel, Elk Avenue Prime, The Trailhead Children’s Museum building, the old Brick, a block of residential lots in CB’s high-end district, a bunch of property in Almont and who knows what else, were “tangled up in the investigations.” I mean if things take the wrong turn, is the always-improving Forest Queen going on the auction block to be bought by Vail — in which case they’d probably stop construction and forget about it?

While I did receive an email response from his personal bot “acknowledging that your email has been received by Mark Walter’s office…” I haven’t received the follow up. I’m shocked. I guess I’ll wait by the phone (970-349-0500 ext. 109) and the email inbox (editorial@crestedbuttenews.com). What else do I have to do while I keep recovering from injuries? Anyway, I’m around, Mr. Walter, if you need an injured shoulder to cry on or just vent. And after leaving Donald awed and almost speechless at the White House last week when Walter presented him with a World Series Ring, is there really anything to worry about? Oops, pardon me for even noticing such a thing.

On Tuesday, the Gunnison County commissioners debated whether to have more public comment over the Lower Verzuh Ranch subdivision proposal or send it back to the planning commission. They decided on the latter. Commissioner Liz Smith wanted to hear more reasoning on why the two planners that voted no on moving the plan from Sketch Plan to Preliminary Plan voted that way. They seemed to fall in line with the sentiment of much of the North Valley. While the affordable housing element is a nice addition, there is more to the plan than that, whether it is density, clustering, water supply in 30 years, wildlife protection, transit issues…and hundreds of people are making that case. What the commissioners ultimately do with the new information, and whether they take action before or after the completion of the Gunnison Valley Corridor Plan, we’ll have to wait and see.

The bump back to the planners shouldn’t indefinitely delay consideration of the plan and it could shed some specific light on how the planning commission views the concept and what exactly they would want to see through potential conditions recommended for the next phase. It is a chance to gain more clarity through the sometimes-long county process, but I’ll agree with the attorney for the proponent and say it is okay to take the needed time to dig deeper into the plan and consider all the impacts.

And one other note — some up here say they have noticed some staff errors with math and general concepts of the plan. They sent their concerns to the county but were told public comment was over. That shouldn’t need to be considered public comment, and if that is true — and it can be easily verified by the staff — there is no harm and great benefit in staff correcting factual errors in the report to the planning commission and commissioners as they analyze the pros and cons of the development.

On the second home tax, there seems to be some indication that some on the council want to walk a little softer than just trample this thing through. We’ll have to wait and see. The council will touch next week on who might qualify for exemptions to the proposed tax — those that have owned their second home for decades or perhaps rent an ADU to a working local. Will vacant lots fall into the second home tax? We’ll see.

One thing the council might consider is the tension. I’m not talking just the tension between those who will have to pony up the fee versus those who will vote for it with no personal ramifications, but the tension of how to contain the genie once it’s out of the bottle.

There has been some recent concern addressed that once locals see they can raise money without impacting their checkbook, they might want to add a zero to the $3,400 annual fee. Ahh, the fairness argument again. And the accelerate argument that says this will hasten the turnover from long-time second homeowners who understand and are part of the small-town CB community, and those that see CB as the same as Vail but for some reason smaller with better summer temperatures.

Will the council keep those arguments in mind? We’ll see. And I would argue that they should consider solidifying whatever they do in the ballot language voted on by hundreds. To list exemptions in an ordinance makes everything cleaner and the ballot language shorter and simpler, but to change or eliminate those exemptions would take a vote of just four future councilmembers and not the majority of active voters. It would be an added protection for the intent of this council proposing the second home tax. Whether the council feels that is necessary is something else we’ll have to wait and see.

—Mark Reaman