An application for the exclusive Discovery Land Company project has not been submitted to Routt County.
Both candidates in the district one race for the Routt County Commissioner spoke to process when asked about forthcoming plans for a private community with exclusive skiing and golf amenities known as Stagecoach Mountain Ranch on Thursday night.
Answering first, Republican Brent Romick said this project will eventually become a “quasi-judicial process,” and that he would need to sit down and “look at all the facts” before making up his mind.
Democrat Angelica Salinas too spoke to process in her answer, saying that once an application is submitted for the project, she believed it should receive a “fair process.”
The question — asked at Steamboat Pilot & Today’s candidate forum at Colorado Mountain College — directly mentioned the Discovery Land Company project, asking if they “would welcome the Discovery development in Stagecoach.” Discovery told The Yampa Valley Bugle earlier this week they are not yet ready to submit a development application.
Rather than a direct answer about their support for the project — which could later jeopardize their ability to vote on the development if elected — each candidate spoke in somewhat general terms.
“Nobody in this room, including myself, has all the facts associated with Discovery. What I do have is 50 years of experience with Stagecoach,” Romick said, adding that he has developed projects in the Stagecoach area.
Romick pointed to the likely boon to property valuations, and in turn the property tax revenues South Routt special districts and Routt County could yeild, nothing that the area is seeing its property tax base decline currently.
“If we lose tax base because of the Hayden power plant, we have to pick it up somewhere,” Romick said. “I don’t discriminate on types of housing. I think there may be an opportunity with these folks to increase our tax base. … Taxes make this world go ‘round and you need new housing.”
Salinas said she lives near the base of the old Stagecoach Ski Area, where Discovery plans to revive it as a private amenity for their residents.
“Not just with this development, but with all large developments I will be looking at things through three lenses,” Salinas said, explaining that those lenses are environmental, affordability and community character. “I can promise if I am elected, I will put community first and not development first.”
Salinas said that the county’s updated development code has guidelines for large developments, including to provide workforce housing and a community benefit.
“What that community benefit is, is up to the discretion of the commissioners as they evaluate the project,” Salinas said.
How would they vote on SBT GRVL?
Caption: Republican Party candidate for Routt County Commissioner Brent Romick. (Shannon Lukens/Courtesy)
Another question asked candidates how they would have voted on an issue decided by the current Routt County Commissioners earlier this week: A permit for the 2025 SBT GRVL event.
Salinas said she was pleased that commissioners reached a compromise to allow the event to continue and that next year’s event will have fewer participants.
“3,000 people was too much. The event happening at the same time as the Routt County Fair was incompatible,” Salinas said, adding that she was looking forward to seeing how the compromise works next year. “I probably would have done things different sooner. … I am solutions focused, and so I am prepared to look forward.”
In his answer, Romick said one of the reasons that he decided to run for Routt County Commissioner was because of SBT GRVL, and that he would not have voted to approve the permit for the event. He said he has dealt directly with SBT GRVL and took credit for the race not using Routt County Road 56 next year.
“It was a failure of process,” Romick said, saying that he took issue with the race component being presented and approved at the same meeting. “Two weeks before that, leadership indicated that no, they were not going to have a race component. When you tell constituents the next meeting ‘maybe,’ that ruins the whole system. It is a yes or no system that we live in.”
Regional Transportation?
Caption: Democratic Party candidate for Routt County Commissioner Angelica Salinas. (Shannon Lukens/Courtesy)
Both candidates said they supported the creation of a Regional Transportation Authority.
Salinas said she thought efforts toward an RTA were a good example of collaboration among governments and that it could not only help with traffic flow and safety on roads, but with climate action as well.
“I have questions about funding and I also have questions about how we can make an RTA work for our unique, individual communities,” Salinas said. “I want to make sure that communities like Yampa, Oak Creek and South Routt are included in a thoughtful way, and not left behind in the conversations.”
Romick said he believed an RTA is “long overdue,” and that without the transit the city of Steamboat Springs provides already traffic would likely be much worse.
“We are dealing with a man-made activity here, men and women can rectify that problem,” Romick said. “RTA is part of the tools in the toolbox, but we also need to do an education process and start utilizing better sustainable ways of living, because we are in a society where everybody has one car and they want to drive it.”