Town of Westcliffe July Meeting:
ALTA Beer Cave, WM Fire Easement, Saddle Club Permits and Light Ordinance
TOW Trees for Parks and Main Street

by Laura Vass
Westcliffe Town Mtg.Report

The July Westcliffe Town Meeting was called to order on July 15th.
After some changes to last month’s minutes, the consent agenda was approved.
First up in Old Business was the request to rezone Lot 6 in Shadow Ridge from highway commercial to single family residence. This was approved.
In New Business, the first item was to consider a setback variance for the Wet Mountain Fire Protection District. The county has already approved the set back on county property. Fire Chief Coleman was there to explain the needed set back of 14 more feet toward the Road & Bridge property line for a 1,000 gallon LP tank that will power a new 80kW backup generator for the department. They also want to put a roof over the generator. This was approved.

Next was Consideration of a request to approve a modification of premises at Alta Convenience Store. (As background, when CF Altitude LLC (Alta) bought the gas station from previous owners, in June of 2023, they were able to get a transfer of the liquor license and have continued to hold that license. Last year they built a beer cave with several entries and refrigeration. But they did not attempt to get a permit from the town of Westcliffe until after the fact. When they did go before the town Board, they were denied because they had begun the remodel prior to getting approval. At that time, there was considerable backlash from the community and another liquor selling business as well, which perhaps should have been a separate topic since it was not a corporation creating a new business and asking for a new license to sell beer/wine but instead an existing business holding a license to sell beer already.)
Now, a year later, Alta has come back to the Board to request approval, so that the beer cave can be used as refrigerated storage and additional display that customers can walk in and out of. The Alta representative, Kevin Coates presented his case as wanting to better comply with the State by having all the liquor in a designated area instead of having excess beer, warm on a palette in a different location in the store. He conceded that he is aware of the permit problem before.
Brian Clince, owner of Antler’s Liquor, a few of his employees and another license holder came to the meeting to give their three-minute input. As, was the case last round, their argument seemed to center around the beer cave being a way for the competition to increase business which would, they speculated, decrease sales at the grocery store and two other existing liquor stores.
Mayor Wenke, after hearing from individuals, said that he has looked at the State liquor statutes and some of the case law and he cannot find where the position he took last year is supported by the court findings. (ie. any jurisdiction over the business’s right to compete.) Mr. Wenke said he could not find any case law on the impact of (more liquor stores, expansion) on other businesses. Only cases and rulings on neighborhood impact. (Impact keeps coming up, however.)
Alta representative Coates said CF Altitude bought the store which had the beer license and then Prop 125 passes. The ballot prop passed November of 2023 and became law in March 2023. (This created a new fermented malt beverage and wine retailer license, replacing the old license which was for convenience and grocery stores to sell beer only.)
Trustee Christie Patterson moves to table the discussion until next week, with a second and a unanimous vote.(The reasoning given is that by the August 19 meeting, they anticipate having a town lawyer in place.)
Under Complete Business Solutions (CBS) IT report, a plan to get more updates done, including a three-phoneline system, changing out sofware for emails, computer security, and backup methods.was discussed and passed.
Next on the agenda was Consideration of a request to approve waiving future light permits for events at the Saddle Club. Ileen Squire was not able to be at the meeting. and the item was tabled. But not before discussion. Mayor Wenke said several times that he did not want to do anything that would shut down the annual rodeo. Trustee Christie Patterson asked for approval to gather information on Dark Skies communities and their ordinances and put them into a presentation, something she is already researching. She also voiced that she did not find it appropriate for an organization to have so much power over the Town’s decision making. This was rebutted by Trustee Jagow who is part of the Dark Skies local group. He said that Dark Skies does not have power over the Board and they would just like to see the town enforce what it has already put in place. There were complaints about the Saddle Club not obtaining permits, and some questions as to whether an earlier agreement gave permissions for non-complying Light trespass for 11 days of events per year, was for one year or all years, and whether that eliminated the need for a permit during the rodeo. This morphed into a discussion of 1) tabling the talk and 2) Having a workshop to discuss revamping the light ordinance so that compliance is clear. Part of this clarity issue has to do with the Saddle Club getting advice on compliant lighting only to have local Dark Skies argue that it is not compliant. No date for the workshop was set.
Citizen Lisa Kelley had questions about weed killer being used by the town. She said after a Town Facebook post saying they would be spraying for weeds this summer, there were 100 plus comments, all negative. The town then issued a statement that included a reference to targeted areas. In the meeting, the response was that they do not spray near curbs and only do noxious weed areas of concern and only do the application twice a year. They can’t always give the name of the product because based on recommendation, the town changes those each year (to prevent resilience) and that they have used things such as Weed & Feed. The presenter asked if they could at least post the dates ahead of time and use the flags to warn people in the park areas. They do not apply it near curbs or water sheds and they can’t spray if there is wind or rain. Since it is weather/wind dependent, the maintenance guy said he was not sure if they could give exact dates. He also said they are using flags at several points but sometimes these blow away.
The Mayor said the Town would attempt to give a rough date and use the flags.
Karen Yager said closing the park for one day, might be a good idea. The maintenance guy said they try to do all the parks on the same day.
Discussion and approval of the Westcliffe Parks Advisory Committee (WPAC) July report was next.
Mr. Dembowski said there isn’t much shade in the park areas, which was also pointed out in the last presentation. Trees are dying (age related). There is need for tree planting to be a multi-year plan to keep a good distribution of ages of trees.
In ‘Discussion offering possible alternate budget concepts’ to support preserving the park’s budget, the Board will add this to the upcoming (no date yet) Budget workshop. The Board still needs to decide on policy for trees planted in memorial, among other things.
After one trustee noted that the volunteers on the WPAC did put a plan together which they presented at a workshop already and wondered what can be done for this year since some tree planting was budgeted for this year. Mayor Wenke, after more discussion, proposed that the Board at least vote on the two principles presented (not the finance and implementation) of 1) planting trees every year and 2) placing trees in two specific areas in WPAC’s plan that would provide shade to families at the parks near the playground and the proposed future playground, as funding allows. This was approved.
The Board discussed briefly the upcoming budget, reserves, how much should be there. They decided there is a need to revisit best practices on reserve amounts and dipping into those. (Basically, the “belt” is tightening and there could be tough budget decisions in August.)
Patterson also pointed out that a lot of the parks improvements that Mayor Wenke said “got done somehow” without changing the budget dramatically, were done through partnerships in the community and grant monies and reminded everyone that upkeep and maintenance of those improvements, which is costly,
fall on the town.
With no comments from the public, the meeting was adjourned.