Last night the Crystal River Caucus met at the Marble community church. The group was essentially divided into two camps: those who think it’s OK to restrict what people do on their own property, and those who believe in “live and let live”. The bulk of the evening was spent discussing the much-debated Special Geographic Area plan. In the past, it was presented to the Gunnison County Planning Commission. They rejected it.

The plan had a few minor revisions in it since the County Planning Commission rejected it, however, it is essentially the same document.

For example: Under the original document, if you didn’t finish building your house and get a certificate of occupancy within 17 years, the approximate cost of fines would be around $1,000,000.00. That’s correct. One million dollars. I’m not making this up! Based on my comment in the public meeting with the planning commission during the first proposal of the Special Geographic Area, the fine has a “reduced” price.

In last night’s meeting, I congratulated the caucus board for being so magnanimous. I said that it reminded me of Russia. When the Russians were oppressed after the Bolshevik Revolution, the government made farmers put animals into their houses. Horses, cows, pigs, chickens. Whatever people owned got to live with them in their homes. It showed the government’s power. After a year, the government told the people, “You can take the cow out of the house.” The relieved farmers were grateful. After another period of time, the government told them that they could take the pigs out. The farmers were quite grateful to the government. Finally, they were down to the chickens, by which time things seemed to be quite normal.

I told the caucus board, “In the same vein as the Russians, I thank you. By reducing the fine in your proposal, we are now down to simply having the chickens in our house.” They didn’t appreciate that comment.

There were comments thrown out to the board like, “How does limiting the size of houses ‘protect and promote the economy’ as shown in your reasons for the regulations”? Or the concerned citizen who rhetorically asked “Isn’t this document a vehicle for telling us what color to paint our houses, or anything else that you want to control?”

The caucus board then resorted to fear of the future. Oil rigs in our quaint little town were one of the first bogey men thrown at us. Then there was loss of tourist income. We don’t have many tourist businesses here. As a matter of fact, we don’t have many businesses at all. We don’t even have a gas station. Our natural beauty was in jeopardy. It was interesting to note that both low brow houses (the epitome of a small town) and recently built, large, well thought out houses, were all used as reasons to accept the Special Geographic Area proposal.

The Special Geographic Area document is full of legal faux pas, ridiculous assumptions (the county isn’t doing enough to protect natural beauty), socialism, government intrusion, innuendo, scare tactics, personal opinion, and illegal proposals. (The county doesn’t have jurisdiction on federal land which encompasses over 90 percent of the proposed area).

The Special Geographic Area proposal is not what this small town community needs. Trash it. Get on with current issues, not scare tactics about the future. Now let’s get government doing the things that it is supposed to be doing.