The Town of Silverton regrets the pending loss of Mountain Boy Sledworks and Montanya Distillery to our business community. The Denver Post in only told one side of the story which chose to depict the Hoskins and their businesses as victims.
To be clear, the Town of Silverton was the defendant in the lawsuit alleging that Town officials arbitrarily enforced its zoning laws and Building Code against Mountain Boy Sledworks. The lawsuit was prompted by the fact that while “manufacturing” is explicitly prohibited in the downtown district, Mountain Boy set up a new shop in that district notwithstanding that their business license application clearly read, “sled manufacturing.” Mountain Boy contended that despite the plain wording of its own application, it was engaged in “craftsmanship” at the location, which was not disallowed by zoning code. The Board of Adjustments – an independent body which carries two members of this Board but which is comprised mostly of citizens not associated with the Town government – ruled that the language in the application was compelling enough so as to declare the operations adverse to the zoning code. This Board then voted unanimously to change the zoning designation for the location solely to accommodate Mountain Boy’s operations there and to allow its continued occupancy of the site.
As for code compliance, the town routinely conducts building inspections, especially in the Town’s historic downtown business district which is extremely susceptible to the risk of fire. Given that woodworking machinery and finishing solutions would clearly be used and the fact that the operation shared a wall with a commercial kitchen, the Town found that an inspection was in order. Any municipality that imposes even the most fundamental type of building and fire code enforcement would have seen it fit to conduct an inspection under the circumstances to protect the interests of our surrounding businesses. As part of the suit filed against the Town, however, the plaintiffs demanded a court order before they would permit entry to the premises. After such entry was granted as part of the settlement, the Town asked that the building owners undertake only some modest remedial work – i.e. hanging a fire door between the shop area and neighboring kitchen and closing an existing wall opening between the same.
The second matter your article referred to as a “battle with the town’s leaders over signage.” This too could have been a matter of routine municipal code compliance had it been addressed in a timely and non-adversarial manner. Montanya Distillery inquired as to a specific use of a banner on its premises and was informed by Town staff that such banners were expressly prohibited by the town’s business community-generated signage code. The Hoskins were nevertheless granted an audience before this Board so that we may further clarify the nature of the prohibition. Despite this direct communication, however, Montanya choose to display an unlawful banner. After failing to remove the banner following a 24-hour warning period, the town issued a citation to Montanya’s owner, Karen Hoskin. Mrs. Hoskin could have either paid whatever modest fine the municipal court chose to impose or contested the violation. She opted for the latter approach and took the matter to trial in our municipal court, at the conclusion of which the judge ruled in favor of the Town on all four counts.
Each of the disputes at issue here involved standards meant to provide a safe and level playing field, respectively, to our commercial citizens. Beyond neglecting the crucial subtext of these disputes, your article chose to overlook an abundance of positive and optimistic activity taking place in Silverton. In addition to the current business interest-led review of our sign code, we have been working on a sweeping revision to the entirety of our town codes for the past few years. Town officials are locally engaged with a multitude of economic development, historical preservation and merchant groups looking to find creative ways to maintain Silverton’s unique character in friendly and inviting ways.
On a regional level, the Town is deeply involved with both the Region 9 and 10 Economic Development Districts and the Southwest Colorado Council of Governments on economic sustainability matters and attracting business to the region. Silverton is a leader in the region on telecommunications issues, working to bring the area into the 21st Century on that front. Moreover, we have a bourgeoning winter economy led by the success of Silverton Mountain Ski Area. New and imaginative wintertime events like the nascent ski-joring festival demonstrate there’s in fact a lot of ‘yes’ here.”
Entrepreneurial ideas and spirit have long been the hallmark of Silverton’s distinctive character. A nurturing environment survives in Silverton with the full support of an elected body that is both protective of the public trust while being responsive to the aspirations of our business community. This perspective, we feel, was glaringly left out of your story and we appreciate your sharing it now.
The members of the Silverton Board of Trustees are: Mayor Terrence M. Kerwin, Jim Lindaman, Chris Tookey, Patrick Swonger, David Zanoni, John “Outback” Schertz and Karla Safranski.
This is an online-only guest commentary. It has not been edited.
