I used to tell my kids that if they wanted to come back and live comfortably in town they should consider going into the trades. As the community has changed and more and more people with outside-the-valley, real-world, high-end incomes have come in to live here, the prices have popped out of reach of the old school residents like myself and others who plied tourism-oriented jobs to make it here. But as I watch the shift I see plumbers and electricians “in high demand” and given my basic understanding of economic theory, being “in high demand” means “higher paying jobs.” So my recommendation to the boys was to look at acquiring such skills. They both went to CSU instead and I am happy for them.

Lawyers

After at least four stories this week that originated in lawsuits and potential litigation, the exception to the trades advice might be to get a law degree. Lawyers are the new plumbers. They are “in high demand.” Local attorneys are pretty darn busy in this valley right now and it seems to be another of the community changes. Instead of being a means of last resort when the phone call, the heated discussion, or the outside mediation doesn’t work, the first thought now is to hire a lawyer. No offense to my litigator friends, but lawyers are paid to punch and counter-punch in defense of whoever their clients are and not necessarily make nice with the other side. That is good for a lawyer trying to make a living but not that great in the overall friendly vibe of a small town. Big city fallback in a small town brings change.

Case in point: Homeowners on the Bench have been talking to the town for years about a suitable way to mitigate for avalanches on the steep hillside above Big Mine Park. Conversations have taken place for several years with a couple of different town attorneys. When the town believed they had found a potential solution that essentially met the concerns of everyone, and involved the town taking ownership of some property that is so steep as to be unusable except as open space, the town let the homeowners know. There was no response to their letter so the town forged ahead and the next response was a lawsuit. Not a phone call, not a drop-in at town hall, but a lawsuit. Frankly, if I were a property owner in that neighborhood and the town agreed to not build anything and keep it open, I’d want the town to own it to eliminate any potential liability from my property. But I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know if that matters. What does matter is small town etiquette and manners.

Guns

Many of my friends and family, including my kids, own guns. We live in rural Colorado and the fact that many people here possess guns is not at all unusual. An office conversation has been ongoing since the Parkland school shooting. The debate is how to protect our children and teachers. No one seems to think giving teachers a gun is a good idea.

Some in the office have argued for the installation of metal detectors in the school. I’m not sure that would stop the angry kid bent on wreaking havoc. In general theory, I worry about the militarization and imposition of drastic measures on kids as they grow up and become numb to a constant police presence. The other side of the coin is — screw the general theory when an angry kid wants to get famous by heading to a school to shoot people. Plus, the kids these days already are conditioned on how to act during things like a “lockdown”—which occurred at the local school last December, by the way. Fair point. The parents of local kids in the office went on to make the point that this sort of horrible school shooting violence is no longer an aberration but an unfortunate reality of this generation. Another fair, and miserably valid, point.

Now, if you go by what the president and the leaders of the Republican Party voice, they say it is better to focus on the mental health elements of the gun issue. That is certainly a part of the deal. But, according to NPR, current budget proposals in Washington actually slash spending for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration by $665 million this year. Additionally, Bloomberg reported the National Institute of Mental Health would see a 30 percent reduction in funding—a half a billion dollar decrease—in 2019.

A year ago the president signed a bill making it easier for people with mental illness to buy guns. Many Republicans are unwilling to reexamine the policy that bars the CDC from studying gun violence as a public health issue. Look at what politicians do, not what they say.

Researching better ways to regulate guns like the country regulates tobacco and seat belts is not a threat to democracy. It seems smart.

Money

When it comes to affordable housing and money, I’ll give the Corner at Brush Creek developer Gary Gates some credit for his action in recent days. He made some adjustments to his proposal based on consistent concerns voiced by the community. The density and the accompanying ramifications remain the elephants in the room. I know the two councils generally would love to see it cut by not quite half. That is unlikely. But having 550 to 600 people occupy that space comes with real issues.

Gates however hit a home run with his idea to help people get some ownership opportunity. It’s not just his dedicating some units to be sold and not rented—but it is his use of his money to make it easier. By offering an option to owner finance some two- and three-bedroom units, he nailed an idea to make the entry to ownership relatively easier. Instead of having to go through a bank and come up with a significant down payment, Gates said he is willing to lend people the funds to buy a place with a 3 percent down payment and give them a relatively small interest rate on the life of the loan. That is a good deal and a great helping hand.

For many, it is the down payment or construction loan that trips them up on the way to home ownership. Providing opportunity for a small down payment really can help people get their foot in the door. It is a tactic that the local housing authority might consider in the future as a tangible boost for people trying to make it here.

Now if we could all just figure out another acceptable place to locate some of those units in either town so the corner is less dense, we’d have a winner. And I remain hopeful that if both sides can move beyond the rancor there is a real opportunity with that concept.

So there you have it. And re-looking at all three topics I see that the lawyers are likely making bank with that entire trifecta. Each brings situations that can get you stuck between a rock and a hard place. Send lawyers, guns and money. I have to let the boys know.

—Mark Reaman

by Dawne Belloise

The big smile and sparkle of Avery Bernholtz radiates the youthful spunk of a 16-year-old born and raised in the nurturing community of Crested Butte with the wilderness and the mountain as her playground. She is articulate beyond her years and full of determination and hope for her future.

Like most Crested Butte kids, Avery can throw down on the slopes. Avery has stood on the podium for her performances in Big Mountain Freeskiing since she started competing at 11. This past week, she headed out to Squaw Valley for her first national competition of the season, after which she will travel to A Basin, Breckenridge, and Snowbird to compete to qualify for the finals.

“I was a one year old when my dad put me on skis and pulled me around the yard with his ski pole, and 18 months old when my parents first brought me up to the mountain and put me on the magic carpet to learn to ski,” basically, as soon as she learned to walk, Avery says, and at two she hopped on the lift. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t go up to the mountain and ski every weekend.”

Avery loved shussing the slopes with her classmates during the school’s Ski for PE, where the elementary kids went up one day a week for five weeks with their class. “That was an opportunity to go up with your friends and not just with your parents.”

It’s no secret that the Crested Butte kids have an exceptional childhood growing up in a close-knit community with all the perks of living in an outdoor paradise. Avery says, “I couldn’t have asked for a better place to grow up, just being able to live in the outdoors. Two summers ago I went to the National Youth Leadership Camp for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math [STEM], a six-day camp at Olin College of Engineering in Boston, where we learned about robotics, programming, researching, conducting experiments, and all the areas of science. The kids were from all over the country and couldn’t believe I grew up in a K through 12 school with only 50 people in my class, where their high schools were huge and [they saw] Crested Butte as a vacation destination and couldn’t believe I was living here. My childhood was different from theirs. I feel like I had more freedom than others who lived elsewhere.”

Avery says, “It’s such a small town and tight community that there weren’t many places you could go that your parents or neighbors didn’t know what you were doing. You spent as much time in the outdoors as you could and you didn’t want to come inside. We played in the rivers and streams, even though it was freezing cold it was just what you did. We hiked and played in the park with our friends and just explored. There were certain times you needed an adult with you, like playing by the bigger rivers right after the snow melted. As a little kid, you had your bike, and I still ride my bike around.”

Avery competes as a junior in the extreme skiing event, Big Mountain Freeskiing, a point-based, judged event held on extreme ski terrain around the country. Now in her fifth year, she started out in the u-12 division. “It was the first year they offered that division for that age [10 to 12-year-olds],”Avery explains. “In my first comp, I was the only girl in my division. It was held on Hawk’s Nest, so it was good because I was familiar with the terrain,” she says of starting off on her home slopes at Crested Butte Mountain Resort. “I got first place that first year and went to Sunlight Mountain near Glenwood Springs, where I won that competition.”

She went on to the championships in Grand Targee, Wyo., her first time traveling out of state to compete and took second overall for the year for 2014.

“Ever since that, I’ve fallen in love with the sport, just getting to travel to new places. We try to choose places we’ve never been before. There are comps held all over Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and California.”

The competitors are limited to only three nationals and three regionals, with the top two scores considered for each one of those. “From there, you’re trying to qualify for championships. The maximum amount of qualifying points you can have is 3,000. I’ve been to Aspen, Winter Park, Taos, Breckenridge, Snowbird and Alta. Last year, the championships were held in Kirkwood, Calif. I had an amazing year and won almost every competition except for Monarch, where I came in second and went to championships with maxed-out points.

“I ended the year on more of a phenomenal note when I won the overall championship in my division,” says the North American champ. “I was on top of the podium with two of my teammates, Jonclay Patterson and Dagan Schwartz, who were also the overall champs in their divisions. Our team was amazing. We’re one big family. We had 11 athletes from Crested Butte who traveled to the championships and we comprised 10 percent of the competitors. Our little mountain town represents so well.”

The low snow this year has been a challenge, Avery says, and the competitions have been cancelled or postponed and rescheduled. She traveled to Jackson Hole where she moved up to the 15 to 18-year-old division. “Unfortunately, I crashed the first day, but it’s okay,” Avery grins, “because I was going big and having fun. The snow was so soft and they had lots of it. Usually if you crash, you’re disqualified and don’t get to compete the next day but they let me compete and I won that day. I ended up fourth because I was too far behind in points since I crashed but it was like a bonus day. It was really just a great training opportunity because they had snow and steep terrain.”

With this year’s challenging snow conditions, her team has been working on drills and technique and Avery said it paid off in Jackson Hole. “Last year, I didn’t really huck a lot of cliffs or hit a lot of features, like tree or bush jumps, I did more straight lining but in Jackson, I hit everything I had the opportunity to. I went bigger than I did last year and probably hit more cliffs in that one trip than I did all last year.”

Avery feels that skiing is about 98 percent mental and 2 percent physical. “The mental part of skiing is huge, especially in the extremes, because you put up mental barriers, like when hitting a cliff, you put up barriers because your psyche says, ‘I don’t want to jump this,’ so being able to break those down can definitely be a struggle sometimes but, more times than not, it’s a good reward to stomp the landing and it’s a relief and then you have tons of adrenalin because you just hit this cliff.”

Avery will graduate from the Crested Butte Community School in 2020 and as a sophomore she has time to consider which college and direction she’ll take. One thing’s for certain: Skiing will most definitely be part of her future so the college needs to be where she can go shred some slopes. “I can see myself as a future ski coach, teaching others what I’ve learned,” Avery says.

She currently trains five days a week with the ski team, which she joined last year. “I felt myself improve so much.” She feels joining the team has been beneficial to developing her style. “I’d ski extremes with my dad and hit little things, but he’s my parent so he wasn’t into me hucking big cliffs,” she laughs. “When I joined the ski team, not only did I feel my technique improve but also my ability to hit bigger things on the mental and physical side.”

Envisioning her future, she would love to make the Freeride World Tour, which she can qualify for when she turns 18. She’d also like to be in ski films.

As she turned sweet 16 this past week, like any kid, she excitedly ponied up for her driver’s license last Tuesday. “Living in town, you don’t drive a lot on a daily basis but I hope to take some road trips and explore a little more, trips oriented toward adventure,” but she confesses, “I don’t have a car because I spent all my money on skiing.” She feels the expenditure was well worth it.

In the summers, Avery’s worked for the Last Steep and Brick Oven Pizzeria, “to support my ski habit,” she grins, but she also has many sponsors who enable her habit of ripping down the slopes, like Alpine Orthopedics, Julbo Eyewear, Eleven Experience, MDV (Marker, Dalbello, & Völkl) and Big B’s. “Because of my sponsors I’m able to train five days a week and compete as much as possible.”

As far as trekking off to college and the world, when the time comes to leave the place she’s been all her life, Avery says, “I have mixed feelings about moving away because I’d love to explore the world and I know there’s so much out there but at the same time, I’ve lived in the little bubble that is Crested Butte, Colorado my whole life and don’t know much else. I don’t know where the future will take me, but I’ll never leave this place forever. I’m not sure if I’ll come back and live here or live somewhere else, but this place will always be my home.”

Finding balance is a good thing. Yogis strive for balance between body and mind. Nations want a balance of power. A good life involves finding a balance between things like work and family and friends. You can’t ski or ride a bike when out of balance.

Between dealing with a low snow season and a recent major shift in the ski resort super pass world, Crested Butte seems to be heading a bit off balance. There seems a real possibility this season will be down from last year in terms of numbers and next season could suffer a similar fate. Snow, of course, matters and Lord knows last year’s January blizzard was out of whack (in a good way) and this entire season’s lack of snow is out of whack (in a bad way).

While it might be convenient and pleasurable to hit the ski mountain and not have any lift lines, there isn’t a lot of balance there. A line means people and people mean economy. Visitors spend hard-earned dollars for lift tickets, rooms, ski rentals, meals at local restaurants, groceries, drinks and gas. That helps waiters, cleaners, shop owners and town workers who get their paychecks through sales tax. For us at the newspaper, the lodge, restaurant and bar owners spend a small portion of that money for advertising. I, for example, then get a paycheck and take some of that to the bars and restaurants and the circle keeps going round and round. If there are no lines with people, there is no economy. The balance is out of whack.

So it is a bit disconcerting that the Rocky Mountain Super Pass is going away and while every other “cool ski resort” seems to be glomming on to some sort of Ikon or Epic super pass, Crested Butte Mountain Resort is sort of left waiting by the phone hoping for a date. While Crested Butte prides itself on its uniqueness, it still needs to be social to be cool—it needs people. It needs people to stay vibrant and keep that economic circle spinning.

The beauty and balance of the Rocky Mountain Super Pass was that for the past couple of seasons, while I saw a lot of Front Rangers using them to try out the “Last Great Colorado Ski Town,” there weren’t so many that they overwhelmed the charm of the place. It felt in balance. You could see the lines start to grow Friday afternoon and start to shrink by Sunday once lunch was done. It was rare that the lines were snaking out the mazes and even après ski wasn’t out of control. People I encountered on the lift or at the bar with that pass were grateful to have the opportunity to try out Crested Butte and they all seemed to really like it here. Some said they’d come back, while others probably wouldn’t. Balance.

So if that pass goes completely away next year and Crested Butte Mountain Resort doesn’t hook up with (date) another of the super mega passes, will it take away from the people in the balance equation? Probably. Those passes seem to be driving the ski industry at the moment and CBMR along with Monarch and Ski Cooper and Purgatory seem to be the odd ones out. While CBMR won’t release specific numbers on super pass scans, I’ve talked to enough local businesspeople to know that the Rocky Mountain Super Pass had a good impact getting people here and thus an impact on the economic bottom line.

Add to that, the airline people mentioned at the last RTA meeting that this winter has been a “struggle” and airline seats aren’t filling up as much as hoped for, so the guarantee caps are likely to be paid to the airlines. That contributes to an equation falling out of balance. The possibility of fewer people driving here on top of fewer people flying here—whether it is because of low snow or a combination of other factors—and you will quickly see the balance start to get out of whack. That becomes slippery to all of us trying to make a living here.

So what is the answer? Some introspection might be in order. Is our ski product competitive? When the Extremes are open, I’d say the hill is competitive with anyone. But that’s me and I like skiing Third Bowl and Funnel. I’m not sure we can honestly rank with family-oriented intermediate ski resorts that are easier to get to. We don’t have the celebrity panache of an Aspen or Telluride and that’s okay with me. There was a time when the après ski scene was rocking on the mountain (The Swiss, Jeremiah’s, Casey’s, Rafters, the Artichoke, the Black Bear) but most of those establishments were torn down and I think that plays a big part in the overall vibe of the place. It is missing that element of a vibrant ski resort. The ski experience is more than slopes and that part of the product can certainly be improved.

When the late January temperature hit 45 degrees on Monday afternoon, I ran up and took a few runs. It was fun to have the place pretty much to a hundred people but that is not an economic balance. Feeling like I belong to the super exclusive Yellowstone Club is great for a minute when there is no line—but it’s not that great when we all need to be part of the balance.

In a side note that relates to balance and ski areas—the passing of Warren Miller last week reminded many of us Midwesterners who came to the Rockies that his films made an impact on people. His message was funny, simple and clear—skiing was not easy but it sure was fun and something you did with family and friends. It was a lifestyle; a lifestyle of balance in the mountains that provided adventure and connection. He was right and I still appreciate that message.

—Mark Reaman

If you hadn’t noticed, there are a lot of white people in Crested Butte. Let’s go to a place that is uncomfortable for many but was touched on in last week’s Overheard and in a conversation I had with the potential developer of the Brush Creek housing project: Race.

More than one person approached me this week with raised eyebrows over the “I’ve never seen so many white people riding buses” quote in the Overheard box.

The basic back-story was that the Overheard was overheard on a weekend Mountain Express bus ride. As explained to me (I did not hear it myself), it came from a young woman new to Crested Butte. I took it not as a racist comment but more as an epiphany from someone out of her comfort zone. Her primary life experience was probably pretty suburban, where taking a public transportation bus ride was not a regular occurrence. Her vision of transit riders was probably more stereotypically urban in nature. According to a report from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Who Rides Public Transportation, “Communities of color make up a majority of riders (60%).”

So I took the Overheard comment as an “Aha moment” of clarity that in some communities, people like her use buses. I interpreted it as a light learning experience.

Some other interesting statistics from the January 2017 APTA study include that overall, “more than half (51%) of transit riders hold a bachelor’s degree or some level of graduate education.” About 71 percent of the riders are employed and 7 percent are students. Most transit riders (55%) are women and close to 80 percent “fall into the most economically active age range from 25 to 54.” Most people use public transit for the economy of it or for so-called intangible benefits such as convenience.

Anyway, it’s been great that this valley has invested in and utilized public transit services for decades, primarily through the Mountain Express and more recently through the valley-wide RTA bus service. Buses are a proud element of the Crested Butte and Gunnison Valley history and character.

So back to race…

I was having coffee with potential Brush Creek developer Gary Gates about a week ago and he presented me with a chart of demographics on Crested Butte and its racial makeup. It showed that of the 1,260 people counted as living in Crested Butte (in the 2010 census data chart), well over 95 percent were white.

He passionately argued that people of all racial and economic categories should have the opportunity to live at the north end of the valley and not just the 1 percent. I wholeheartedly agree. He said his proposed project would help provide a place for that. I’m not sure how much it will actually do in that regard since you have a chicken and egg situation. And based on recent statistics, Gunnison County is made up of about 88 percent whites. But Gary saw it as a “social justice” issue and I respect that.

There are several articles available on the internet touching on why racial minorities do not generally populate ski communities. According to a Snowsports Industries America (SIA) study from 2013, African Americans made up just 7.3 percent of alpine skiers. A Powder Magazine opinion piece from a year ago encouraged the ski industry as a whole to expand its reach to include more young people and racial minorities. That makes a lot of sense.

What if Crested Butte Mountain Resort and the community took that potential winter bull by the horns? It would not be a quick effort but what if instead of only marketing for the same people who like skiing Breckenridge or Steamboat, the resort also set up a program to get city kids from Denver, the Springs, GJ and Santa Fe to come on inexpensive overnight weekend trips during the “slow times” of the winter season. Set them up to experience the mountains. Think five or 10 years from now and the potential of cultivating a different, dedicated clientele. Consider focusing at least some marketing and tangible efforts on a younger, less white customer. Get a new group hooked on the beauty and lifestyle of a mountain village before other resorts figure out that potential. Some relatively inexpensive effort now could pay dividends in the future.

Back to Brush Creek. Even if Gary’s theory were correct that his proposed project would attract a more diverse population to the area, I would argue it is better located on the large tract of land next to the Mt. Crested Butte town hall. There it would easily address many of the persistent problems that keep coming up with the plan as proposed (density of the project, size of buildings, water and sewer availability, and easy public transportation access are quick examples). I sense community cooperation instead of conflict in such a move.

I suggested that potential action to Gary over coffee but he felt strongly that the Brush Creek location is a better fit. He was not interested in that Mt. Crested Butte alternative and, given that he says he’ll be putting in millions of dollars to get the project up and running, he gets to make that direction call and not me. So we’ll continue to disagree on that but his demographic numbers are not wrong on the lack of racial diversity in this place. It has always been an issue.

That is why I would think making an effort now to tap into a younger and less white population base to cultivate more customers over the long run could have more impact to attract diversity and address “sustainable” business than building a big apartment complex two miles from town. Foster a new demographic that would first visit and become exposed to the magic of the place. From there, perhaps there would be an adventurous percentage (like many of us) who eventually make the move to live in this mountain village and change the demographics, where for some it is still a surprise to see so many white people riding a bus.

—Mark Reaman

by Dawne Belloise and Mark Reaman

LeMars, Iowa, was a great place for Lois Rozman to grow up.    It was a small, nice community where she had lots of cousins and family. Her parents hailed from the same area and had also grown up and spent almost their entire lives there before moving to Hotchkiss in 1982, settling on some acreage with fruit orchards and gardens.

Lois proudly points out that her mother will be 93 years old this week. Lois remembers that when she was a kid, her mom canned everything fresh from their garden. “We had a healthy lifestyle before it was the in thing to do,” Lois says, hoping to be able to follow her mom’s footsteps into the kitchen to do some canning herself now that she has actual free time. After 25 years of excellent service to the town of Crested Butte as finance director, Lois officially passed off the ledgers to a new director at the end of December 2017, and she’s ready for new adventures.

As a child, Lois was very active in school sports, as a sprinter and playing both basketball and softball. “I even played on the Brown Baggers softball team when I first moved to Crested Butte,” she says, smiling at the memory. When she graduated from high school in 1978, she had planned to attend the University of South Dakota and enroll in a medical technology program, but destiny instead brought her to Crested Butte, where she decided to attend Western State College (WSC).

“And I never looked back,” she laughs. “My sister Evelyn Roseberry was living in Crested Butte at the time with her husband, Bill. I came to spend the summer with them,” she says, although her first visit to town was with her parents in 1975.

Lois went to work for Richard and Rudy Rozman the day after she arrived in town, cleaning rooms in their hotel, Rozman’s Lodge and Restaurant. The brothers were still building the restaurant at that time.

“When the restaurant opened, I was a waitress, doing a breakfast shift a few mornings as well as attending WSC. My intention was to go to Western State for a year and then transfer back.”

But Lois changed direction after she took a couple of science classes, “which I loved in high school but in college, chemistry class was not a good experience.” She discovered that she really liked business classes and graduated in 1982 with a degree in accounting and business. She was working at the restaurant throughout her college tenure and had started dating Rudy in 1980. They married in 1989.

Crested Butte Mountain Resort hired Lois in 1984, beginning as an accounts payable clerk and winding up as assistant to the treasurer. She left that job to work for the town of Crested Butte as finance director in 1992.

Lois says of her two and a half decades there, “I’ve been very blessed and it’s been a good run. The position has been pretty intense the past several years and I felt it was time for new blood in the position, as well as Rudy and I are looking forward to having time together to do things when we want.”

From her first years there, Lois has seen the town budget increase from $4 million to the 2017 budget of $20 million. She witnessed the town offices grow from 23 employees to 47 full-time employees, and she recalls when town government used to enjoy the “off season” when you could get caught up on things. But now, “town government is pretty much go all the time.”

Back in the day, Lois remembers, “The town didn’t have a lot of money in the early 1990s so we had to spend some time working on getting fund balances established so we could ride out economic downturns. As you well know, winter ruled from an economic standpoint in the 1990s—now summer rules.

“Crested Butte actually saw this shift much sooner than other mountain resorts,” Lois notes. “Projects in the 1990s were more necessity in nature, while now the town has some additional funds to do more nice amenities while still maintaining the necessities.”

She’s seen many changes, and has worked with many councils over the years. “A common thread is they all genuinely cared about Crested Butte,” Lois says.

“The biggest change I’ve seen is how the town has grown. There were 800 residents when I got here and there are 1,600 now. One of the most significant changes was getting the kindergarten through 12th grade back into town. It was taken away in the 1960s.” Lois says all the Rozmans graduated from the high school in town before the building later became the current town offices.

“Another big change would be the development of all the non-profits that add so much to our community. The Center for the Arts comes to mind. When I first came to town, the county shops were on that property with a big pile of black cinders they used to put on the roads in the wintertime.”

Lois married into an early history of Crested Butte. Steeped in the origins of town culture, the Rozmans were ranchers on the paternal side and miners on Mary Sedmak’s, the maternal, side. “Cheech was Rudy’s uncle but I called him Uncle Joe, even though everyone else knew him as Cheech. In my family, I will always be the newcomer, no matter how long I’ve been here,” she brandishes a smile, and laughing, proclaims, “They’re stuck with me!”

She’s looking forward to learning how to bake like Mom Rozman, “now that I have the time and, oh boy, she knew how to bake!”

Over the years, Lois and Rudy have traveled all over the world, and one year, they went back to the Rozman-Sedmak motherland, to Slovenia and Croatia and found living relatives there. “A cousin by marriage to Rudy’s mom was still living in the family house in Semic, Slovenia. It was truly like walking back in grandma Sedmak’s house. There was apple potica on top of the oven, which was the old-fashioned wood-burning cookstove just like grandma Sedmak had, and fried chicken cooking. The town was a very small town in the mountains in Slovenia. His family had been in the house for quite some time. Rudy’s great-great grandfather on the Sedmak side was born there.” Lois explains that this is the great-great-grandfather who was the first to arrive in Crested Butte in 1880, followed in 1888 by Rudy’s great-grandfather.

The couple has also traveled to China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, New Zealand, Peru, Curacao, England, Ireland, Italy and as many UNESCO sites as they can fit into their itinerary. Throughout her journeys, Lois observed, “Being out there, you meet just such great people and as long as you treat them with respect and politeness you find they’re no different from you and me. They just want to be happy and healthy and provide for their family, just like we do here.” Their next immediate trip will be to Florida to see their grandsons.

Now that she’s retired, Lois can help Rudy with outdoor work. “We live halfway between the town of Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, with open space around us. It’s the original Rozman property that’s now in a conservation easement owned by the Crested Butte Land Trust. We lease the land back to hay it and the Allens put their cows here in the fall when they bring them down from the high country before moving them all the way down-valley. So there are fences to put up, and irrigation during the summer. We move the water, take care of the ditches, and hay in the fall—basic ranch work—there’s always something to do.”

Lois says, “Crested Butte has always been a vocal and very caring community and it still is. It seems a little harder to keep community-oriented goals at the forefront than it was in past days. Town is definitely busier now than in the 1990s. It has been an honor serving the Crested Butte community and working with so many great people on staff and council over the years. I’m looking forward to being able to help Rudy with ranch activities as well as skiing, hiking, sea kayaking and traveling. I don’t see myself anywhere else—maybe a couple weeks in January getting out to someplace warmer, but I see myself in 10 years right here, doing the same stuff and pretty joyful about it. There’s no place I’d rather be.”

Towns, county, education and health executives garner six figures

by Mark Reaman

It is the end of budget time for most public entities, and after receiving several requests from people who wonder what those who run the public organizations in the area make in terms of salary, we decided to find out.

We asked the managers, directors and financial officers at Gunnison County, the City of Gunnison, the towns of Crested Butte and Mt. Crested, Gunnison Valley Health, the Gunnison Watershed School District and Western State Colorado University to supply us with their salary bases.

The top executive positions range from $110,000 to $277,000 and department heads earn from about $60,000 to $160,000, depending on their experience. Not all 2018 compensation details have been finalized but this summary gives a good idea of where people are in terms of compensation. The following list focuses on the ranges of compensation for public executives working around Gunnison County.

Gunnison County

The county pays most department heads between $95,000 and $134,000, depending on experience. County finance director Linda Nienhueser said benefit packages include health/dental/vision/life insurance options with a portion of the premiums paid by the county, up to five percent retirement contributions, and normal FICA taxes.

County manager Matthew Birnie said that while the county tries to remain competitive to attract top talent when a position opens up, most department heads who have been hired from outside the valley have taken “a significant pay cut” to work for the county. “We have been able to recruit remarkably talented people who are attracted to our quality of life, but we have to balance that with compensation to address the high cost of living and housing challenges,” he said.

The top county executives are on a contract with the county. County manager Birnie makes $176,009 in base salary and has a benefit package that includes a car and house allowance and additional retirement contribution, bringing his total salary to $225,770. The assistant county manager is paid $147,000.

The county publishes salary information in the newspaper twice a year, according to Nienhueser. The February report is by job title, with total wages paid for the prior year; the August report is by job title with monthly salary as of June 30 that year.

Town of Crested Butte

Crested Butte finance director Lois Rozman said the town has a tiered benefit system that increases with an employee’s years of service, rewarding them for longevity and helping the town keep good employees. The average cost of benefits for department heads and the town manager is an additional 29 percent of their salaries.

Town manager Dara MacDonald is under a year-to-year contract with the Town Council and currently makes $114,000 annually. She also has use of a town car and use of a town-owned, single-family residence in the Paradise Park subdivision. Department heads are paid within a salary range for each position according to experience. For example, the finance/human resources director has a salary range of $94,812 to $123,256. Rozman currently fills that position (but is retiring at the end of the year after 25 years) and makes $99,000.

City of Gunnison

The Gunnison City Council has not yet signed a 2018 contract with city manager Russ Forrest. Based on the city’s salary comparison document, comparing wages to other communities similar to the city of Gunnison, an entry-level city manager would start at about $121,000 and an experienced manager averages $163,000. Forrest negotiated a salary of $148,000 for 2017. The city also matches up to 10 percent of his salary toward retirement, whereas all other employees receive a five percent match.

Based on the city’s salary range document, department heads on average make from $78,400 for the city clerk to $112,300 for the community development director.

City finance director Ben Cowan said benefits include medical, vision, dental and life insurance. The city matches up to five percent of their gross wages for retirement. You can find more information regarding the city’s various employee benefits on the city of Gunnison’s website.

Mt. Crested Butte

In Mt. Crested Butte the salary ranges for positions are also based on experience. Department head positions range from beginning salaries of $60,000 to up to $95,000 for experienced personnel such as the police chief and finance director. The town manager position range is listed as between $95,000 and $115,000. Town manager Joe Fitzpatrick made $110,000 in 2017. Benefits that include items such as insurance and retirement contributions range from an additional $19,400 to $27,000 per department head.

Western State Colorado University

The administrators at Western State Colorado University are part of the Colorado State University System. WSCU president Greg Salsbury has a base salary of $232,966 and received a $45,000 bonus last year. Top administration positions receive from $56,142 for the registrar to $142,368 for the executive vice president, who also received a $6,700 bonus. All receive an additional benefits package that includes insurance and retirement benefits.

Gunnison Valley Health

Like other major organizations in the region, Gunnison Valley Health has developed formal wage ranges for executive positions. According to GVH director of human resources Christina Lovelace, “We utilize two salary surveys to create our wage ranges to ensure we’re paying our teammates competitively for both our type of organization and within our region and other resort communities. The two surveys come from the Employers Council and Colorado Hospital Association (CHA). They allow us to evaluate healthcare wages for rural environments, but also for resort communities which gives us a strong competitive balanced midpoint, or ‘going rate’ based on a weighted average of wages actually paid for each position at other organizations.”

Chief executive officers of rural health care systems have a standard salary range between $211,187 and $316,780. Gunnison Valley Health CEO Rob Santilli has a base salary of $277,000. The hospital’s chief financial officer has a salary of $164,000. Benefits for department heads include comprehensive insurance benefits, along with retirement contributions.

Lovelace said the compensation philosophy at GVH “is to encourage and reward measurable performance and behaviors, related experience, experience within the organization, and education, all within the financial means of the organization and at a competitive rate.”

Gunnison School District

The superintendent of the RE1J school district, Doug Tredway, said, “Salaries are based on years of experience in the position. All district employees who work more than 30 hours receive the same single health benefit. The current value is $8,640 per year.”

The superintendent is the highest paid administrator, at $117,450. Principal salaries throughout the district range from about $74,000 to $104,000.

One of the biggest benefits in the school district is the retirement contribution. Tredway explained that all school employees and many state employees are members of Colorado PERA, the Public Employees Retirement Association. Employees and employers contribute to the retirement plan. At present, employers contribute 20 percent of an employee’s salary and employees contribute 8 percent of their salary to the retirement plan.

Tredway says more information is available on the district website under District and Financial Transparency.

Outlier executives

Other public executive positions throughout the region bring in six-figure salaries as well. But one significant difference is that some of those executives are under individual contract with their boards and thus do not receive the benefit package associated with the county or town employees. For example, the executive directors of both the Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority and the Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association make more than $100,000 annually but they have to pay for their own health insurance as private business contractors, and they also have to deduct payroll taxes as individuals, which can be twice as much as what is taken out by an employer. They also do not have any matching retirement contributions.

Public executives are paid through tax dollars and most salaries and benefit packages are either listed online or published regularly.

“It’s not unusual to float your AMI around”

By Toni Todd

The Gunnison County Planning Commission, and what has become an especially large audience at meetings concerning The Corner at Brush Creek development proposal, heard presentations from the Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority (GVRHA) and Gatesco, Inc. last Friday. The morning was an opportunity to learn several possible approaches and strategies to the workforce housing challenge generally. It was also a time to hear what’s still being sorted out regarding how deed restrictions will work at the proposed project at Brush Creek Road and Highway 135 near Crested Butte.

GVRHA executive director Jennifer Kermode presented a slide show explaining three different workforce housing models, how deed restrictions work with both rentals and homes for purchase, and how Area Median Income (AMI) relates to rental rates. She called her presentation Workforce Housing 101.

The goal, said Kermode, is to create housing that costs no more than one third of a tenant’s gross income. That cost should include additional expenses associated with housing, such as utilities.

She listed forces at work in our community impacting the availability and affordability of housing in the Gunnison Valley: inadequate supply; low wages and a high cost of living; pressure from second homeowners/vacationers driving up costs; high construction and labor costs; loss of long-term rentals (due to proliferation of short-term rentals, or STRs); people retiring in place; and regulatory barriers.

“But we also want to preserve community character, open space, view corridors, and quality of experience to guests, find sustainable solutions and keep locals local,” Kermode said, implying a tall order in the face of formidable obstacles.

Kermode showed the gap between the need for housing and its availability in Gunnison County, as measured in the county’s 2016 Housing Needs Assessment. She noted 39 jobs posted in last week’s paper for the north valley and just five ads for rentals with the prices advertised. “Wages have not gone up from 2016 enough to make these rents affordable,” she said.

Ways to address the need

Three models of housing were presented as options to address housing needs in the valley.

Model 1, the Habitat for Humanity model, calls for prospective owners to help build their own homes, alongside contractors who provide guidance and who donate time and materials. Kermode said Habitat typically builds a home or two every couple of years.

Model 2, the community land trust model, involves public ownership of property designated for workforce housing. For example, “The community owns 40 acres or so,” Kermode suggested “and they build homes on that land. Buyers buy the house and lease the land under the house.”

Model 3 is the deed restriction model. Deed restriction controls who can rent or buy homes based on income and employment status, among other criteria, and also controls appreciation of the property in the event of a deed restriction that allows for home ownership.

“If someone makes 100 percent of AMI, does that mean they shouldn’t be a target of workforce housing?” asked Gunnison County community development director Cathie Pagano.

“The question is, if you’re making $55,000 a year, can you afford to buy a house in Crested Butte or Gunnison?” responded Kermode.

The AMI for one person in Gunnison County is $49,600. For a family of two, it’s $56,700 and for a family of four, $75,000. Kermode insisted it’s important to target a range of AMI. Workforce housing may be targeted at renters or owners up to 180 percent of AMI. Of course, it’s always more difficult, the lower a worker falls on the pay scale.

Kermode said some people feel that appreciation on deed-restricted homes for purchase should not be capped, but she disagrees. “I am of the mindset that if you are investing public dollars into a public asset, you need to stretch those dollars as far as possible. You want to make it a reasonable amount of appreciation for the current homeowner, but you also want to keep it affordable for the next owner.”

To qualify for deed-restricted housing, Kermode said, “People should be employed.”

Kermode suggested it’s also important to look at someone’s liquid assets, and whether deed restrictions might prohibit ownership of other properties.

“What happens when people want to retire in their deed-restricted property?” Kermode asked. “Do we force them to sell their home?” One idea is to allow someone who’s been part of the local workforce for many years to stay, but it’s also important to deter folks from moving into a deed-restricted unit and immediately retiring.

Rental concerns at Brush Creek

Referring to The Corner at Brush Creek proposal, commissioner Molly Mugglestone asked, “Is the housing authority involved as the deed restriction authority or is the county?”

“We’ve been working on establishing roles and responsibilities,” said Pagano. “That’s one of the things we might ask the housing authority to do.” The crafting of the deed restrictions in the case of The Corner at Brush Creek, Pagano added, will likely be a collaborative effort between the county and the GVRHA.

How do other resort towns 

handle it?

Kermode described several workforce housing projects in other resort communities. Shandoka, in Telluride, has 134 apartments on 10.25 acres. It’s 100 percent income and employment restricted, with 12-month leases and a long waiting list.

Pinewood at Breckenridge is workforce townhomes for sale. Their first priority, said Kermode, was to sell to people who work within the town limits of Breckenridge. Once those units were sold, folks working outside the town limits but still in the county were included. “When you’re restricting by location of employment, you do it only at the time of purchase,” Kermode said. Pinewood also has a waiting list.

Buffalo Ridge at Avon/Eagle Vail was cited as the worst approach to resort-area workforce housing. Kermode described the complex as 176 units on 11.85 acres, separated by many miles from where these folks worked, and from basic town infrastructure, like shopping and schools. Most of the units—80 percent—are income restricted to 50 percent to 60 percent of AMI. Kermode described it as isolated and noisy. It’s located right off I-70 and overlooks the freeway, with no amenities nearby and no bus stop. “But it’s full,” Kermode said, “with a waiting list of 70.”

“This is an example of what not to do,” added Pagano.

“Has anybody figured it out and completely solved the housing challenge?” asked Kermode. “No. Places where people love to go, beautiful places, the pressures are still there and they continue.”

“We’ve heard from many that [The Corner at Brush Creek] is an attempt to solve the entire affordable housing problem,” added Pagano. “This is not the silver bullet that solves all of our problems, but this is one piece, and there are efforts going on in several places in addition to this.”

Pagano noted opportunities being explored at Larkspur and Buckhorn in Mt. Crested Butte, the Lazy K and Rock Creek in Gunnison.

“Communities are prioritizing based on what parcels are most ready for development,” said Kermode. Rock Creek in Gunnison, for example, is essentially ready to build, with utilities in place.

Kermode explained the difference between Brush Creek and Anthracite Place. Anthracite was built with tax credits that covered 70 percent of construction costs, she said, which made it possible to offer 100 percent of the units as deed-restricted and target a lower AMI.

“That’s not the case here,” Kermode said. An opportunity like Anthracite Place isn’t likely to come around again anytime soon. “There are only so many tax credits in the state of Colorado. They try to spread them out across the state,” Kermode said.

Making the numbers work

“There’s just no way for a developer to build a project in a high-cost place like this without some way to offset the cost of the affordable units,” said Kermode. That, she explained, is why 35 percent of the units at Brush Creek will be rented at market rate.

“The housing assessment is now a year old. How much progress have we made?” asked planning commissioner Jack Diani.

“We’re moving the needle now,” said Kermode. “It’s taking some time. The town of Crested Butte has taken some action.”

Working to alleviate regulatory barriers is another effort under way, added Kermode, along with finding ways to bank some land for future projects.

“The city of Gunnison has been working with a housing consultant out of Portland,” added Pagano. “He comes in and looks at zoning regulations and determines whether they make sense.”

Attorney Kendal Bergemeister spoke on behalf of Gatesco. He began by emphasizing the need, today and in the not-too-distant future. “Gunnison County is projected to have a population of 22,728 by 2050,” he said. “This isn’t just Crested Butte. This is a microcosm of a population boom statewide.”

The 2016 Housing Needs Assessment determined that the county needs 171 new, workforce housing units by 2020. “A couple of units a year is not going to get us to that 171 units,” said Bergemeister. “There’s a whole other need for for-sale units that’s not even addressed here. Look at what’s been proposed for Phase I of the project, compared to the demand in 2020. That’s 128 units as part of the 171. The proposal does not oversupply what is needed, either in aggregate, or at either of the various income levels.”

Bergemeister said Brush Creek would be available to tenants who qualify at various AMI:

—30 units at less than 80 percent

—64 units at less than 120 percent

—84 units at less than 180 percent

The idea, he said, is to provide some assurance that there could be units available to folks with low income, but also have some flexibility to accommodate a range of AMI.

Bergemeister explained that units would not be specifically designated for AMI ranges. Rather, any unit available could be rented to anyone within one of the ranges targeted, depending on need.

“There isn’t a specific physical space that’s designated to a specific AMI. Rather, as a renter grows, that unit grows into another AMI range,” said Bergemeister.

Who enforces the restrictions?

There was extensive discussion on how the deed restrictions would be managed and enforced if necessary.

“Having us manage it and submit a report is probably the best way to handle that,” responded Bergemeister. “We also thought that at the initial lease-up, maybe [the county] would play a more direct role, and then we handle it more on an ongoing basis. It’s a conversation we’re having.

“There’s been a misconception that we are going to charge everyone 30 percent of their income,” he added. “The 30 percent of household income is a cap. If you’re above 100 percent of AMI, that doesn’t mean much, because you can afford the market rate. So, the question related to those incomes isn’t the price; it’s the supply.”

“It’s not unusual to float your AMI around,” clarified Kermode.

Discussion evolved to the wide variety of housing needs in the valley. Planning commissioners wondered about the AMI of a pair of teachers to understand how this would apply to middle-income residents. They figured two teachers would land at 120 percent of AMI.

“If you make $50,000 a year, you’ll pay rent of $1,250, with utilities included,” said Bergemeister. “The current market rate for a two-bedroom unit on the open market is $1,250 to $2,400 per month.”

The shortage impacts a wider range of locals than one might imagine, said Kermode. “Dr. Tarr said they’re trying to recruit physicians [at the hospital] and they cannot find housing,” she said. “So, it ranges from service workers to professionals.”

Bergemeister said Gatesco is working on proposed lease terms. “We had initially proposed a minimum lease term of six months on a deed-restricted unit and a three-month lease on a market unit, to be sure to make it clear this is not a VRBO option. But we wanted to have some flexibility to accommodate seasonal workers,” Bergemeister said. “One concept we’re looking at now is deed-restricted units leased for one year, but maybe a small percentage of them could be leased at six months to a year. For free-market units, 80 to 90 percent would have to be six months or greater, but a small percentage could be leased out at three to six months.”

“Would that be in coordination with their employers?” asked Diani.

“Yes,” said Bergemeister. “If you’re going to have anything that’s less than a year, it’s got to be pursuant to an agreement with an employer.” Bergemeister suggested a master lease agreement with major employers to negotiate shorter leases, adding, “but someone who works with a smaller employer could get shut out of that option.”

“One of the difficulties for people moving into the area is the idea of first, last and security deposit,” said planning commissioner Vince Rogalski.

“Master lease agreements could be a way of addressing that, too,” said Bergemeister. “Perhaps they have some master security deposit that allows tenants to move in without that. That’s a detail we could certainly get into.”

December site visit scheduled

The next meeting to discuss The Corner at Brush Creek is scheduled for December 1. Planning commissioners will leave Gunnison at 10 a.m., arriving at the site about half an hour later, to conduct a second site visit, where they plan to walk the neighborhood and get an idea how the proposal might look, taking into account proposed building heights and other structural considerations. They’ll return to the commissioners’ meeting room at the Gunnison County Courthouse for a work session and further discussion at 1:30 p.m. that day.

Fire District and affordable housing will be the beneficiaries of funds collected

By Toni Todd

Last week’s Crested Butte Candidates Forum began with representatives speaking in support for two ballot initiatives proposing taxpayer support.

The first initiative—5A—requests a property tax increase for property owners within the Crested Butte Fire District. Those funds are designated to pay for hiring more emergency medical service (EMS)/fire fighters and help with housing.

The second—2A—proposes an excise tax on short-term rentals (STRs) within the town of Crested Butte, with funds earmarked for affordable housing. No one was there to advocate against either of these initiatives, and no audience members spoke out against them.

Ballot Initiative 5A: Mill levy increase to support the Crested Butte Fire District

Crested Butte Fire Protection District board chair Paul Hird addressed the crowd of about 80 residents to make his case for 5A. “We’re drifting toward a paid service,” he said. “We hired our first paid paramedic firefighter in 2013. Now we have four. I’ve seen first-hand how the district has changed. For those of us involved in EMS and fire, it’s important that we get this passed in November.”

Hird said volunteer numbers have been shrinking nationwide, and that’s especially true in Crested Butte. “Currently, we have 50 percent fewer volunteers than in 2010,” he said. “We’re not trying to replace volunteer positions, but as things get busier, employers are less inclined to let people leave to go fight fires,” he added, saying that the lack of affordable housing, which has resulted in jobs going unfilled in Crested Butte, has put enough pressure on employers that they are reluctant to let their volunteer employees go fight a fire or rescue someone. That, coupled with fewer volunteers signing on generally, is making it difficult to meet the demands now, and those projected for the near future.

“We’re not looking at going fully paid—volunteers are valuable to us right now—but as they decline, we want to have the flexibility, if we can’t fill them with volunteers, to fill them with fully paid,” said Hird.

The ballot initiative asks voters for an increase of 3.5 mills. That, Hird said, will cost homeowners $25 for every $100,000 in assessed home value and $102 per $100,000 in value for commercial properties.

“This will give us the opportunity to fully fund our ambulance service,” Hird said. “We’d like to have advanced life support available for every call,” he added, and while so far they’ve been able to provide that, Hird insisted it won’t be possible in the future without the tax increase, given the growth in demand for services.

Hird explained that in 2008, property values plummeted, reducing the Fire District’s funding. While values have risen since then, he said, “Values are still down 32 percent,” from their high point before 2008.

“We’re looking at having to come up with $450,000 a year to be fully funded,” said Hird.

Hird said the Fire District is also looking to build a triplex for volunteers or Fire District staff.

“We’re anticipating hiring two additional medics prior to ski season,” he said.

“As property values go up, will that incorporate something like a cost of living increase to the people you’re having to pay?” asked Sue Navy.

“When we build the budget, we do build in cost of living increases,” replied Hird.

“What is the total amount you want to bring in with the mill levy increase?” asked Crested Butte town council member Roland Mason.

“If the mill levy passes, it will bring in $1,056,000 annually,” said Hird.

Ballot Initiative 2A: Short-term rental excise tax in Crested Butte

Former county commissioner and town council member Jim Starr, a long-time advocate of affordable housing in the Gunnison Valley, spoke in support of Ballot Initiative 2A, requesting an excise tax on short-term rentals in Crested Butte.

“The goal of the town has been to retain at least 60 percent of housing in Crested Butte for residents,” Starr said. “Today, over 60 percent of homeowners have out-of-town residences.

“Crested Butte has never had a dedicated source of funding for housing,” he continued. 2A, Starr explained, would add an additional 5 percent tax remittance on vacation rentals. This, he said, would bring the tax on STRs in town to 18 percent, which is still lower than the customary 20 percent in other resort towns.

“Money collected would be used exclusively for affordable housing,” Starr said. “It’s expected to generate up to $325,000 in 2018.”

Starr emphasized that the tax will be imposed on STRs only and not on other lodging businesses or traditional bed-and-breakfast operations in town.

Starr reported that 360 jobs went unfilled in August 2016, the direct result of the housing shortage. “The Gunnison Valley needs assessment determined that we need at least 400 rental and ownership units to house employees for existing jobs.”

Starr also touched on the social impact of the housing shortage. He said the commute for folks forced to live down-valley takes time away from families and contributes to traffic. It’s important, he said, for people who work for the town to live in the town. Having a thriving resident population, Starr said, is “necessary for Crested Butte to maintain its character.”

“Short-term rentals create a lot of trouble for neighbors,” commented audience member Anne Moore, describing noise and trash impacts. “Where will the money be used? Will it be used outside of the town?”

“There’s no restriction on where it can be used,” said Starr, who suggested a regional approach might be needed to solve the housing problem.

“What entity will control the funds collected?” asked Elliot Stern.

“The Town Council will control these funds,” said Starr.

“This 5 percent puts STRs on the same level with lodging,” said Rob Boyle. “That’s still below what other places tax their STRs. How can we get it to that 20 percent standard?” Boyle asked if the county could add an additional tax to make up that difference.

Starr explained, “The county cannot do it within this town or within other municipalities. The Housing Authority was going to do it, but found out they don’t have the legal authority to do so.”

Ballots are due back by November 7.

Jersey boy

by Dawne Belloise

Michael Busse is sitting in a patio chair with a cocktail, cozied down by the river as it churns past his new River Bar, and he’s got a big grin on his face. “I’m gonna put these mosquitos on the menu, they’re so big,” he laughs and threatens the incessant buzzers. “It’s my happy place here. I wish I had time to enjoy it.”

Michael owns, operates and is the chef at his restaurant, Garlic Mike’s, right on the Gunnison River in what was once one of Western State College’s favorite watering holes called The Ramble Inn (“…and stumble out,” as the joke went).

An East-Coast Italian living in the Gunnison Valley for 23 years now, he hasn’t lost his New Jersey accent or culture. Inevitably, because he’s Italian, one of the first things Michael is concerned with when he meets with you is, “Didja eat?”

If you know Mike, then you know he goes by Michael, from Bergen County, New Jersey, right over the George Washington Bridge and about 30 miles from NYC. His dad was a general contractor plumber who liked to cook and mom was an Italian stay-at-home-mom and a bookkeeper, but Michael emphasizes, “Not a bookie…” Since he was the third child of five kids, he swears he suffered from middle child syndrome. “I never got any attention so that’s why I had to open a restaurant and name it after myself,” he chides.

He also came from a large family with lots of cousins and the jovial Sunday dinners that the entire family attended. “My grandfather made wine. It was terrible wine, but he made wine. There was a lot of chaos, hustle and bustle with all those kids,” says Michael as he recalls the escalating clamor of the Italian family conversation during gatherings that to an outsider would seem like arguing. But in Italian-American East Coast culture, the louder everyone yelled, the more love there was being shared. “We had to fight to get a word in edgewise. Food was always a part of our lives,” he says, noting that his family carried on the European immigrant tradition of making their meals a time of joy and family communion. This is a large part of why Garlic Mike’s is such a success and a joy for Michael. Cooking for people and feeding them is not only what he does best, it’s his love of sharing as well as connecting with his community.

There was never any doubt about what Michael wanted as a career. It’s always been about food. “Out of the class of 20 kids, I was one of only two boys in home economics because I wanted to learn to cook… and I wanted to pick up chicks,” he grins.

“At 12 years old, I wanted to cook, so I got a job working as a dishwasher and the chefs at the restaurant used to call me Cookie. I’m very lucky that I knew what I wanted to do my whole life and I’m still doing it.”

Moving West

Michael graduated from high school in 1983 and immediately enrolled at the Academy of Culinary Arts in Mays Landing, N.J., 25 miles outside of Atlantic City.

After working as a chef in several restaurants and catering places, he landed a job as chef for a gentleman in Allendale, N.J., who decided one day to pack things up and move out west, scoping out areas throughout Colorado and Wyoming. Gunnison was the spot they picked.

“He invited me to come out and be a partner in a start-up restaurant in Gunnison. We looked at The Trough and the Ramble Inn and decided on the Ramble. That was August 1994. I felt there was a niche missing in this valley and we felt the East Coast Jersey Italian would be a good thing here.”

Michael’s fiancée, Traci Hobbins, moved with him. “We moved everything out here in August, went back to New Jersey, got married in September and immediately moved to Gunnison,” he says. He says that from the time he met Traci in 1992 he pursued her for an entire year until she became available after she split from her former boyfriend.

Traci, who had a degree in fashion and was working in Manhattan, was waitressing her way through college. She claimed that she’d never work in a restaurant ever again. However, she now works alongside her husband as co-owner and business partner, handling everything from the restaurant’s books and wine choices to the marketing and decorating.

When they first arrived in Gunnison, the couple was living in a house with their business partner and all the cooks they had brought out from New Jersey. “Traci was the only female and I practically had to carry her out of the house to calm her down at times,” Michael remembers. They both look back on those arduous beginnings with amusement. Since they felt that they couldn’t really hold their arguments in front of the entire household audience, “We went out to my jeep and went for a ride… in 30 below zero weather. I mean, we all worked and lived together, so it was hard,” Michael says.

As the winter waxed on seemingly forever to the newcomers, they realized they had moved to the oftentimes coldest town in the nation. “We had heard stories of the brutal winters but we hadn’t experienced that kind of cold, ever. Sometimes we still think, like every January, what have we done? But never in the summer,” Michael says.

After their opening in 1994, Michael had a meltdown when a table of high maintenance people pushed him over the edge. “I said, that’s it, I’m getting out and I sold my shares to my partner. I said to Traci, let’s move to Florida, so we moved to Ft. Myers and I got a job on Sanibel Island as a chef at Toscanella. I worked there for about six month but hated it after three months. I missed Gunnison, I missed my regulars, and I told my wife, we have to move back.”

Michael feels they made the right choice to return and have been living happily ever after, since they are, Michael says, “Living the dream, as they say.”

Six years after they opened their doors as Garlic Mike’s, they bought out their business partner, which had been the plan from the beginning.

Although Michael cooks traditional Italian dishes with the accompanying seasonings and flavors, he adds ingredients to “Americanize” the food somewhat to accommodate his Gunnison Valley client’s taste preferences. His wife makes the wine choices, recently tasting more than 150 wines over a four-month period to update their list.

Diversifying

A few years ago, Michael was hired by a Gunnisonite to be their personal chef and accompany them on their vacation to Italy, where they had rented a beautiful villa overlooking the bucolic hills of Umbria. “One night, the owner of the villa took us to a restaurant that had closed because it was for sale but where they were aging some prosciutto in an old dusty basement. They had to dust it off before they slapped this slab of it on the table, started cutting into it, and there’s this dead pigeon on the floor. As the guy is slicing it, I’m looking at it, and at the dead pigeon, and I sneak the prosciutto into a napkin and hide it in my pocket. When the owner saw I had finished it already, he thought I liked it and kept giving me more,” which Michael also slipped into his pocket to toss when they got to the nearest trash.

“They thought I was a rich American scoping out restaurants to buy,” he laughs, but the Italian experience was wonderful and Michael says, “Italy is all about the food and the wine.”

From Sicilian descent, Michael has been to Italy several times, and back to his motherland of Sicily once, but he’s already planning future trips. “I think by next year we’ll go back. We’re thinking of putting a wood-fired pizza oven out back in the River Bar, so we’re going back to Italy to research.”

Michael confesses his love for Italy’s fresh and simple food. He had organized a tour a couple of years ago with Culture Discovery Tours out of Soriano, Umbria. “We took an intimate group of 18 people on a tour of the Umbria region and we’re planning another for 2018. We want to get feedback from our customers to see where they want to go but our plan is going to Sicily.”

Back at home

Michael’s very excited about the events surrounding his new River Bar, which he opened in June in the restaurant’s backyard. The little shed that has been converted into a bar was built by the construction class at Gunnison High School as their senior project. There’s a take-out right there on the river bank for canoes, rafts, kayaks and SUPs and a Float & Dine package in partnership with Three Rivers Resort, and those with reservations get to float to the River Bar, eat under a tent (all’aperto dining) and get shuttled back.

When the Travel Channel called Michael at home to say they wanted to feature him on their show Food Paradise, Michael was skeptical. “I hung up on them thinking it was a prank,” he says. “They called back and said it was for real. They were doing a show Food Paradise: Garlic Paradise, featuring garlic restaurants. I asked, ‘Is this a throw-down with Bobby Flay? Because I’m not taking the bait.’”

But it turned out to be the real deal. Michael and his restaurant were featured on the show and have been in the reruns since 2012.

A chef is required to be on his feet all day and night, which caused some related knee problems for Michael. After surgery to repair the damage, the chef was out of the kitchen for a while this winter and he laments that he missed cooking, although, “In the summer, I’m not cooking because I have a great staff, so I’m front of the house, socializing with all my customers.”

It’s quite obvious Michael sincerely loves meeting and chatting with people. Their summer staff numbers about 40 and about half of that in the winter. “Most of the cooks are high school or Western State Colorado University kids and we like that,” he says. The college freshman stay on for seven years because the joke is, “Nobody comes to Western State for only four years.”

Michael has his favorite dish, which he only runs as a special, and always on the anniversary of his dad’s birthday. “If I was on death row, I’d want my last meal to be osso buco [braised veal shanks]. It’s my favorite, but my daily food favorite is a puttanesca sauce with linguine.” When he was a kid, the pasta sauce would slowly simmer all day in its own simple richness, “and then, you’d dunk Wonder Bread in it,” to sop it up, he explains. “You could smell the meatballs cooking all day and it would kill you because you couldn’t eat them until supper,” although he confesses that he’d sneak one out of the pot.

Both Michael and Traci feel that no matter how crazy the restaurant business is, “We love it and Gunnison’s a great place to raise kids.” The couple has two boys. Josh is 18 and just graduated from Gunnison High School and Matty is 15 and a sophomore. Josh is already in the family business, working in the kitchen, the pantry, doing the salads, desserts and appetizers.

Michael also sells himself off to the highest bidder, for a good cause… he allows himself to be auctioned off as a fundraising benefit for the Adaptive Sports Center. “This fall I go to Texas to chef for some people who bought me,” he says. On August 11, Michael will be one of the prestigious Chefs on the Edge judges at the Crested Butte Center for the Arts.

Even to this day, after 23 years, the Jersey couple feels like they’re still adjusting to the western ways of life. “We’re city people,” they admit in unison. But the fact that they’re still here, they say, “Means we’re gonna keep on pluggin’ away.” The rest of Michael’s family followed him westward within a year after he moved here. “My sister, my brother, my nephew and recently my mom moved to Gunnison. So we’re like a little Ellis Island here,” he laughs.

Sometimes, they think about a sort of semi-retirement in the future, after their youngest son graduates, and spending a couple of winter months in a warmer clime, like Florida, “I call it New Jersey with palm trees. My mom calls it God’s waiting room.” But Michael says, “It’s just to warm ourselves up a bit in January and February,” as a sort of practice retirement because, he grins, “When we finally do retire, we’d like to spend three months a year in Italy.”

Wisdom Woman | by  Dawne  Belloise 

“Most people call me Coco because my little brother couldn’t say Nichole,” says the sylphlike Irwin rebel with a sweet smile that belies her off-the-grid toughness. “I’m whimsical with hints of metal and tattoo, and sort of dark and twisty, but not in an evil way,” she laughs.

Nichole Reycraft was born in Gunnison and her parents, Russ Reycraft and Renee Wright, raised her up as a free-spirited Crested Butte kid from the late 1980s. Her family eventually grew into a clan of six siblings with a mom who was a jack-of-all-trades, including an aerobics teacher and cake-maker, and her dad is still on the Crested Butte Mountain Resort ski patrol. She was seven when her parents divorced and afterwards, Nichole inherited Mike Wright as another father figure.

Nichole’s childhood was mostly spent in a house on Butte Avenue looking up the valley at Gothic Mountain and Paradise Divide and she grew up playing all over the spring drainages when the snow melted. “Back in the day, there used to be a huge puddle right in front of our house where all the neighborhood kids would swim. It was deep, it was huge, but then, we were little,” she says, and recalls the historically notorious town potholes when the streets were dirt and there was an unblocked view through all the horse pastures spread up the valley.

“None of those houses on the other side of the street were there. We’d spend a lot of time naked in the snow because we were Crested Butte kids.” In the summer, there were mud pies to be made and hunting for fossils around Peanut Lake. “You’d spend hours out there playing on the old coal heaps out by the Gronk and we had a whole network of forts in all those willows. I wore prairie dresses and bonnets with my baby Jesus strapped on my back until I was 14. I was all about the Oregon Trail and caribou hunting and playing out my fantasy of ‘Julie of Wolves,’” she grins about her wilderness make-believe world on the edge of a real-life wilderness at the end of the road.

Nichole feels the times here have changed for the kids growing up in town today. “I do feel electronics play a large part in it. I feel like there’s not that vivid imagination that was the epicenter of our entire world. Lives are busier in general. I feel like everyone is so scheduled and on-the-go that it doesn’t leave a lot of time for imagination. When I was a kid, we were out in the sun every single day, playing make-believe, in both winter and summer.”

With a father on ski patrol, and a racer once himself, Nichole also grew up ski racing, as so many young Buttian kids still learn to ski as soon as they can walk. But she says of her warm memories of childhood, “I loved every single aspect of growing up here. The community was always amazing. All my friends from when I was five are still my friends today. A lot of them have left, but a lot of them come back and if they’re not back yet, they’re planning on it.”

After Nichole graduated from the Crested Butte Community School (CBCS) in 2006, she was thinking she wanted to continue to pursue her theater arts as well as travel the world. She started off by signing up for a mission to backpack medical supplies, food, and water to different South African villages, in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

“I loved Africa. I was based out of Livingston and I worked really hard, but we never got to do the things we signed up to do,” because, she explains, that was when the Overland Missions group arrived. The base hadn’t even been built yet, “So we wound up building the base. When we got there, it was only tents and one thatched-roof shack with straw and dirt on the floor. I ended up doing a lot of babysitting for the leaders’ kids and actually doing the construction building. It wasn’t my scene and I didn’t want to do bible study. It wasn’t supposed to be evangelistic and it turned out that it was.” So Nichole understandably bolted a month and a half early.

When she returned from Africa, Nichole headed off to college at UNC Greeley, and she grimaces, “I hated every minute because the place smelled like cow sh*t and frankly, I wasn’t interested in learning. I wasn’t interested in being there at all, even though they have one of the best theatre programs in Colorado.” She returned home to Crested Butte after her first semester. She signed up at Western State College (WSC) and laughs, “I spent nine years there because I would take a semester off to work and then go back.” Although she mostly paid her way through school as she went, she smirks that she still has plenty of student loans to pay off.

The entire time she was at Western, Nichole was involved in theater, but she still didn’t know what she wanted to do in the big picture of life. “There are so many things I have an interest in and I’m good at a lot of different things, but I’m not career-driven. I’m into my writing and theater, and I love working with people and that means I can do a lot of different things and be happy,” she wisely surmised.

Nichole graduated in 2014 with a degree in communications and theater, determined to pursue theater and acting. “I was heavily involved in theater at Crested Butte Mountain Theatre and WSC. I’ve been part of more than 100 shows since I was 14.”

Being an actor and trying to survive and pay the rent in this town translates into being adaptable with many talents. Throughout her life in Crested Butte, from the age of 14 when she took her first job at Ruby Mountain Bakery, Nichole worked on and off for 10 years at Stepping Stones Preschool, with stints at the Sunshine Deli (the Sunflower), Camp 4 Coffee, Mochas, Le Bosquet, as Crested Butte Community School’s front desk receptionist, and manager at Townie Books, to name a few of her juggling acts.

“Today, I am doing property management for Bill Mog, and I’m a server and bartender for Slogar restaurant and a freelance writer [you can catch some of Nichole’s features in The Crested Butte News]. I’ve just begun submitting my writing to regional magazines. I got into writing because I was into reading and writing from birth pretty much,” she conjures up the grin of a bookworm. “I was reading novels when I was very young. As a fourth grader, I wrote a 40-page story with pictures that I drew. It was a fiction about a talking cat named Cheddar.”

Nichole is now living her childhood wilderness fantasy as a full-time Irwin resident, through her “manpanion,” as she calls her significant other, Tom Kelly, who owns a remote cabin in the winter-isolated former silver mining town ten miles up the winding Kebler Pass road. Tom owns Unearth Construction but in the winter he works for Eleven, with their exclusive cat skiing resort in the extremes of Scarp Ridge and Ruby Mountain in Irwin.

“Before we started dating, I had only been on a snowmobile three times in my entire life and I crashed and destroyed every single one. By the time I moved to Irwin, I had my own sled and had learned how to use it. I’m pretty sure I was the goofball up there,” she laughs about her entry into remote living four years ago. “I moved in the very frickin’ heart of winter into a cabin the size of a breadbox, but we all fit—me, Tom, Onyx our Rottweiler and our kitty Princess Aslog of Kattegat. I love everything about being up there. We’re not in the townsite, we’re closer to the base of Ruby, completely hidden in the trees. It’s a challenge getting back and forth to work, but I’ve never once been late for work because of living in Irwin. I feel like it’s the last rebel outpost. The crew of us out there are such a tight-knit community because we have to help each other survive. The people who are out there are strong and really uniquely beautiful characters,” says the theater-bookie nerd who likes to sing karaoke and who spent this epically snowy winter alone while Tom was working in Iceland and Japan.

“I learned something new about myself, learning how to live up there and challenging myself every day,” she said. “I love the lifestyle, that off-the-grid, quiet, independence and with the elements. I never want to live any other way again now. I wake up every morning feeling like the luckiest girl in the entire world, with amazing friends and being surrounded by that kind of beauty really inspires the soul. It feels really old up there, almost ancient, rustic, of days long ago.

“My family is everything to me and they’re the reason I want to stay close by. My mom is my best friend,” Nichole says, and her mom is also her musical partner. Renee and Nichole play Americana folk music on guitar and their sweet voices blending in perfect harmony as only mother/daughter vocals can. (You can catch them at the Princess Wine bar every other Thursday).

Nichole laughs that she had no idea she could sing until she braved the stage at karaoke one night. “Turns out I had a decent voice, so I kept going. Mom started playing guitar about 13 years ago. I came in once while she was practicing and started harmonizing and it sounded pretty okay—actually more than okay,” Nichole says confidently. They call themselves Nuthatch Harmonies since both she and her mom are obsessed with birds. “Mom’s an avid birder. I just love to sing, it’s what I really enjoy and mom loves to play so we look forward to our gigs and hopefully more in the future. I love people and between the writing and the music I have my creative outlet and that’s so important,” she feels.

Like so many locals, Nichole is enamored of her community. “The community here are my angels. It is something so special to wake up every morning and be surrounded by love and beauty to this degree. Most people will never have that. I may have to work three jobs, and my work ethic is pretty insane, I work really hard, but I wouldn’t change it. I don’t see myself anywhere else. I’m ecstatic being here and I’ll probably change jobs a million times, but I don’t mind not having a career because this is what I love, just being here, with my family, my boyfriend, and this community.”