Snowmass Village, Colorado: What’s new with Base Village?
A Snowmass Village town councilman accused three of his colleagues Monday of communicating with Related Colorado about its application outside of the public review process.
After more than two hours of negotiation between the council and Related over new agreements regarding the stalled Base Village project, Councilman Chris Jacobson delivered a long soliloquy in which he said that he believed there had been ex-parte communication between Related and council members Fred Kucker and Markey Butler as well as Mayor Bill Boineau.
The elected officials ultimately approved the application, extending Base Village vesting for the next four years, by a 3-2 vote. Jacobson and Councilman Jason Haber dissented. The officials in the minority expressed discomfort with even taking a vote on the application Monday, concerned that the council was setting itself up for litigation.
Jacobson alleged that Kucker had discussed the application with Don Schuster, Aspen Skiing Co.’s vice president of hospitality development. Skico is under contract to purchase Base Village property from Related and build a hotel there, pending Monday’s approval.
“I never had ex-parte communication with an applicant,” Kucker said in response to Jacobson’s claims. “Don Schuster is not an applicant.”
Kucker had told Related in public that he would not approve its application unless it would pay damages for not meeting deadlines on the privately owned buildings in Base Village, he said. Schuster had told Kucker that Related would add a clause to that effect before the next meeting, and when the documents for the Sept. 8 meeting were released without that information, Kucker called the Skico executive.
“Probably an hour or two later, he called me back and said, ‘They’re going to submit a new application with the liquidated clause in it,’” Kucker said. “I thought it was terribly important that we all have in front of us the application that the applicant was ultimately going to (present).”
Related offered at the Sept. 8 meeting to pay $1,500 a day, up to a total of $1 million, for every day that completion of the second phase of the Viceroy hotel went past deadline. That day, the council gave the application its first vote of approval, with the same 3-2 majority.
According to Jacobson, Kucker also commented that Butler was negotiating the amount of those liquidated damages with Schuster. Butler defended herself Monday by saying that she had a conversation with Schuster the day after a council meeting to clarify a different issue with the Skico’s Base Village hotel.
“I did not negotiate nor did I think it appropriate to bring up anything financial,” Butler said. “That is hearsay.”
Read the full article here: http://www.aspentimes.com/news/13305538-113/council-kucker-village-application
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