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As Basalt prepares for its second election in two months, the sides squaring off over the Midland Avenue Streetscape Project are busy trying to frame the issues and capture voters’ attention.
Proponents of the project have established a campaign organization called Keep Basalt Moving Forward and are promoting “No on issue 1.” The organization’s website proclaims, “Issue 1 will reduce access to Midland Avenue, hurt local businesses, and waste your tax dollars.” The proponents are planting yard signs, enlisting letter writers and promoting the website with their view of the issues.
Foes of the project as it is being pursued by the town government have already mounted a vigorous letter-writing campaign to local newspapers and will soon place their own yard signs and go door to door to air their stance, said Ted Guy, a primary organizer. The group wants to curtail what the town spends on the project and preserve diagonal parking in the downtown core.
Guy said in an email sent to his group that Keep Basalt Moving Forward is “a joke.” His group’s rallying cry is, “Save the parking, save the money. Vote ‘yes’ to stop the waste and harm to the businesses.”
Voters will settle the issue on May 21, although it is a mail-ballot election and ballots are already on their way. Issue 1 on the Midland Avenue Streetscape Project is the only issue in the election. Guy’s group collected nearly 500 signatures on an initiative petition which forced the town council to either adopt a proposed ordinance or put the question on the ballot. The council issued support for the project and forwarded it to the ballot.
There are two big practical issues — spending and parking.
On the spending issue, Guy’s group contends the town government is spending more than promised when it sought voter approval for the project. They want limits on the budget. Town officials counter that they are within budget and are pursuing the project in the way that is fiscally responsible.
The town approached voters in November 2021 seeking funds for three purposes — the Midland project, affordable housing efforts and vaguely defined “green initiatives.” The town had bonds and associated property tax to pay them off that were scheduled to expire. It asked voters to extend the bonding ability and the property tax to pursue the new projects. More than 70% of voters approved what was called the Basalt Forward 2030 plan.
The town said at the time that it would allocate $9.545 million for Midland, $6 million for affordable housing and $2.1 million for the green projects. Town officials said during the campaign that the cost of the Midland project might exceed the amount raised by the bonds, so it might dip into its general fund and reserves as well as pursue grants for full funding.
The expense of the project increased when town officials decided it made good fiscal sense to pursue underground infrastructure on Midland Spur at the same time it was pursuing Midland Avenue work. The Spur work was completed in phase 1, including expanded parking. Work is underway on the bulk of Midland Avenue work in phase 2. The project is billed as making Midland more friendly to pedestrians, cyclists and people with disabilities by removing curbs, expanding sidewalks and adding public meeting spaces.
Basalt officials said they pared more than $4 million off the expense of the project during value engineering and negotiations with their contractor to bring the total cost down to $16,775,709. That includes about $9.55 million from the bonds, $4.61 million with contingency from the town’s general fund and reserves, and $2.6 million outside grants.
In a resolution in support of the project passed by the town council on April 23, the town says the proposed spending limitation “is unnecessary based on the restrictions on the use of bond funds that already exist in the approved ballot measure.”
In addition, the resolution said, the spending limitation “could cause confusion” and doesn’t identify what representations would be binding on the town.
Guy said the town made representations during the 2021 campaign that the total project expense would be $11.5 million. It should be limited to that representation for use of town funds — with money from grants being extra.
“They added so much to the project,” he said, noting that Midland Spur wasn’t in the initial scope. The issue to him is government transparency.
The Keep Basalt Moving Forward website said approval of the ballot question would risk causing delays to the project and make the work more costly.
Guy countered Tuesday that if the ballot measure passes, Basalt simply has to remove some items from the project to bring it under budget and undertake a change work order with its contractor, Stutsman Gerbaz Earthmoving.
“They would have to figure out ways to take money out of the streetscape,” he said.
In a letter to his campaign group, Guy made several suggestions on how Basalt could whittle down the price of the project. He said bollards used as a protective barrier between the street and sidewalk could be eliminated and, instead, a standard curb and lowered street could be incorporated. The existing plan has the street, sidewalk and business entrances at one level.
He also proposed eliminating rain gardens and islands proposed in the street.
While the differences of opinion over spending is complicated, the differences of view over the parking issues is downright perplexing. A major thrust of the opponent’s initiative election is to preserve angle parking in the downtown core, but town officials said the ballot question prepared by Guy’s group wouldn’t affect public parking if it passes.
Guy said town officials are trying to make the issue confusing. The ballot question clearly applies to the public right-of-way angled parking, he said. The town’s project will eliminate 22 spaces by converting spaces to parallel parking. Removing that parking from the core and moving it to Midland Spur, where the town added spaces, will only make an already bad parking issue worse, Guy alleged.
Town Manager Ryan Mahoney countered that it is the details of the initiative ballot wording, not the intent, that matters. The initiative petition refers to the Downtown Parking Area as defined in the Basalt Land Use Code. That definition refers to off-street parking rather than parking in the public right-of-way, according to Mahoney.
Guy said if the ballot question is approved, he is prepared to go to court to ensure enforcement. That would likely be accompanied by an injunction to stop work on the project until a court ruling is issued, he said.
“The ‘yes’ vote does not impact off-street parking spaces, only saves those on Midland Avenue,” Guy wrote in his email to supporters, a copy of which was supplied to the Aspen Daily News. “The ordinance does nothing to restrict off-street parking requirements.”
Legalities aside, Mahoney said the town’s addition of parking on Midland Spur and Two Rivers Road offsets the proposed loss of spaces on Midland Avenue. The result is no net loss of spaces, he said. In addition, the town council has indicated it will fund enforcement of timed parking in the core once the Midland project is completed, he said. The plan is to hire an outside contractor to oversee parking enforcement and keep spaces freed up.
That is one of the few things the town and Guy can agree on — the need for parking enforcement.
Ballots for the Midland election must be returned to the collection box outside of town hall by 7 p.m. on May 21.