GVCA Journal for 03/06/05
Summary:

Before we start, a couple of well wishes:

I've heard that Sydney Williams is home from the U of Colorado Health
Sciences Center, and that the diagnosis includes lupus and an unspecified
type of hepatitis. Kidney problems are also in the mix, but at least she's
at home. We still haven't sent a card -- we should do that.

And Margaret McLeod ended up in the hospital a couple days ago with
pneumonia. Don was hopeful that she might be out within a day or two, and
sent home to mend. Our best wishes for improved health, Margaret.

Topics for this week:

1) Planning commission sessions on design standards
    I think we finally got through the first draft! The commission is eyeing
an April 6 date for a public hearing -- that's when we'll need lots of good
public input on the importance and value of good design standards, even if
the developer wants to opt for a PUD.

2) Through a gracious donation by Patrick and Judith Farrell, we will be
staging a fund-raiser for "scholarships" to the 9 Health Fair, probably on
April 2. Lots of opportunities for folks to help out!

3) The fiscal impact study steering committee meets today (Monday) to review
a revised Section 1 and Section 2. Section 3 is still in progress.

4) City council's agenda this week includes the second reading of the
ordinance to extend the moratorium to June 30.

5) Planning commission's meeting on Wednesday will deal with matters other
than big box. I will still be attending.

6) Karen has not heard back from the Farmers' Market folks regarding what
sort of assistance they would like with PR.

7) Our lack of attention on the county's long-range plan.
    We had one representative at their first meeting, but missed (unless
someone I don't know about attended) the session on economic development.

8) Not really a GVCA item, but another worthwhile group: the Gunnison Valley
Animal Welfare League will soon be soliciting donations for a fund-raising
rummage sale. I believe Pat's Screen Printing got volunteered as a drop-off
location for goods. You can also buy little stuffed dogs and cats for Easter
baskets (or any other occasion) to help support the GVAWL. You can buy these
at Pat's, Alpine Leisure and the vet clinics.

Details on topics:

Details:

1) Planning commission on design standards

    Two marathon sessions on Wednesday and Saturday resulted in completion
of the draft standards. Apparently the thought now is to put a "placeholder"
in the standards until a good PUD option can be drawn up.

Steve Westbay is supposed to be meeting with city attorney Rod Landwehr this
week to work on that. We do need to be diligent to ensure that a PUD option
is not rushed into place just to make departing council members happy. A
viable PUD, driven by the same intent standards that govern the design
standards, is the desired end-product, and it may take more than one session
to achieve that. If a "placeholder" acknowledges the intent to offer this as
an option, we should be willing to take the time necessary for a good
product. Look at how long it's taken to get design standards in place,
because the planning commission has taken great care to do it right.

Design standards are still a ways from being done. Another draft needs to
come out and get looked over, and then the public hearing process takes
place. We are likely to have a split city council on whether to adopt these,
and there are likely to be some folks who have made very little effort to be
part of the process who will want to speak against any standards at all. It
is important that we have people on hand at all public hearings to speak in
favor of good standards.

The point we might want to insist on the most is protection for our
community against abandoned buildings, both any existing building that might
be abandoned for a larger building, and those larger buildings tht could be
abandoned in the future. We don't need a 110,000-square-foot empty box on
our hands.

The reasons we need to push for this protection include Butch Clark's
oft-repeated contention that these super-retailers construct their buildings
with a life expectancy of only a dozen years or so, and Jim Oates (a retired
advertising executive of national scope) and his repeated concern that
super-retailing has already reached its zenith and may in fact be on its way
out.

There is also the lesson of Jonquiere, Quebec, where Wal-mart closed what to
most accounts was a successful Wal-Mart, but with the only unionized
Wal-Mart employees anywhere. Perhaps we don't anticipate Gunnison becoming a
bastion of union activity, but the most recent attempt by Wal-Mart workers
to unionize took place in Longmont. After considerable pressure by Wal-Mart,
acknowledged by the employees as "brain-washing," the employees voted
against unionizing.

At any rate, there are several scenarios in which Wal-Mart or any other
company might leave Gunnison, and we have already watched the on-going saga
of an abandoned City Market building (destined to remain, for the
foreseeable future, an un-parking lot), so we need to make sure an ordinance
includes attention to abandonment of both existing and future buildings.



2) 9 Health Fair Fund-raiser

   "Good for the Health of Our Valley"

While the 9 Health Fair is an excellent bargain, offering a slate of blood
tests for one low price (we think it's around $35 or $40), there are still
members of our community who can't afford this.

As part of our on-going interest in making health care available at
reasonable rates for all members of our community, we are going to try a
fund-raiser to offer "scholarships" for people who can't afford the Health
Fair.

Patrick and Judith Farrell have made an extremely generous offer: they will
offer their restaurant and provide the food for a chili supper, probably
April 2, 5-7 p.m. We are seeking volunteers to help with ad/poster design,
ticket sales, possibly waiting on folks or bussing tables, and certainly
with clean-up. The supper will feature both beef chili and a vegetarian
alternative, and tickets will be $10.

Vikki is setting up another account at GS&L to hold donations, and Karen is
tracking down whether these donations would go to public health or the
hospital, because someone already provides a few free screenings at the
Fair.

We are also going to offer a "menu" of donations for those who don't
necessarily want to eat chili but would like to help this cause.

Karen will report in later this week with her findings.


7) Gunnison County's Long-Range Plan

    A few articles in local papers have lamented the lack of public
participation in the county's mult-part examination of its long-range plan.
I will say I don't see the county helping itself in this matter: meetings
are scheduled once a month in the evening in Mt. CB, and about two weeks
later on Friday mornings (starting at 9 a.m., when many people are at work)
in Gunnison.

So far, the planning commission has discussed affordable housing and
economic development. Off-hand, I don't recall the coming topics.

The document is available in its entirety from the Paper Clip for a fee, or
for free from Dave Michaelson's office in the courthouse (and maybe the
county planning office in Blackstock's) on CD.

These are large, crucial issues for our future -- and we've been so caught
up in city activities that we haven't spent much time in this arena. Part of
it is finite numbers. If anyone out there is looking for a way in which they
can volunteer to help our group, this would be a good one. Even just getting
the document, reading it and offering some comments would be of assistance,
if the meeting times are inconvenient. We can always send written comments
along -- in fact, sometimes those might be preferable, since they tend to be
more lasting.

My beef with the county's focus on our economic base was that it sees it
exclusively in terms of tourism and recreation. The plan calls for a
diversification of our base, with emphasis on technology.

While there is nothing wrong with that, I think we're overlooking a crucial
existing component in our economic base, one that could be in trouble due to
TABOR and the governor's unwillingness to allow tuition increases: Western
State College.

Now, I will qualify this by saying that there seems to be a widely-held
perception (including among our group, many of whom are directly impacted by
WSC) that Western State isn't interested in community assistance, and that
perhaps the community isn't interested in Western State. As a single
for-instance, Karen has numerous stories of people utilizing the public
library, wanting a book available in the Savage collection at Western, and
expecting the library to get the book through interlibrary loan (at a cost
of $35/book) rather than going up to the college.

We're already stretched pretty thin, and I didn't get a sense of support
from my groupmates, but I would like to see us try to work to bridge this
chasm, because I firmly believe that as goes Western State, so goes the city
of Gunnison.

As we have read from Jay Helman, the college is not happy with the fiscal
study that has taken over half a year to accomplish (and this was the firm
that Mark Collins hand-picked to do the big-box fiscal study -- good thing
the Silversteins said no), but some of us should already be aware of the
impact the college has on our community's existence.

I'm here in Gunnison because my dad came here to teach at WSC. (A
scholarship gets given annualy in his name.) My mother, who got her master's
at Western back in the good old days of graduate programs, taught both here
and then in Montrose under an extension program. I have taught at Western,
and it helped support my livelihood at the Gunnison Country Times for over
10 years. Now, as a business owner, I derive a significant portion of my
business directly from Western State, and probably another portion
indirectly, from other entities whose target market is the student
population.

Our schools have an abundant supply of classroom assistants in the form of
college students, and they serve as volunteers for a variety of
community-based activities. Check out who turns out for Community Clean-Up
next month, and look at the signs along the highways telling you which
groups keep certain sections clean.

As I said, I didn't get a sense of support from my comrades, and we are
already stretched much too thin, but part of our mission statement is to
support local businesses that import dollars into the valley. Western State
is a key part of that, and I think it's being overlooked in all these
current discussions.

Climbing off my soapbox once again, I'll now return everyone to their
regularly-scheduld programming.

TL