GVCA Journal for 02/20/05  Issue 1!
Summary:

1) Last Tuesday's council meeting
    The main topic of discussion that we are interested in was review and
discussion of a memo put out by Mark Collins looking at tax options and
giveaways for big businesses here in Gunnison. See 1) below for more
details.

2) Last Wednesday's planning commission meeting
    Steve Westbay provided concrete examples of building surface materials,
and then we made it through another four pages on the design standards.
Afterward, Thomas Smits made it quite clear that he intends to vote against
ANY design standards in favor of a PUD process. See 2) below for more
details.

3) Sunday's GVCA meeting
    Communications was a chief topic. We also looked at some newspapers from
Woodland Park concerning its grappling with Wal-Mart, and heard about the
Walton family's massive expenditures AGAINST public education. We also made
some decisions regarding the Farmers' Market, and have not heard from WSC
concerning the impact study. See 3) below.

On a side note, we would like to send our best wishes to Liz Stern and Mike
Stern, and Liz's close friends here in Gunnison, the Fullmer family. Liz and
Mike's daughter Samantha, living with Liz in Wisconsin, suffered a stroke
recently, and the outcome does not look good. Pat and JR, we are all
thinking of you.

4) This Tuesday's council meeting
    The agenda is quite full. One of the items on the agenda is the first
reading of an ordinance to extend the moratorium. The planning commission
had recommended an extension to June 30, to give the new council time to get
up to speed on the issue, but I don't know what the ordinance actually lists
as the date.

5) Planning Commission on Wednesday
    The commission will continue its line-by-line examination of the
standards.

6) Large-Format Retail Fiscal Study
    The fiscal impact study steering committee is slated to receive the
first draft of Civic Economics' report on Thursday. Richard Karas and Cathie
Elliott tabulated over 900 paper ballots, and Richard reported CE received
another 900 surveys electronically. It does appear that some ballot stuffing
took place, Richard reported.

Details:

Now, here are the details for those who would like them:

1) City Council last week--tax options

    When planner Leslie Bethel came to town in January, she mentioned that
Glenwoods Springs is using a PIC [I have no idea what all the acronyms stand
for -- there is a thickly-written memo from Mark Collins that reviews all
these. Ask, and Pat Venturo can e-mail at least pieces of it to you] to
allow the Target-Lowe's megaplex to pay for required infrastructure, such as
additional highway lanes and traffic control.

    Although this is not supposed to be about Wal-Mart, Mark appears to have
run this option by folks at Wal-Mart, who say they are not interested in
charging an additional sales tax to their customers (it would only be a tax
on customers of the new development) to help fund either infrastructure or
these "onerous" design standards that poor Wal-Mart appears to be meeting
voluntarily elsewhere. Mark does not appear to have run this option by
either City Market, already the beneficiary of a tax giveaway from the city,
or Safeway, the poor stepchild in all of this.

    This is the one option presented in the memo that the GVCA approves of.
The other options all involve giving collected sales tax back to the giant
corporation. This money would go back to Wal-Mart, or Kroger, or Safeway, or
Home Depot or any other large entity that chose to locate in Gunnison's city
limits, or an annexation thereof. This money would not go to fixing the
massive potholes that are starting to appear around town, or toward the
safety and welfare of the citizens of Gunnison. It is sales tax collected on
behalf of the city, given back for the welfare of a large corporation.

Only large corporations would be eligible for these giveaways, by volume of
tax generated. Many of these giveaways are based on production beyond
expectation of tax, but no one has yet addressed how these expectations are
established, nor what happens if the tax generation falls below the
expectation, but the giant corporation built the building on the presumption
that it would be the receipient of a giveback.

City Market received a giveback from the city for something like five years.
I imagine, if Chris Dickey is reading this far, that he would be willing to
provide actual numbers to all of us, and maybe the rationale. My
understanding is that we essentially gave away $400,000 in sales tax  to
help City Market do something it wanted to do anyway, which was move to a
larger store.

Ellen recalls that at the start of the moratorium process, city council
membrs were adamant that large-format retail would not be receiving tax
giveaways. In fact, aren't we defeating the purpose of our rabid pursuit of
Wal-Mart, which is to bring more sales tax dollars into the public coffer?
And yet, at Tuesday's meeting, everyone but Jesse Stone (Don Simillion was
out with a broken hip, but may be able to attend this week) seemed quite
taken by this idea of giving money to Wal-Mart and other large entities. Let
us remember that Wal-Mart makes far more than all but 30 COUNTRIES of the
world -- that would suggest that perhaps the City of Gunnison needs its tax
money more than Wal-Mart does.

Although it is not on this week's agenda at all, staff was instructed to
continue pursuing tax giveaway options. No word on when the next discussion
-- or any action -- might take place.



2) Planning commission --design standards

This is still an arena of some confusion, thanks largely to Leslie Bethel.
She showed up in January and said architectural concrete wasn't allowed
under our standards, and that it must be allowed. Richard Grice, author of
the standards (who won the bid from the city over Leslie Bethel, I might
add), told me Leslie didn't read his standards clearly enough. His draft
allows "tinted/textured concrete masonry units," but disallows "tilt-up
concrete." The 2002 standards for the Glenwood megaplex (which Leslie was
quite involved in) specifically disallow tilt-up concrete. Bob Beda has
noted that City Market's front appears to be smooth concrete, but no one
objects to it because of the nice paint job. Steve Westbay provided some
sample textures, but we still didn't get very far in some of these
determinations.

So we moved on, and made it through four of the remaining 18 pages,
encountering some confusion regarding language on entrance points. Bob Beda
keeps suggesting we should decide what we want and then draft something
accordingly, rather than trying to interpret language that comes across as
confusing, but his suggestion never seems to get anywhere.

However, the big disappointment of the evening was Thomas Smits, who sat
without comment through almost all of the meeting. He made only one remark
on anything being discussed, but as the meeting was coming to a close,
suggested to his fellow commissioners that they ought to start coming up
with a PUD alternative, "in case council rejects these design standards."
It's quite clear where his vote will be going, despite the fact that many
developers do not care fot he PUD process because it's more costly and
time-consuming.

If design standards were in place, and an applicant came forward with plans
that met those standards, the applicant would be done and on his/her way to
a new building. If the PUD (planned unit development) process is required,
the applicant automatically has to go through public hearings, and the final
vote rests with city council, who could approve or deny the application
based on personal preference.

A recent Ute Pass Courier from Woodland Park offers a picture, tendered by
Wal-Mart, showing the corporation's proposed new supercenter for that town.
The rendering appears to meet or exceed the standards currently under
consideration here in Gunnison -- the same standards that Legend Retail
Group labelled "restrictive." Apparently, Wal-Mart doesn't find them
restrictive in other locations, so why do you suppose they're so restrictive
here?



3) Sunday's GVCA
    See the paragraph above for the Woodland Park report.

    Farmers' Market:  If the Farmers' Market organizers would like help with
the PR for the market, we stand ready to assist. However, it appears that
Seth and the other folks who put it together last year would like to
continue with their own plans, so we will respect their efforts and focus
our efforts -- if they are wanted -- on helping publicize the market. If, at
a future date, Seth follows through on his original plan to leave the valley
and would like someone to take over the market, we would be happy to revisit
the project. It's one we whole-heartedly endorse.

The CEA on Wal-Mart: Pat brought the Colorado Education Association
newsletter to the meeting, but I don't have a copy machine, so you'll have
to get copies from her if you want them. The CEA had an extensively detailed
report on the charitable activities of the Walton Family Trust, headed by
heir John Walton, which dumps millions into anti-public education and
voucher campaigns. So while the Wal-Mart corporation provides teacher of the
year awards of $500 per store, and this year gave the Gunnison Valley School
$10,000 because Neil Coen was Colorado Teacher of the Year, the Walton
family itself handily outspends that campaigning against public education.

Just something to think about when deciding where to spend your dollars.

I believe this concludes the lengthy first official Weekly Journal of the
GVCA. Feedback is always good -- if there's something I can do to better
present the information, or if there are items I missed, feel free to speak
up. it's your list too, you know.

TL