The effort to collect $50 million to save the Valley Floor at the entrance to Telluride passed a second self-imposed deadline Friday with a $2.6 million shortfall. But Valley Floor backers aren’t ready to throw in the towel.
“It is way, way too close for failure,” said Jane Hickcox, director of Valley Floor Preservation Partners. That group is spearheading the effort to raise half of the $50 million from private donations to acquire the vacant land through condemnation.
Over the past week, as the deadline loomed, Valley Floor supporters took to the streets in cow costumes, ringing bells and collecting more than $2,000 from passers-by and happy- hour patrons.
More than $100,000 was tossed in the Save the Valley Floor wishing well in downtown Telluride. One liquor store had residents stocking up on beer and wine when the owner offered the first $10,000 in sales for that day to the Valley Floor effort. Hickcox said donors kept walking into the Preservation Partners office through Saturday with substantial donations – some for a second time.
Members of the Preservation Partners will continue to raise money “until somebody makes us stop,” Hickcox said. A drop-dead deadline will be set when fundraisers meet with town of Telluride officials Tuesday.
The town has been in a fundraising frenzy since Feb. 16, when a Delta County jury set the value of the 570 acres of open lands at $50 million. The town had argued the land was worth $26 million.
The town had about $26 million in voter-approved open-space bonds and tax revenues earmarked for the purchase before the valuation trial. And private donors already had forked over $8.1 million. Since the verdict, private donations have added an additional $13.8 million – a figure updated every day on a downtown banner. And since that verdict, the bill for the Valley Floor has risen $11,000 a day as interest has accrued.
If all the money is collected and turned over to the court by the May 21 deadline, the almost 20-year battle over the Valley Floor won’t end there.
Attorneys for the landowner, military contractor Neal Blue and his San Miguel Valley Corp., have filed an appeal challenging the town’s right to take the land through condemnation. The appeal asks the Colorado Supreme Court to overturn a district court ruling that found legislation passed in 2004 was unconstitutional.
That legislation, which has been called the “Telluride Amendment,” retroactively made it illegal for a home-rule municipality to condemn land outside its borders for open space.
“He (Blue) doesn’t like the fact that the town of Telluride is taking his property to enlarge its backyard,” said Darrell Waas, an attorney for Blue.
One other wrinkle was added last week. Two Telluride attorneys filed a motion to be allowed to intervene in the case after the town opted not to appeal the jury verdict that gave the San Miguel Valley Corp. top price for the land.
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
