Eagle County’s new policy analyst has a lot to keep track of right now
Local issues include reviving 2016 resolution of support for 'all residents'
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily archive
This story has been corrected to reflect the status of the county lodging tax expansion bill, and that a film about current immigrant sentiment isn’t specifically about a 2016 county resolution regarding the county’s immigrant population.
The Eagle County Board of Commissioners has given its new policy analyst a long to-do list.
During a Monday update, analyst Laura Hartman noted that legislators so far have introduced nearly 500 bills. Of those, Hartman said perhaps 25% will end up being acted upon.
Legislators continue to work with a growing gap in the state’s budget, Hartman said. That gap is now estimated at $1.5 billion between available revenue and spending needs, Hartman said.
One bill, HB 25-1247, which has been passed in the Colorado House of Representatives on third reading, would allow counties to expand the uses of local lodging taxes. With voter approval, those taxes could increase from the current 2%, currently imposed by Eagle County, to 6%.
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But state metropolitan districts are currently lobbying to impose their own lodging taxes, which would take them out of county lodging tax pools. Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney noted that Copper Mountain and Beaver Creek are lobbying to be included in that group. Given that Beaver Creek provides the bulk of Eagle County’s lodging tax revenue, “that would be bad,” she said.
Beyond the legislature, Hartman said there are no current federal updates to funding the current Front County Ranger program. That program, funded primarily by local governments, helps the U.S. Forest Service fund local projects around the White River National Forest.
Hartman added that she learned at a recent meeting of the Colorado Association of Ski Towns that there’s some support in a couple of nearby counties to not wait for reports on fuel moisture — which, in part, come from federal land managers and the National Weather Service — to impose fire bans.
County Manager Jeff Shroll noted those bans are imposed solely at the discretion of county sheriffs.
Hartman also noted that there’s currently support for county officials to update a 2016 resolution in support of “all Eagle County residents.”
Hartman noted that residents are making a film that includes, but doesn’t focus on, that resolution.
McQueeney — the only commissioner on the board at the time — said she was interviewed by those making the film about that resolution.
“We could just say ‘we did this,'” adding that the resolution doesn’t go away with the passage of time.
County Manager Jeff Shroll noted that there seems to be “a lot of support” for either a new resolution or somehow reviving the 2016 document.
Commissioner Tom Boyd said he’d “like to hear some feedback” about the resolution, adding that he’d be interested in putting his name on the document. But McQueeney noted that Eagle County Sheriff James van Beek told her at the time he wasn’t interested in stronger language than that in the original document. The resolution reads, in part, that county officials, “…support efforts in our organization and by other organizations to encourage residents to seek assistance, call for medical help, resport suspicious circumstances or criminal activities, and otherwise share information that is in their best interest and in the best interest of our community, without fear of retribution…”
