State of Colorado County of Routt
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STATE OF COLORADO COUNTY OF ROUTT OFFICE OF THE CLERK May 20, 2005 EN RE: LAFARGE WEST, INC. TRANSCRIPT Commissioners Daniel R. Ellison and Douglas B. Monger; County Manager Tom Sullivan; County Attorney John Merrill; Caryn Fox, and John Eastman, County Planning; Mike Zopf, Environmental Health; Luke Sobeski, Gary Tuttle, Paul Brown, Dave Bailey, and Rod Harris, Lafarge; Deb and John Holloway, Dori Weiss Allen, Ken Solomon, Karen Hughes, Jamie Hall, Diane Wallace, Diane Wallace, Phillipa Oliver, Pat Evengelatos, Rosemary Post, Valerie Perea, Thom Faiola, David Josfan, Lynn Abbott, Gonk Jacobs, Jamie Jacobs, Eloise More, E. G. Hibbert, Jayne Hill, Carol Iverson, David and Tresa Moulton, Ren Martyn, David Strode, Naomi Hopkins, William Sampan, Jace and Kim Romick, Jamie and Jack Romick, Rod Wyatt, Loris and Deb Werner, Pat Cox, Diane and Joel Anderson, and Kevin and Jane Bennett, citizens; Mike Jones, King Mt. Gravel; and Christine Metz, Steamboat Today, were present. Commissioner Nancy J. Stahoviak was present via telephone. Diana Bolton recorded the meeting and prepared the minutes. Ellison: This is a continuation follow-up hearing to the hearing—part of the hearing—held Monday night. Commissioner Stahoviak is again participating by ‘phone. Where we were when we left was that the Board was discussing and deliberating the final decision on the Lafarge request. The Board will continue to deliberate that application, and at this time we don’t intend to open the meeting further to public comment. The Board, however, may have questions of the staff or the petitioner that we want to ask and will ask of them. Monger: I don’t have any questions at this point in time. I think we’ll open it up for public [sic] comment. Who wants to go? Nancy, did you want to lead off? Dan… Stahoviak: Yes; I do have one question. Monger: Okay. Please, go. Stahoviak: At the end of the hearing on Monday night, there was one issue that was kind of left hanging, and that was the issue regarding whether or not Lafarge had met the requirement of Condition Number 5, the Army Corps of Engineers’ permit. I had asked John Eastman to please try to contact the Army Corps of Engineers so that we could get that situation rectified one way or another. So John, were you able to talk to Tony Curtis or someone else at the Corps? Eastman: Yes, Nancy, I was. I spoke with Nathan Green, who’s in their Grand Junction office, and Tony Curtis. Nathan had said that an e-mail with an attachment was sent to him within the deadline. He then forwarded that to Tony, because he was working on that case. In discussing it with Tony, he said that he did receive the e-mail, and he has a record of that. Page 04-1 May 20, 2005 Routt County Board of County Commissioners’ Minutes—Transcript of Lafarge West Hearing The attachment did not come through. He thought that was probably due to some sort of security restriction on large attachments through their e-mail system. So he feels that they are in compliance at this time with that Condition. Stahoviak: So the Condition--or their plan--has not actually been reviewed and approved by the Corps yet? Eastman: Didn’t have that discussion with them. I just asked them specifically if they were in compliance with that Condition, and Tony said, yes. Stahoviak: Okay. Thank you. Ellison: Okay. Stahoviak: John I’ll put in – (inaudible) if you want me to. Monger: That would be great. Stahoviak: I think probably for the last couple of weeks, all three Commissioners have reviewed all of the information related to this Special Use Permit that we received since the first conceptual hearing in 2001. There were some concerns raised at the initial meeting regarding that Special Use Permit, and they were concerns that each Commissioner had about how impacts regarding the Special Use Permit would be addressed by Lafarge. There were a couple of things that I was hoping would happen that haven’t happened, and that disappoints me. One of them was the whole issue surrounding the batch plants, both the asphalt and concrete batch plants. We’ve had a lot of discussion about those being industrial uses, and that we need to identify an area where industrial uses such as those can occur. And at the time, I indicated that through the update of the Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan, I was certainly hoping that we would be able to identify industrial areas within the Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan boundaries where those industrial-type uses could occur. Unfortunately, nothing’s happened. As far as that update, there was no expansion of where industrial uses could occur; there was no definitive clarification about where batch plants could go within the Area Plan boundaries. At the same time, we had also had the staff talk to City staff about whether or not a batch plant would be allowed in the industrial areas the City currently has. The comments back from City staff were that they could be a use that would be allowed, but they would have to be able to meet all the criteria. Unfortunately, nothing ever happened with Lafarge trying to take an industrial use like a batch plant through the City – (one word; Tape 1/149) process identifying a piece of property and trying to determine whether or not that batch plant could be located in that area. One of the other discussions that occurred a lot was that in the original Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan, this area was identified as a key open space parcel, according to one of the--what we called ‘preferred’ land use maps at the time, and that was one of the reasons that was given to us at that time for considering a Special Use Permit on this parcel. We did have some information in the original Fact Packet, dated April 3, 2003, that talked about that. And what it said was, “The proposed site is outside the designated roadway protection areas. A portion of the proposed site is designated as a key open space parcel. There are no Page 04-2 May 20, 2005 Routt County Board of County Commissioners’ Minutes—Transcript of Lafarge West Hearing specific policies related to the preferred direction map. However, on Page 7-2 in the Open Lands, Recreation, and Trails section, the Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan notes that, ‘Protection of open lands is founded on several principles, including providing compensation to landowners for the removal of development rights.’” What has not occurred in the ten years since the Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan has been in existence is that the community has not been able to work with the Mores to preserve that open space parcel. I believe the community has a huge responsibility to determine whether or not those types of provisions in the Plan, or desired outcomes in that Plan, happen. And it didn’t happen. We didn’t have a willing landowner who was willing to work with the community; we didn’t have a community that could raise probably the kind of funds that that would happen. So that whole issue is kind of an issue that is no longer valid at this point in time. In reviewing all of the letters that we’ve received since December, 2004, or Fall of 2004, there was one letter that had some references in it that really concerned me. The letter stated that the word on the street is that the County Commissioners made a deal with Lafarge in denying the Warner Pit we would allow them to develop their operations on the More Pit. That personally insults me as a Commissioner to have an irresponsible statement like that circulating in our community. I’ve served this County as a Commissioner for twelve years. I’ve done it with honesty and integrity. And I have never, never made a decision based on making a deal with anyone. And for anyone to resort to making those types of irresponsible statements and publishing inaccurate information, just to get support for their cause, is not very ethical in my thinking, and I think we should try to stay away from those types of things. There has never been any conversation with me or the other Commissioners and Lafarge about anything of the sort. The reason the Warner Pit was denied was because of the substantial impacts that could not be mitigated: It was too close to the highway; it was too close to the entryway to Steamboat Springs, and those visual impacts could not be mitigated. There were also some safety impacts because of the closeness to the curve in the highway that was. So the reason that permit was denied was because it was not the right place for a permit. Now we’re dealing with trying to figure out whether this is the place for a permit, and whether everything can be mitigated according to the land use regulations that we have in place. Another thing that really concerns me when we got the updated list of conditions from Planning staff that had some technical changes from the Planning Commission’s conditions that were passed in 2003 was that Lafarge wanted a variety of changes to those conditions. And, at this point in the game when we are really trying to find a win-win solution for the community, it concerns me that both sides of this petition are still trying to pull at each other, and still trying to more of one thing or another as opposed to trying to work together and solve these issues.