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State of Colorado County of Routt STATE OF COLORADO COUNTY OF ROUTT OFFICE OF THE CLERK August 27, 2007 Chairman Nancy J. Stahoviak called the joint meeting of the Steamboat Springs City Council and the Routt County Board of County Commissioners’ meeting to order. Commissioners Diane Mitsch Bush and Douglas B. Monger; Susan Dellinger, Ken Brenner, Towny Anderson, Steve Ivancie, Paul Strong, Karen Post, and Loui Antonucci, City Council; Chad Phillips, County Planning; Tom Leeson and Bob Keenan, City Planning; County Manager Tom Sullivan; City Manager Alan Lanning; Brandon Gee, Steamboat Today; Maggie Berglund, Community Alliance; Curtis Church, John Spezia, Eric Smith, Tony Seaver, Kathi Meyer, and Mary Alice Page-Allen, Yampa Valley Housing Authority; Julie Franklin, Jim Weber, John Thrasher, John Eastman, George Krawzoff, Janet Hruby, and Tony Lettunich, City of Steamboat Springs; Mike Zopf, Environmental Health; Elizabeth Stolfus and Michelle Hansen, Stolfus and Assoicates; Ted Allen, Routt County Regional Building; Dan Roussin and Zane Znamenacek, Colorado Department of Transportation; Michael Holtz, Architectural Energy Corporation; Danny Mulcahy, Steamboat 700, and Jamie Letson, citizen, were present. Diana Bolton recorded the meeting and prepared the minutes. EN RE: YAMPA VALLEY HOUSING AUTHORITY PRESENTATION OF THE YAMPA VALLEY HOUSING AUTHORITY’S ANNUAL REPORT Ms. Page-Allen reviewed highlights of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority’s 2006/2007 annual report. She said that the Fox Creek Village project, a thirty-unit project all of the units of which were deed-restricted in varying degrees, had finally been completed; that the Housing Authority had determined in 2007 to no longer provide the Self-Help program because it required too much staff, money, and time; that the new project in progress was the sixty-seven-unit Elk River Village that would begin construction in 2008; that the Housing Authority closed earlier this day on the Fish Creek Mobile Home Park, and that attached to the annual report was the Housing Authority’s annual audit. She said that the Housing Authority had considered a ballot question for funding this year. After polling the community about the idea and holding a joint meeting with the City and the County, the Housing Authority had decided not to move forward with a ballot issue but to ask the City and the County to fund the Housing Authority in the year 2008. She noted that the Housing Authority was generating some revenues that would be used for operation of the Housing Authority. She stated that although home-buyer classes were important, classes could not be offered face-to-face at present due to the recent resignation of the Housing Authority’s Executive Director, the only person in the area qualified to teach the classes. Housing counseling and pre-qualification consulting, other critical components of the Housing Authority’s services, were still being offered although less frequently than they once had been. Ms. Page-Allen said that the last large asset of the Regional Affordable Living Foundation, Hillside Village Apartments, a 55-unit, income-restricted rental complex, had been transferred to the Housing Authority the previous week. Staff issues continued to be a problem. Resources for down- payment assistance included the Colorado Division of Housing and the Mountain Housing Page 2007-465 August 27, 2007 Routt County Board of County Commissioners’/City Council Minutes Coalition. Curtis Church was functioning as the Interim Executive Director and was doing a spectacular job. The first search for an executive director had indicated that efforts needed to be broadened to find the right person for the job, perhaps by employing a recruiter or re- evaluating the job description. Topics for the Housing Authority Board to discuss in the near future included whether the Housing Authority would potentially change its role in the community from essentially a developer capacity to administration and oversight of rental and deed-restricted properties and providing programs and funding related to in which to broaden the people being served to ensure that the Housing Authority was serving the community appropriately. Commissioner Stahoviak asked members of the Housing Authority Board to comment. Mr. Spezia said that cooperation with the Housing Authority, the community, the City, and the County was essential. Commissioner Stahoviak said that Commissioner Mitsch Bush had stated prior to this meeting that Hillside Village Apartments was a great project. She had wondered whether another such project would be feasible at this time. Ms. Meyer replied that the federal fund that built and maintained the project had no funding this year. She added that the HUD program for the development of multi-family complexes was dissolving. Mr. Ivancie asked whether one of the requirements for the Executive Director was to teach home-buyer education classes. Ms. Page-Allen responded that the qualification was not mandatory at present. Mr. Brenner asked what home-buyer education activities were planned for 2008. Ms. Page-Allen said that the 2008 budget contained the proposal to add a new position, that of Housing Specialist, and one of the responsibilities of that position might be to provide home- buyer education classes. Mr. Church added that several of the down-payment assistance programs required home-buyer education classes, which could be taken in Grand Junction or on-line. Mr. Brenner asked why the Housing Authority had suggested different funding levels for the City and the County. Mr. Anderson said that the City was being asked to contribute $105,000, and the County to contribute $80,000. The difference was due to the closer connection between the City and the Housing Authority. Ms. Berglund asked whether credit counseling was part of the home-buyer education program. Ms. Page-Allen stated that offering such assistance was part of the Housing Authority’s multi-jurisdictional plan and was one of the activities to implement in the future. EN RE: COOPERATIVE PLANNING INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT Page 2007-466 August 27, 2007 Routt County Board of County Commissioners’/City Council Minutes BULLET POINTS ITEMS TO INCLUDE IN THE AGREEMENT Commissioner Stahoviak stated that no information on this agenda item had been included in the agenda packet. This morning, an August 24, 2007 e-mail from Tony Lettunich was reviewed by the County Commissioners. A copy of that e-mail and the County’s September 2006 bullet-point list of the items that the Commissioners believed should be included in a cooperative planning IGA were being distributed at this time. The Board felt that a brief history and clarification of the status and future direction relative to the IGA was in order. She said that in 1995, after the first Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan (SSACP) was adopted, a cooperative planning Intergovernmental Agreement was signed by the City and the County. That IGA was currently the only agreement in effect regarding cooperative planning efforts between the City and the County. Attached to that IGA was a very basic 1990 IGA regarding land use matters and referrals from the County to the City. The 1995 SSAP directed the City and the County to adopt an intergovernmental agreement to implement the WSSACP. In the summer of 2004, the City and the County approved at a joint meeting the signing of such an IGA. The County signed that IGA and sent it to the City, but the City never signed the IGA. In the meantime, the WSSAP was revised so the 2004 IGA related to the WSSAP probably was no longer applicable. In the summer of 2006, a draft IGA concerning cooperative planning efforts appeared. The County Commissioners had no involvement in the development of that IGA. The IGA simply appeared, and the County Commissioners were asked to comment on it. The Board discussed a cooperative agreement and felt that since the West of Steamboat Springs Area Plan and the SSACP had changed, the original cooperative planning IGA should be reviewed and a list of items to add to that IGA should be developed. The County developed that bullet-point list and forwarded it to the City but never received any response. The County was waiting for additions and changes to that list so that both bodies could decide together what to include in a new IGA that the City and the County Attorneys would then draft. It appeared that the City believed that the 2006 IGA simply needed to be revised, but that was not the County’s position. Commissioner Monger said that an agreement was signed by Dan Ellison and Kevin Bennett after the original SSACP was created. In 2004, the West of Steamboat IGA was signed by the County but was never signed by the City. Both the WSSAP and the SSACP update directed that an IGA regarding the WSSAP between the City and the County be adopted. He felt that having one IGA that covered the urban interface and cooperative planning and both Plans was the way to proceed. Commissioner Stahoviak added that the Board’s practice was to provide the County Attorney with a list of items to include in a document, and the County Attorney developed a draft of the requested document. Due to the changes made in the updated SSACP, a document in place that had recitals that needed to be changed, and the County’s desire to have one IGA that covered both the SSACP and the WSSAP, the County believed that rather than rework past IGAs, an entirely new IGA should be developed jointly. Mr. Brenner said that when the Area Plan Coordinating Committee (APCC) worked on the IGA, it felt that substantive portions of the original SSACP and the 2004 update had been inadvertently omitted from the IGA. Since those omitted guiding principles were appropriate for inclusion in the IGA because they reinforced the Plan, the 2006 IGA had been developed.
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