Mindy Leary, Gilpin County. On Tuesday, December 10, 2019, the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners met at the Gilpin County Courthouse for their regular meeting. Highlights include the Commissioners’ Letter to the FAA Regarding Denver Metroplex Flight Paths over Gilpin County and a request for a temporary housing permit that was met with negative public comment by a nearby neighbor. Commissioner Ron Engels, Madam Chair Commissioner Linda Isenhart and Commissioner Gail Watson were present.

“We’d like this to be an information-sharing time and talk about what progress has been made,” said Isenhart. She continued, “Commissioner Watson has done a good deal of work over the last few weeks.”

Watson held conversations with neighboring counties to ascertain what their position is on the Denver Metroplex. Boulder County suggests that the Metroplex flight lines move south which puts a target on Gilpin. Watson has asked to meet with them to join forces, with a case that the summits and peaks along the Divide would amplify the sound, mirroring Boulder’s concern of amplification of sound from the Flatirons.

“Gilpin has very little ambient noise, we don’t have interstate,” Watson said, “So would the sound tests be valid here?” In addition, “The important piece of the project that we need to try to focus on is NEPA section 106. It’s about protecting historic places and we’re familiar with that because of the East Portal workcamps. The county is filled with historic properties and areas so one of my actions has been to contact Judge Jackson and J.R. Lapierre of Lincoln Hills because there is some interest in turning that into a designated landmark and flights would pretty much be right overhead.”

This discussion was attended by a large amount of residents concerned over the matter with Donna Okray-Parman representing the group. She spoke about how the FAA’s website states that FAA would meet with counties that had concerns but that hasn’t happened here in Gilpin. Other communities had meetings in Boulder, Erie, Broomfield, Aurora, and many of the areas around Denver. Okray-Parman’s case is that these counties already have a lot of ambient noise and aren’t as affected by it as much as Gilpin county, which prides itself on a peaceful, rural way of life.

Okray-Parman continued, “Flights used to be fanned out, everything got their fair share of it, but now FAA Metroplex is going to stop the fanning of flights. We in mid-Gilpin have six air traffic highways right over us.” 

Okray-Parman also brought up several examples of complaints before and after the Metroplex was implemented, “In San Diego for instance, before implementation, they had 158 complaints in their noise division. In 2015, after announcing the implementation, they had 4,000+ complaints. In 2016, they had 31,716 complaints after only implementing phase one. In 2017, 72,000 complaints that were logged and in 2018, 125,000 complaints.” Phoenix had the same pattern of complaints. “This is bad for Denver; this is bad for Colorado.”

“Out of 12 states that are part of the FAA Metroplex plan, we are ranked 11 out of who will benefit from this plan,” said Okray-Parman. As Okray-Parman continued she was thanked by the commissioners but was reminded that under constraints of the agenda schedule, the Commissioner meeting needed to move on.

End-of-year financial items were presented by Finance Director Clorinda Smith during a public hearing on Resolution #19-12, Adopting the 2020 Budget. “We have just under 32 million in expenditures, that includes our fund transfers, and just under 28 million in revenue,” said Smith.

Chair Isenhart said, “We’re doing some serious growth in the county, we’re embracing some change. We’re adding some new staff to our overall staffing so our budget is little bit higher this year, but we’re expecting that; it’s not a big surprise.” No public comment was made, the hearing was closed and a motion was made to adopt the 2020 budget which was unanimously approved.

The final highlight of the meeting was a conflict between residents over an application presented for a temporary housing permit. The applicant requested an extension beyond what is allowed by Gilpin County building and zoning codes to finish construction of their home whilst living in a trailer on the property. Neighbors presented their concerns over trash, debris and previous conflicts.  A required evaluation will take place. The matter was shelved upon further assessment.    

(Originally published in the December 19, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)