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Our View: Council makes common sense decisions

At issue

Council voted to push back funding for police station and shift Iron Horse Inn collateral.

Our view

Both decisions make sense and represent fiscally responsible action.

The Steamboat Springs City Council has been busy over the past few weeks, working with staff to review budget requests and prioritize an extensive and expensive list of capital projects. During this process, the council made a pair of decisions that we believe are fiscally smart and make sense.

First, council members, by a 4-3 vote, decided to push funding for construction of a new police station to 2016, stating they weren’t ready to commit the $9.7 million city staff was requesting for the project in the 2015 capital improvement plan. With such big dollars at stake and without a detailed project plan in place or site location finalized, the four council members who voted to delay funding for the project were wise in their decision.

Instead of green-lighting a project that could become the biggest capital project in the city’s history, the council opted to apply the brakes and now will be looking at allocating funding in the coming year for design and land purchase only, which we think is the most practical way to move the project forward.



The $9.7 million project price tag is about $2 million more than the council first discussed spending on the police station, and based on preliminary numbers, the higher figure would put construction costs at around $500 per square foot, which is over-the-top expensive in our opinion.

If the entire project had been kept in the 2015 budget, we think City Council would have been putting the cart before the horse by allocating millions for a project that is still too undefined. It seems like a more cost-effective approach to separate out land acquisition costs and then design a building based on the more conservative $7.5 million figure.



We understand the staff was proposing a budget number that would provide all the funding they would need to complete the police station without having to come back to the council to ask for more money, but we don’t think that is the most fiscally responsible way to embark upon a construction project of this magnitude. Slowing down the process will result in a more detailed cost analysis, which in turn should drive a more efficient and affordable design.

The second decision made by the council — again by a 4-3 margin — involved the city’s controversial Iron Horse Inn property. Council members approved the first reading of an ordinance that would transfer the collateral on the Iron Horse debt to the city’s transit, public works and animal shelter buildings.

The action will not reduce the city’s $5 million debt on the property, which is estimated will cost the city between $470,000 to $480,000 annually for the next 18 years, but it will untie the city’s hands when it comes to getting rid of the Iron Horse, which has become a money pit since its purchase in 2007.

If the council takes the next step and approves the debt-unencumbering measure on second reading, City Manager Deb Hinsvark said the city’s position with creditors would be improved and there is a possibility for the city to generate some savings in 2018 by refunding bonds.

The action also would allow the city to demolish, sell or trade the Iron Horse. According to Hinsvark, the city is currently considering trading the property to acquire a building location for the new police station. One concern we do have with this revelation is that the property swap apparently is being looked at without the full council’s knowledge, and we believe city council members should be kept in the loop on this kind of negotiation. Regardless, we still view the collateral shift as a good first step toward the city’s efforts to get rid of this property, which has been a millstone around its neck for the past seven years.

Both of these recent decisions by council seem guided by good, old-fashioned common sense, and we are encouraged by this approach. It’s always a positive sign when council members ask important questions, take a business-minded approach to city spending and refrain from rubber stamping staff-driven projects without careful cost analysis.


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