{"id":22670,"date":"2020-04-30T16:06:42","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T22:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=64434"},"modified":"2020-04-30T16:06:42","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T22:06:42","slug":"grand-lake-juggles-money-as-covid-19-could-hit-town-finances-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/grand-lake-juggles-money-as-covid-19-could-hit-town-finances-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Lake juggles money as COVID-19 could hit town finances hard"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/GrandLake-shn-050120-1-1024x683.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/GrandLake-shn-050120-1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/GrandLake-shn-050120-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/GrandLake-shn-050120-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/GrandLake-shn-050120-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/GrandLake-shn-050120-1.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>Sunlight highlights the sign at Grand Lake Town Hall. <\/strong><br \/><em>Robert Mendoza \/ Sky-Hi News<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Grand Lake designated a parcel of town-owned property for affordable housing on Monday in case a cushion is needed to weather the coronavirus\u2019 economic downturn.<\/p>\n<p>Coming into March, Grand Lake was cruising. Sales have been booming for years, and they were up 22.5% year to date in 2020. March\u2019s and April\u2019s numbers haven\u2019t been reported, but nobody expects them to be anything but dismal.<\/p>\n<p>Lucky for Grand Lake, April is the town\u2019s slowest month, and the COVID-19 closures came during the town\u2019s slowest season of the year. How long the effects on the economy might continue, though, is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n<p>The price of the property at 600 Mary Drive \u2014 approved by the previous board \u2014 came in at more than $340,000 when the town bought it in December. By designating the land as affordable housing, Grand Lake could move about $350,000 from the town\u2019s affordable housing fund into its general fund.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row shn-donation shn-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/02\/shn-logo-2x-wht.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/02\/shn-logo-2x-wht.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>With that money in the general fund \u2014 a little more than the 4% sales tax collections from one of Grand Lake\u2019s best months of the year \u2014 the town would be in a much stronger position to fund operations if the coronavirus cuts too far into Grand Lake\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n<p>The idea was well received among most trustees. Sworn in as mayor earlier in the meeting, Steve Kudron expressed his support for the move, as did most of the trustees. Michael Arnston abstained from the vote.<\/p>\n<p>One of the fears was that, once spent, it could be tricky finding enough cash in the general fund to repay the money taken from the affordable housing fund if it turns out the town wants to do something other than affordable housing with the property.<\/p>\n<p>Encouraging the move, the town manager cautioned that the money would have to be repaid if the property isn\u2019t used for affordable housing. However, the town is also a long way away from an affordable housing project at this time, he added. Plus, trustees seemed to think affordable housing was a pretty good idea for the piece of vacant property, which has a considerable number of water taps tied to it.<\/p>\n<p>Listening in on the online meeting, outgoing Mayor Jim Peterson buzzed in and backed moving the money. He later told newly minted trustees he could see a project done there in a 50\/50 split with a mix of retail and affordable housing.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Grand Lake welcomed Ernie Bjorkman, Jonah Landy, Melissa Ratzmann and Arnston to the board, along with Grand Lake\u2019s new mayor. Outgoing board members Tom Weydert, Judy Burke and Micky Rourke were all recognized for their service to the town, as was Peterson.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/news\/grand-lake-juggles-money-as-covid-19-could-hit-town-finances-hard\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunlight highlights the sign at Grand Lake Town Hall. Robert Mendoza \/ Sky-Hi News Grand Lake designated a parcel of town-owned property for affordable housing on Monday in case a cushion is needed to weather the coronavirus\u2019 economic downturn. Coming into March, Grand Lake was cruising. Sales have been booming for years, and they were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 18:58:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}