John Scarffe

Nederland

A question regarding a sales tax increase in Nederland could be on the November ballot after discussions at the regular Nederland Board of Trustees meeting at 7 p.m., May 16, 2017, at the Nederland Community Center. The Board also discussed filling a vacancy on the Board, following the resignation of Trustee Stephanie Miller, and approved a contractor recycling program.

As a discussion item, Mayor Kristopher Larsen said the Board has budgeted $5,000 for a road study with JVA, Inc., an engineering firm that has been contracted to work on a wide range of projects for the Town ranging from the Biosolids project to NedPeds, the pathway and drainage project.

In response to a question from Larsen about whether this is something JVA could do, Public Works Director Chris Pelletier said that would be more of a duty for the Town administrator. The position is vacant, but the Board is in the interview process to fill the job.

Money is in the budget, and Pelletier has laid out basic steps to follow for a storm water study. Pelletier did talk to JVA about other storm water fees that could be assessed on residents for infrastructure and then a storm water bond to complete the projects.

Larsen asked if the Board is interested in pursuing a sales tax increase for the November ballot and in helping to decide how much the sales tax increase would need to be to pay for what needs to be done. “What can JVA do for $5.000 to produce something that will help tell our story to voters?” Larsen asked.

Trustee Miller said that what is not in the Town’s master infrastructure plan but should be is the road going up to Big Springs. For five grand it’s hard to get much. The thing that would be useful would be thoughts about a maintenance schedule for dirt and paved roads.

“I don’t know if we could come up with costs for maintenance. It’s stewardship and important to take care of what we have now before we do new stuff,” Miller said.

Trustee Dallas Masters said the Board should look at an assessment of required street repairs, a list of what needs to be done and expected costs in the future. He asked why a storm water fee is something they can impose, and not just a road fee. “It would be easier to sell a road fee.”

Pelletier said that Nederland has a lot of culverts, and Public Works is responsible for every one of them. Miller said that in Washington State culverts are impeding salmon migration. Storm water fees are treated as a utility and roads are not.

Masters suggested pursuing a sales tax for roads and one for storm water and do both. Larsen said they are primarily looking at an increase in sales tax for roads, and it would go into the general fund. The amount would be determined by the study.

Trustee Kevin Mueller said: “I don’t think $5,000 will get that answer. I’ve always had issues with the master infrastructure plan. We’re asking for sustainability, and culverts cost us money and are hard to maintain. They speed up the water and increase erosion, and the master infrastructure plan doesn’t address that.”

A number of different things are in the plan, but it does not have a good indication of how we should take care of it, Mueller said. “It’s just doing what we have been doing and moving forward, and it’s not a sustainable approach.

“I no longer have confidence in JVA. Let’s spend it some other way. One way to do it is to go through the plan with a sustainability consultant and pull out ideas and problems,” Mueller said.

Larsen said that the goal is to target roads. Miller said: “We’re not being good stewards, and we would be hard pressed for the increase to take care of it. We had a hard decision to by a plow for a town that gets 160 inches of snow every year.

“Storm water management and roads are an important question. A sales tax doesn’t do anything except to keep it functioning.” A road that goes to a $35 million asset is failing and the Town has no plans to fix it, Miller said.

Trustee Julie Gustafson said: “I think it would be important to allow people to weigh in, and I think that input would be more valuable than someone who comes in and doesn’t live here. Public Works put out a map for snow plow priorities, and people had a greater understanding of where they fit in. I don’t know how JVA would come up with it, but the important thing is to know what we can sell.”

Mayor Pro-Tem Charles Wood asked, “What is the downside to putting this on the ballot and having it fail? Gustafson said it creates a negative energy and it would be a failure of the Board.

Wood said: “I want to spend the $5,000. We don’t have a lot of time. JVA is more familiar with our roads than anyone else. Let’s organize the thinking around the tax increase and get it out there. It’s the most sustainable thing you can do. Let’s fix what we’ve got.”

Larsen said: “My goal is to get data. Given that we have X number of asphalt roads and X number of dirt roads, what are our maintenance costs going to be to show that we went to the engineers and can take that to the town and say, ‘This is what it’s going to cost’ -- data based, not promotional.”

Miller said that’s a political firm, not an engineering firm, which could market it. She suggested posing a question on Facebook. Do people care about roads or the issues with the police force needing higher salaries?

Masters said, “From my point of view, I would vote for a tax increase for anything the town wants whether it’s police or roads. We definitely need to do a tax increase because we haven’t had one in a long time.”

Larsen asked if having a report from an engineering firm would help the Board to make that case. He will start a discussion with JVA to see what they can do for $5,000 and needs to have the information back in late July or early August.

Town Clerk LauraJane Baur said the Trustees have to let the County know they want to be on the ballot in August. The Board gave a nod of five to pursue the study with JVA.

Mayor Larsen announced that Trustee Stephanie Miller has resigned from the Board. He thanked Miller for her service during the past year.

On May 8, Miller’s husband, Jeff, Nederland Elementary School principal for six years, announced that he has accepted a principal position in Louisville. Miller thanked everyone for putting her here and said she has learned a lot.

“I appreciate the people in our town and the hard work of the staff and my fellow Board members, and thanks to the Planning Commission. They’ve done a lot, and it will be good in the long run for Nederland,” Miller said. “Exciting things are going on with a new Town administrator. It’s a small town but a busy place, and you have a lot of work to do.”

Mayor Larsen said the Board needs someone to replace Stephanie. The term for the new Board member will run until next year, so if anyone is interesting in trying out for the Board, it will not be a four-year commitment. The Board will place it on the next meeting agenda to talk to applicants.

Any applicants will be sent to meet all of the Trustees, so they can meet the candidates beforehand, Larsen said. Then, at the next meeting, they will vote for the candidates, and the person who gets the most votes will get the seat.

Wood asked, if there are four applicants and each of us likes one of them, is there a runoff. Larsen said that, in the past, one person has received the majority of votes. The first time he joined the board was to fill a vacancy, and the Board had three applicants. They went down the line and voted.

Bauer said that if the Trustees are not agreeing they could have further discussion and convince the others their candidate is the best. Wood said that Miller’s term is three years, but they are looking at bringing someone on only until April.

Larsen said the new Trustee will serve until the next election. According to a Town posting, applications for appointment to the Nederland Board of Trustees are available on the Town website at http://nederlandco.org/board-of-trustees/board-of-trustees/ or may be picked up at Town Hall.

Applications with attached resumes will be accepted until May 31, 2017 by the Town Clerk and will be forwarded to the Board for review.  The Trustees will be making their decision on an appointment at the June 6, 2017, regular meeting.

Pelletier introduced a previously discussed pilot program to divert Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste from construction sites. The program’s goal is to encourage contractors to save money on trash dumpsters by funding diversion efforts.  

The intent of this program is to further the Town’s efforts to divert waste from the land fill and promote the Town’s goals of zero waste, according to the memo to the Board. Staff wishes to increase the cost of a building permit and incentivize contractors by returning a portion of the fee based on their efforts.

The Town will support this effort by tracking, weighing and storing the construction waste at its yard. Deposits are calculated at 25 cents per square foot, according to the program description. Deposits are collected when permits are issued.  

Refunds are prorated by diversion percentage, with 5 percent of the contractor’s refund returned for every 7 percent that is diverted from the landfill, and 30 percent of the refund is non-refundable to pay for administrative expenses. Percentages will be calculated based on weight tickets provided by the waste hauler.

The most recent proposal was turned down at the May 2 regular meeting, Pelletier said. Board concerns included a legal question as to whether the Town can increase its fees for this purpose, what the impact will be on staff, will the program distract staff from its many other obligations and has staff reached out to contractors for feedback on this proposal.

Addressing the concerns, Pelletier said it would be necessary to create a separate fund devoted to zero waste, and then the Town could draw from the fund for zero waste programs, according to the Town attorney. Regarding outreach, he put an advertisement in The Mountain-Ear and asked for feedback but hasn’t received any feedback yet.

Regarding impact on staff, Pelletier does have a staff member dedicated to recycling and sidewalks and could be used for collecting materials. He also created a spreadsheet as to how he would enter data, similar to how Public Works does other recycling.

`“I did get $5,000 toward this, and I’m asking for approval,” Pelletier said. Masters said he wanted to clarify the refund calculations to be sure they make sense. The contractor will pay 25 cents per square foot, with 5 percent returned to the landfill and 7 percent nonreturnable for administrative expenses.

Pelletier said the contractors will get 7 percent of their fee returned to them. Masters said that we’re doing this for anything over 500 square feet.

Miller said the process doesn’t involve how we determine the total, and Pelletier replied that he will require their trash receipt. “I just want people to divert materials. It’s not a lot of money.”

Masters said he had issues about the way this is rolled out, because the numbers 5 percent and 7 percent don’t mean much to people. “I want to see you say you’re going to devote one day a week, so we know how much time it will take.”

Mueller said: “I think it’s a great program, and I think he will flesh it out. You did give four hours a month. If we keep in contact as the program develops, we will see how other people do it and if it’s received positively by contractors.”

Gustafson said that it’s great. She was concerned about limiting his time on the project, and that it might be distracting. “Thank you for doing the outreach to the paper.”

Wood said he was for it the last time. “I don’t see a downside to it. We want to do it.” He advised that Pelletier look at model for how he calculates the refund. “They’re going to figure out how to get a better refund pretty quickly.”

Masters referred to an example of a similar program from Texas in which a 30 percent diversion is getting a 100 percent refund. “We are saying they only get 70 percent. I want to be fair to the contractors, and I want a rationale behind what we charge.

“Now that I see this table again, I’m concerned we don’t have that rationale. I don’t know if we’ve done our homework,” Masters said.

Pelletier said that builders have a responsibility to be concerned about the environment. Mueller said that the incentive is the market. “It seems to me it covers the staff time. We have to justify the fees we charge. It seems reasonable now. We are all impacted by this, so you are hearing from those impacted. The crux of this is keeping the contractors happy or doing what the town wants to do.

“How does this affect my children and neighbors?” Mueller asked. The contractors are thinking about what it costs. “I think this is a reasonable fee, and, if you’re building in Boulder County, you should already be up to speed. It’s all through the building permit and they just require it. I appreciate wanting to get contractor involvement, but this is such a small program.”

The Board approved the recycling program with Masters voting against it.

The next meeting of the Nederland Board of Trustees will be at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at the Nederland Community Center.