{"id":1316038,"date":"2019-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=990024"},"modified":"2019-10-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T06:00:00","slug":"crown-mountain-park-under-fire-for-spending-to-study-indoor-sports-facility-in-el-jebel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/crown-mountain-park-under-fire-for-spending-to-study-indoor-sports-facility-in-el-jebel\/","title":{"rendered":"Crown Mountain Park under fire for spending to study indoor sports facility in El Jebel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Kathy Denman watches as her two golden retrievers, Sage and Mayah, run through Crown Mountain Park after being joined by another dog in El Jebel on Tuesday. Voters approved a property tax hike last May to maintain and improve the popular park.<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A midvalley resident active in political and civic issues contends that Crown Mountain Park and Recreation District has violated the public trust by spending tax funds to pursue an indoor sports center after promising in a recent election not to do so.<\/p>\n

Bob Schultz of Missouri Heights sent a letter earlier this month to the recreation district\u2019s board of directors asking them to stop spending the funds and honor campaign promises from last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel people like me that gave them the benefit of the doubt have been misled,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n

Voters in May 2018 narrowly approved<\/a> a property tax hike for the recreation district by a 51.5% to 48.5% margin. Recreation district officials hinged the campaign on the future of the existing Crown Mountain Park. Without the tax increase, they said, the infrastructure of the outdoor park couldn\u2019t be properly maintained and no improvements could be made.<\/p>\n

Crown Mountain executive director Becky Wagner said during the campaign<\/a> that funds would be used to keep the park operating for the next 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you this, the tax is not for a recreation center,\u201d Wagner said in March 2018.<\/p>\n

However, the recreation district board majority has voted this year to spend $13,500 on a feasibility study and $11,500 for conceptual drawings for an indoor facility.<\/p>\n

Wagner said the expenditures were justified because a \u201crare opportunity\u201d surfaced for the district to lease land from the Crawford family in El Jebel for an indoor facility. The facility wouldn\u2019t be at Crown Mountain Park but across Highway 82 in vacant land in El Jebel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe district feels it\u2019s important to look further into the possibility,\u201d Wagner said in an email to The Aspen Times. \u201cI think we have and are proving that we are here for the community and we will continue to act in the best interest of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voters in the district\u2019s boundaries, which stretch from the Garfield\/Eagle county line to Old Snowmass and include parts of Missouri Heights and the Fryingpan Valley, sent a clear message in a 2013 election about the indoor recreation facility. Funding to build and equip a recreation center at Crown Mountain failed in a landslide<\/a> \u2014 79% to 21%.<\/p>\n

That stinging defeat played into the latest election to increase the existing mill levy by 1.95 mills, which generates about an extra $700,000 annually for the district at current property valuation. The May 2018 ballot question said the fund would be used to replace existing infrastructure, operations and maintenance, and building the reserve fund.<\/p>\n

In campaign materials, the rec district went even further and defined the percentages of the new revenue that would go into each category. No campaign literature mentioned spending funds on studies or other expenses related to an indoor facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took them at face value when they said they needed the tax increase for the basic needs of the park,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cThey assured us they were just going to spend it on the park. They threw up the white flag and declared a crisis. I fell for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wagner defended the spending on the feasibility study and conceptual drawings for the indoor facility Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we are not violating campaign promises,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a consulting line item within our budget since 2003 that is allocated to projects like these and falls under our original one mill operating tax for the park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after the November 2018 election, board members were reviving the indoor facility. Work began on an updated strategic plan in December and was finalized in June. The fourth of the four goals was \u201cCreate Year-Round Indoor Facilities.\u201d To achieve that goal, the district aims to \u201craise money to build the facility through both public and private partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rec district board member Jennifer Riffle, who also is a Basalt councilwoman, opposed the spending on the feasibility study and drawing for the indoor facility. She urged the board to see if their constituents wanted them to pursue studies of an indoor facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in the minority,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Board members Tim Power Smith, Robert Hubble, Kirk Schneider and President Bonnie Scott supported the direction.<\/p>\n

Riffle said she doesn\u2019t believe the recreation district has committed any legal violation by spending funds on the indoor facility, based on the ballot language in the May 2018 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters voted \u2018yes\u2019 to very ambiguous language,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But given the wording of the campaign materials and comments made by district officials, she believes Schultz raised valid points.<\/p>\n

Riffle said she suspects the board may vote at some point on spending tax dollars on construction and operation of the indoor facility. She noted that the district has received an infusion of cash from the property tax hike. The projected 2020 budget has revenue of $2.09 million compared with actual revenue of $1.08 million in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe existential question is, what to do with this tremendous surplus of revenues? And, is this what the community wants?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Riffle urged more members of the public to get involved in Crown Mountain Park issues. Only two of three people regularly attend meetings, she said. The next meeting is 6 p.m. Nov. 13 in the Eagle County office building adjacent to Crown Mountain Park.<\/p>\n

Schultz is uncertain what his next step will be. He said he didn\u2019t hear back from anyone from Crown Mountain except Riffle regarding his concerns. He said the district should ask the public if it should spend any funds on the indoor facility before spending anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the board does not stop spending on building a recreation facility, then the voters should be asked whether they wish to continue the tax funding that was acquired by deceit,\u201d Schultz wrote.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathy Denman watches as her two golden retrievers, Sage and Mayah, run through Crown Mountain Park after being joined by another dog in El Jebel on Tuesday. Voters approved a property tax hike last May to maintain and improve the popular park.Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times A midvalley resident active in political and civic issues contends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1316038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 01:52:53","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":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}