JOURNAL 06/18/06
Without further ado:

1) City Council
    The Ol' Miner Steakhouse has had its liquor license granted, but that
was the easy discussion. The harder part was reviewing fund balances and
general fund revenues. This week, the council will discuss the potential
uses of money that is beyond theoretical: a recreation tax that has yet to
be posed to the voters.

2) City Planning Commission
    A fairly full house heard the proposal for the Van Tuyl Village by
proponent Jeff Wilkerson, which received sketch plan approval from the
commission. The commission also recommended approval of street and alley
vacations within the rodeo grounds.

3) County Workforce Housing Linkage
    A fee attached to development based on the number of long-term jobs that
such a project will create (for instance, caretakers or maids) went into
effect on Wednesday, and by the Housing Authority's meeting on Thursday,
$40,000 was already in the kitty.

4) Hard Zoning in the County
    Probably isn't going to happen. What this and other projects do dredge
up, however, is a distinct lack of respect between both the county and the
city of Gunnison.

5) Grocery Sales Tax
    Contrary to popular belief, I am not a rabid anti-tax crusader (I'll
save that for the likes of Grover Norquist and Jon Caldera). Just for the
record, I think the county should continue to collect a tax it's been
collecting for nearly three decades. If no one has noticed it in all this
time, it just can't be too onerous. So I will not be leading -- or even in
-- the charge to stop taxing food prepared for home consumption at the
county level. But I would like to know -- which was my only question in the
first place -- if the farmers' market should charge this tax or not.

6) County Planning Commission
    As you could see from our agenda, this is a busy body (not a busybody).
Horse Meadows is a good example of why the city and county ought to work
together better than they do: this one has the potential to impact many
water users, including the City of Gunnison. And hangars at the airport are
in the city's entrance overlay, but the city has no control over their
appearance or the resulting noise pollution.

7) Detention Facility
    Last week's meeting was changed to today. Committee members were
supposed to have received possibilities for financing the project prior to
the meeting, but they did not.

8) School District
    An administrative resignation may lead to a retsructuring, and the
budget should be approved as of this writing, but what people really, really
need to realize is: This is still an extremely cash-strapped district,
hampered by TABOR, the Gallagher Amendment, and declining enrollment. Board
elections are this November, and there may be a plethora of seats available.

9) Farmers' Market
    The market kicks off Saturday, July 1, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. The GVCA is signing
up this week as a vendor, but we won't appear until July 8. Anyone
interested in helping out should contact Karen, and if you know of anyone
with a large garden who might have spare produce to donate to the causes
(the Food Pantry and the Willows will be the recipients of our cash and
produce collection), let Karen know that too. We are also on the lookout for
a pop-up canopy and/or table with an umbrella that we could borrow Saturday
mornings through September. kejensenemeritus@gmail.com

10) Health Care
    Without Richard on hand, we weren't sure if we were supposed to be
coming up with names for a possible task force. The immigrant integration
grant the county received a year ago has a component for establishment of a
low-income health clinic, which hopefully could dovetail into this awkward,
unwieldy and difficult process of making health care more affordable and
accessible for everyone.

Okay, I won't get to the guts of everything this morning, so we'll just
start at the top and go from there.

1) City Council
    As always, budget is a consuming item for most governmental boards, and
city council is no exception. last week, city manager Ken Coleman took the
council through a review of fund balances and general fund revenues. Several
council members were ready to include a discussion of ways of spending a
recreation tax, but Ellen asked that it be considered separately, since at
this point that money is entirely theoretical. So that's on the docket for
tomorrow night.

Hockey folks and swimming pool folks, now joined by trails people, are
interested in adding a 1-cent sales tax to purchases within the City of
Gunnison in order to refrigerate and cover ice, build and maintain a pool,
and presumably build and maintain trails (I haven't personally heard that
part of the proposal).

But at a council meeting subsequent to the initial proposal, it sounded as
if tax proponets were suggesting a sales tax for recreation in general,
which could broaden those parameters considerably. This might result in more
widespread support for such a proposal, but it might well thin the funding
pools, if that's the word we want right there.

The city manager is an advocate of recreation as an economic development
tool, and from that angle it seems a sound investment. However, the city so
far has conducted no interest surveys or feasibility studies -- no taking of
the taxpayer pulse, in other words. So spending thie tax money, or even
discussing the spending of this money, seems a trifle premature and
speculative.

In addition to this tax proposal, voters should be prepared to make a
decision on funding a jail expansion (bearing in mind that if the feds find
our current facility inadequate, they will mandate an upgrade and we'll have
to come up with the funding anyway), and a library expansion. Our pot of
school money is shrinking, although there aren't many means of taxing our
way out of the hole (as I understand it), and while affordable housing is
being addressed at the county level, the city's looking into it as well. And
we all should be aware that health care affordability is in a huge crisis
nationwide. We heard a graphic presentation of how this has impacted the San
Luis Valley (from 11 internists to 1, who used to own his own clinic but
gave it up under the weight of $600,000 in annual bad debt). Our own
hospital has lost a substantial (25% was the last figure I heard) amount of
income with the opening of a new orthopedic clinic.

So there are many funding issues for taxpayers to consider, and any
governmental entity ought to be very cautious about spending money it
doesn't have in hand. Actually, that's not a darn bad rule of thumb for
anyone.

And now my pontificating has taken me over my allowable time limit this
morning, so that's what you get for today. More tomorrow. Maybe.

TL