GVCA Journal for 08/28/05
Summary:
I was watching coverage of Katrina -- such as it is (really, how many times
can I look at the same color-coded replication of an aerial view?) -- and am
now late. Although that did figure into our discussion yesterday.

I'll get to all the topics this morning, but may have to get back to you
with details.

We covered:

1) Katrina and possible local outcomes
        According to Don, early estimates were that 70 percent of New
Orleans could end up underwater. Don further noted that a third of domestic
oil production comes through the Gulf and wondered if this might adversely
impact fuel prices. It's all speculative now, but certainly something to
keep in mind in an area where the economy relies on people getting here from
elsewhere.

2)  City Council
         City Manager Mark Collins has tendered his resignation, to take a
manager job in Laramie, Wyo., in mid-October. The council agenda for Tuesday
doesn't address the search process; it's focused on the philosophies behind
city donations and the challenge grant process. On the docket last week:
trash.

3)  City Planning Commission
    Last week the commission reviewed several proposals in the three-mile
area, one of which (retail at the Hartman Castle) could set a precedent for
how the city handles retail in an zone outside the tax-collection area.
Planner Kim Antonnucci also had a report from the Smart Growth Conference
she attended in Grand Junction, with interesting information on big boxes
and general economic forecasts for the next few years.

4)  County Planning Commission
    We'll just note that member Fred Peck has resigned to move from the
valley (to Wisconsin? I don't recall), and applications for those interested
in replacing him are being accepted until Sept. 15. It's a time commitment:
meetings can last all day Friday, with site visits scheduled on other days
as well.

5)  Farmers Market
    The market is continuing in healthy fashion, although there's a dearth
of vegetables.  Our Food Bank table drew no local produce, no contributions
and one derogatory comment (the passerby would donate to "almost anything"
before giving to the Food Bank). We'll leave the table in place, but focus
our effort on a more planned effort for next summer.

6)  Referenda C and D
    The local steering committee -- open to anyone who is interested -- will
hold its first official meeting this Thursday, 7 p.m. in the O'Leary (or
whatever the building is called now) conference room. (The
multicultural/public health/social services building) The thrust will likely
be on how to spread the rather complicated details of what C and D entail to
an audience that may not read newspapers or other printed literature.

7)  Gunnison County Justice Center
    The county commissioners held a special meeting Friday to prepare the
ballot initiative, which must be certified by the secretary of state by Aug.
30. Our understanding now is that C/D and the justice center will all be on
the same ballot. As of yesterday, the GVCA decided its role/position on this
issue might be non-existent. We did discuss the possibility of offering an
educational forum featuring the sheriff, county commissioners and some vocal
opponents, but it was a fairly token discussion. This might be something the
League of Women Voters might be interested in as well.

8)  Health Insurance
    Richard is still researching a couple of options which have intrigued
him. I did have a report of how insurance providers sell Blue Cross as the
most cost-effective plan for the consumer, while it appears to be reviled
universally among local health-care providers for its extremely poor
reimbrusement scheme. But mostly, this is still on our back burner.

9)  School Supply Donation
    I am still waiting to hear from Jim Perkins, and hopefully will make
contact with him today. We did decide, Michele, that we have already told
Jim of our plan to allocate our resources to the Community School, so we are
going to honor that commitment this year. We also briefly (we were once
again running out of time) discussed the idea of publicizing a list of the
school district's needs, from the smallest (student school supplies, for
instance) to the largest (perhaps buses, or some other capital item), but
wondered if this might not be better as a PTA project.

10)  By-laws
    We now have a draft of by-laws (copies are available from Richard if
you're interested), and are aiming for a general membership meeting for
formal organization.

11)  Economic Development
    We have had a couple of preliminary conversations with Jay Helman about
how the college might be able to play a stronger role in this arena, and
about more general college-community collaborations (Butch pointed us toward
Cleveland State University's Center for Economic Development).  We are also
interested in seeing if SCORE couldn't be tied more closely into this effort
as well, and, as always, we would like to see some sort of organized support
for businesses that are already here, or residents already here who are
looking to start a business.

All right! So, at long last, I've reached the end of the topic list, and now
I'm out of time. I'm watching footage from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., where
the owner of a Holiday Inn last year after Hurricane Ivan flummoxed his
employees and friends by spending a fortune installing sand dunes between
the water and himself. It looks like he's being paid back in total today:
the water is well below the dune line; he's open for business, and offering
rooms at a lower rate than usual for folks who've been displaced.

The lesson? Sometimes what seems like a crazy scheme may actually be
visionary and perhaps even quite pragmatic.

But I do need to quit pontificating and get moving. I have book group
tonight (a macho history book group, fear not), so it will probably be
tmorrow before I get back to you with Part II, the details on items 2 and 3
(city council and planning commission issues). It looks like I actually
covered everything else as thoroughly as we did yesterday in this report.

TL


Details:
As promised, here are the details from yesterday, although I am only going
to expand on the city government items. You got most of the details for
other items in the synopses.

The only other new information is that I have a call into Jim Perkins, but
haven't heard from him yet, so our school supply acquisition is still on
hold. We are happy to continue taking donations, however.

Now, your city news:

1) Council Items

    At the end of Wednesday's planning commission meeting, Steve Westbay
announced that city manager Mark Collins has taken the manager's job in
Laramie, Wyo., with a start date in mid-October.

    The city council has a work session tonight, special start time of 5
p.m., but the only items on the agenda relate to the city's contributions.
The council is schedule to discuss its philosophy of donating/contributing
to local agencies and non-profits. Council members are also scheduled to
review the challenge grant process.

Last week the big topic of discussion was trash. Residents haven't had a
rate increase since 2001, and for the past two years the city's expenditures
have exceeded revenues in this department by $20,000 annually. So Ken
Coleman is contemplating a 33% increase from $12 to $16 monthly.

Ken, who had certainly done his homework, was able to offer the council a
lot of information. Many of the council's questions centered on recyling.
Ken Medina didn't seem to find much value in the concept, and didn't seem
inclined to spend city funds on it, but the other three councilors (Bill
Nesbitt was absent) contemplated a variety of scenarios. There was some
concern that residents aren't taking advantage of the county's recyling
center, since not many leave their bins out for city pick-up, but many of us
-- including Mayor Ferguson, it turns out -- bypass the bins and take items
directly to the center, which the county is planning to relocate south of
the airport.

This relocation is causing the city to consider its own collection center
near the city shops on west Virginia.

Rick Miller thought the new trash rate scheme could perhaps include a small
rebate for households using only two of its three allotted 30-gallon
trashcans; thus rewarding those who recycle rather than punishing those who
don't. Stu Ferguson was concerned about the city's older residents, many of
whom don't generate much trash, and he was interested in pursuing a discount
for that population.

Ellen -- or maybe it was Butch (he had the information, anyway) -- wondered
about the possibility of the college establishing a plant that would burn
trash, converting it into a heat source for campus buildings. Ken Coleman
did ask Butch for information on the process, so it sounds like he'll
investigate the possibility.

I think it was this same meeting (it's now a week old, and they all start to
blur at times) that Ken Coleman talked about the use of biodiesel in city
vehicles. There are a couple of sticking points, one of them being that if
they fill up at OK Standard, where the bio is available, they end up paying
the taxes. It seems to me if the city ran an account with Randy Stuckey, and
Randy is any sort of businessman, eyeing the possibility of a city contract,
that the gas station would find a way to subtract out the taxes when it
billed the city.

The other potential problem is that the city's vehicles are only warrantied
for 5% bio, and OK Standard's is 20%. This is the mix Crested Butte is using
with generally good results. Ken wondered about using one vehicle as a test,
but the taxes were still troubling. That might outweigh any cost-savings the
city might realize from more efficient vehicles.

And in another report, Steve Westbay detailed to the council the process for
eliminating the public safety hazard caused by a burned house on south
Boulevard (which was actually built of railroad cars). The city has
condemned the property, and located the owners, and put a lien on the
property, but there are already two other liens on the property. In the
meantime, the city has to foot the bill for asbestos testing and removal,
which could be $10-15,000. Steve was hopeful that the building would be down
by October.

The asbestos inspectors apparently were highly complimentary of the work the
city staff had already done on this project.


2) Then, onto planning commission:

The county planning commission a week ago Friday was ready to approve a
request from Vaskan Ajarian, owner of the Hartman Castle, to allow him to
conduct tours of the castle and to run an art gallery. Stevge Westbay was on
hand there as well, to remind commissioners of the intergovernmental
agreement (IGA) with the city. Mr. Ajarian is served by a sewer tap provided
by the city, and the city wants its sales tax dollars.

Ultimately, the city planning commission decided to pass this request along
to the city council. There was concern of setting a precedent if Mr. Ajarian
is allowed to operate a retail business within the three-mile limit. There
were questions about the ability of the city to request him to collect tax
for them despite being outside city limits, and Bob Beda wondered how much
tax would really be collected on high-dollar artwork (the name Renoir was
bandied about).

Bob noted that Carmel, Calif., now has a moratorium on art galleries. The
city has 200 of them, and because most of the artwork is shipped out of the
city, the city is realizing no sales tax and is going broke in what appears
to be a thriving arts community.

Several people did comment on the uniqueness of the castle, and the fact
that its location is fixed where it is. It does have a history of commerical
ventures.

But granting this request without requiring any compensation for the city
could set a bad precedent. Let's say a super retailer -- Wal-Mart, perhaps
-- expresses interest in coming to Gunnison, but decides the best location
is just east of the new Holiday Inn, in the county. The retailer could then
argue that because other businesses in the three-mile limit were not
required to charge city sales tax, it shouldn't be, either. It would mean a
cost savings for the consumer, even if it's only 3 cents on the dollar.

Farfetched? We'll see.

Planner Kim Antonucci had a very interesting report on her participation in
a Smart Growth Conference in Grand Junction the week before.

The first topic was a powerpoint presentation by Jeff Hoffman, from the city
of Greeley. He reported that in the last five years, Greeley has added
800,000 square feet of big-box retail (about eight businesses such as
Wal-mart, Target and Lowe's). Now Greeley has the lowest per-capita wage,
although I'm not sure of what (Conejos County has to have a lwoer wage than
Greeley). At any rate, it dropped below Pueblo on whatever scale is being
used.

Hoffman told attendees that the only way to mitigate big-box impacts is
through design standards, and that demolition bonding (which got dropped
from our standards) ought to be put into place.

Presenters then trundled out economic and poulation forecasts for the state
for the next five years. Now, Colorado has more people than jobs, Kim said,
but in 2010, we're going to have "way more jobs than people."

Second homeowners are now considered an industry in the state, one that
doesn't really pay its way. (But I didn't write those figures down. If
anyone's interested, I'll get them from Kim.) The new term is 'baby-boomer
tsunami.' Steve did interject that someone (again, missed it) is conducting
a study of the GMUG foest area, compiling second homeowner information.

Growth is headed for our neighbors to the northwest in a big way. Garfield
County (Rifle), which has 800 gas wells now, is expecting to have 10,000 by
the end of the year. In Eagle County (Vail), 5,000 people drive in daily.
That number is expected to jump to 33,000.

The last portion of the conference dealt in improving relations between
municipal staffs and elected/appointed bodies, but Kim reported, "We already
do a lot of these things." One suggestion she did return with: that the
planning commission put out an annual report, detailing its activities of
the past year.

They're having technical difficulties on the TV right now, but I did just
catch a snippet of a report talking about the oil production in the Gulf,
and how prices have already been sent skyrocketing. But at least we have
water and power, and our houses aren't underwater.

TL