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U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen came to the Arkansas Valley Thursday, March 16, to host roundtables in Buena Vista and Salida.
Her business roundtable at the Buena Vista Public Library brought together a small but talkative group of local business leaders.
Renewable energy and housing were major themes among those who came, as well as broadband access and the future Boys & Girls Club building. Pettersen said she knew broadband and consistent internet were major needs for much of the community, particularly kids in school. Carlin Walsh, CEO of Aristata Communications (formerly Colorado Central Telecom), asked for more support in ensuring state offices coordinate with local providers.
“There’s certainly a place for Comcast and CenturyLink to get fiber expanded to the home more broadly throughout the state,” he said. “But at the end of the day, in these rural communities, it’s the smaller companies that are going to get the job done.”
Walsh said that previous funding cycles have ended up sending money either back to the federal level or to projects on the outskirts of city centers, leaving rural projects and companies behind.
“We are the ones that are gonna get it done,” he said. “It’s not Comcast, unfortunately, that’s gonna get fiber to the remote areas or advanced terrestrial fixed wireless.”
Casey Martin, a lawyer from Johnston, Van Arsdale & Martin, pointed to the need to move existing renewable energy projects onto the grid and tackle the prohibitive permitting costs for out-of-state as well as local projects.
“It gets so expensive that if you don’t have the deepest pockets in the world, you’re not going to be able to construct this transmission line to make a stronger, more resilient grid for electric customers throughout the state,” he said. “We’re spreading out the generation, so we have to be able to bring it all back and deliver it to customers throughout the state.”
Martin also told Pettersen she could expect an appropriations request to develop a test well for geothermal generation in Chaffee County.
“It’s hard to overstate what that resource could mean to a place like this,” said Jake Rishavy, executive director of the Chaffee County Economic Development Corporation. “It alone has the potential to generate more energy than we could consume here, making it an energy provider to the rest of the central mountains.”
Shifting the conversation to housing and the local economy, Rishavy said he appreciated the optimism of the group and of the morning’s meeting in Salida. However, he suggested caution, as the tourism boom and bust cycle won’t always be sustainable.
“There’s a real fundamental structural issue here,” Rishavy said. “The one primary thing that I was a little bit concerned about … was around housing, particularly. I do not see a meaningful effort to address that issue here.
“We’ve got a private sector here that is ready to build, and there’s not been a ton of support to advance those projects,” he said. “You cannot stay here on a tourism base salary.”
Walsh agreed, pointing out that the county AMI is about $40,000 a year, while the average house is somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 to $400 per square foot.
“Every day, there are people leaving this community who have been here for generations, and the only folks who can afford to come in are second homeowners,” Rishavy said. “As a parent, I would like for it to be a choice of whether my son or daughter has the opportunity to stay or go when they graduate from high school, and I’m concerned.”
Pettersen said she was glad to see the conversation continuing in Buena Vista. People often term out once they’ve built up expertise in their field, she said, adding that she also hopes to establish advisory boards to bring local leaders and federal- and state-level experts together.
“It’s really hard to get some of the quality policy proposals at every level to address some of the systemic issues,” Pettersen said. “It couldn’t be more reflective of the increase in the wealth gap and opportunity gap when you have people that are affording enormous houses that are only here two weeks out of the year, and then it sits the rest of the time. We have to start thinking about housing in a different way, and our policy should reflect that.”
Karen Dils, a “professional volunteer” with the Boys and Girls Club, and Brian Beaulieu, the club’s executive director, said that, while it’s great businesses want to come to BV and Chaffee County, the lack of affordable housing and childcare can make it difficult.
“We want to be known as a state that that’s that supports working families, right? Our town doesn’t exist without workers or families,” Beaulieu said. “We’re trying to hold on to the character of a rural community. Working families are the backbone of our community.”
The club recently applied for the Community Projects Funding opportunity. Justin Nichols, market manager for TBK Bank in BV, said that the Boys & Girls Club would be a perfect project for the opportunity.
“We’re very well supported by the town,” Nichols said. “We’ve already raised 45% of our budget. … I’ve never been part of something that’s so well supported.”
Heather Rupska, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, shared that the prison is “understaffed by a third” at present, which comes back to the housing issue.
“We can’t wait three to five years for our solutions, we have to start having solutions,” she said, pointing to the safety concerns of an understaffed prison. “That, to me, is really critical, and it’s the housing issue in general.”
Pettersen said that she recently signed a letter regarding better support for corrections staff with U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. One of the major barriers is the current “fiscal cliff” the government is facing.
“The safety of our community and the workers who are in those prisons are very important,” she said. “We can start working together and working with our senators, hopefully, within the next year to try to get the support that you need in the community.”
As the conversation wrapped, Beaulieu emphasized that whatever Pettersen could do to bring investments to the area, the community would bring a return.
“This room is a ‘get it done’ group that’s bigger than this,” he said. “Investments in Chaffee County, specifically in BV, pay off. Your ROI will be better than anywhere else. This is a hard-working group that knows how to get things done.”
“This is the beginning of a lot of conversations to come,” Pettersen said. “So I really appreciate you all taking the time to be with me and share your thoughts on what we need to be prioritizing.”