Land use issues once again dominated November’s regular meeting of the Town of Marble Board of Trustees, with a significant spending announcement thrown into the mix.
In the absence of Mayor Vinciguerra, Larry Good, accomplished musician and Mayor pro tem, entertained the handful of attendees with a few bars of “America the Beautiful” played on the tinny upright piano in the Church Hall. After a brief round of applause, Good got the meeting underway.
Treasurer Amy Rusby reported that the Town’s reserves stood at approximately $653,000 as of October month end, up $190,000 from the same point the previous year. Most of this she attributed to an uptick in sales tax receipts, recalling Town Administrator Ron Leach’s observation at October’s meeting that “It’s amazing how much stuff people buy,” the Town of Marble included.
Leach invited Nick Sparling of Wildfire Collaborative Roaring Fork Valley to the meeting to give an update on the implementation of the wildfire modelling project conducted by Dr. Hussam Mahmoud’s research team at Vanderbilt University. Sparling explained that the collaborative had a war chest of $56,000 earmarked for the protection of the 10 most vulnerable buildings in the town, as identified by Dr. Mahmoud’s model. Of these, the Marble Charter School and adjacent museum have been designated as priorities, although at present privacy and insurance concerns prevent the entire list from being made public. Sparling also clarified that any fire mitigation work undertaken by the program would be limited to a 30-foot perimeter around each structure.
There followed a public hearing to consider a brace of variance requests from Karen Good, owner and operator of the Beaver Lake Lodge and director of Jyoti’s Seeds for Change foundation, which owns the Freight Farm on the adjoining lot. The Board of Trustees has in the past voiced its concern over the granting of variances, a process perceived as courting the risk of litigation and further complicated by arcane surveys and cavalier building practices of yesteryear.
Karen Good outlined her plan to relocate the historic 200-square-foot ice cream parlor, currently sitting on another property belonging to her on 2nd and State Street, to the northwest corner of her Lodge property. She argued that, although the new building would sit on the property line (like several of the existing cabins on the lot), the only person likely to be inconvenienced by the change would be the owner of the adjacent lot, Karen Good herself. When asked by Trustee Dustin Wilkey whether there were alternative sites on her property on which to situate the building, Karen Good spoke to the underground labyrinth of utility cables and pipes crisscrossing her land. “There’s a lot in the ground,” she said.
Trustee Amber McMahill then read a memo written by absent Vinciguerra in which he praised the Goods for their “entrepreneurial spirit,” all the while reminding them of the board’s sensitivity to granting variances, in relation to setbacks in particular. The variance was nevertheless granted.
Karen Good then made a second request for a variance, this time relating to her lot on East 2nd and State Street, stressing the need to construct employee housing on the site. McMahill said that this request, if granted, would result in an encroachment of a town street and, after Wilkey suggested an alternative solution to Karen Good’s dilemma, the subject was tabled until January.
Jewel Campbell, who some time ago purchased Duane Piffer’s lot opposite the Slow Groovin’ restaurant, sought the opinion of the board about what to do with the dilapidated structure on the lot she referred to as the “trash house.”
“It’s just such a mess,” she said. Wilkey sought to offer Campbell some solace over her plans to rebuild.
“As long as you use the same footprint (of the existing structure), there should not be an issue,” he said.
Also at the meeting, the board unanimously agreed to spend up to $100,000 of its cash reserves to purchase snow removal equipment in the form of a skid-steer and new plow for the town’s truck. Emphasizing the $30,000 that Marble currently budgets annually for snow removal by a third party, Town Administrator Ron Leach described the initiative as “a good move for the town of Marble (that) will translate into future savings in the years ahead.”