Commissioners deny permit for The Concert

The Chaffee County Board of Commissioners voted to deny the special event permit for a music festival that was to take place two weeks before the Renewal at the Meadows west of Buena Vista.

Commissioner Greg Felt was the sole “no” vote on the motion to deny the permit. Felt wanted to continue the hearing again in April.

The “compression of events,” in board chair P.T. Wood’s words, and the cumulative strain on first responders at the end of the busy summer season were the central points of contention.

The proposed event, the Meadow Creek Music Festival, would have taken place from Sept. 12 - 15 with a targeted attendance of 10,000 people.

The Tuesday hearing had been continued from the March 5 meeting.

Jed Selby, landowner of the Meadows, and Michael Sampliner, the festival’s organizer, said that the event would bring in security personnel to assist local law enforcement. Selby said that Sheriff John Spezze declined a meeting with the organizers to discuss the security plan.

Selby said that having a plan ready within 90 days of the festival would be consistent with the multi-year permit for Renewal that the Commissioners approved earlier this year.

“It was my understanding that the sheriff wanted to have this approved before he spent the time to develop a full plan,” Sampliner said.

County Administrator Don Reimer said that Spezze “expressed sincere and deep reservations about the impact on staff.”

Spezze, who called into the meeting briefly from the road, said that even reducing the attendance to that of last year’s Renewal, 7,500, would require his full staff.

“I still have to utilize all my people. It doesn’t matter if we draw people in from the outside or not. It still takes all my supervision off the road to supervise,” Spezze said. “I don’t have our pay periods in front of me, so I don’t know where that hits in the pay periods and the effect that has on personnel, so it’s kind of hard to make that decision now without being able to sit down and look at it.”

The applicants said that an attendance cap of 7,500 would not make the festival financially viable.

“Is there a contingency that can be done for an approval based upon 120 days out we need to present a plan to Sheriff Spezze and Josh Hadley (Chaffee County EMS director) that they would be totally happy with?” Sampliner asked.

Wood replied that would “add its own book of complications.” 

Returning from a five-minute break, Felt said, “It seems to me that the combination of this property and this property owner has created a dynamic that suggests that this will be an ongoing discussion. There will be requests for events there, and we don’t really have an analogous situation in the county. … I don’t want to do any more one-offs. I don’t think this is good for anybody. You guys are stressed out, we’re stressed out. The people in the community thought they knew what they were dealing with, now they don’t.”

Wood agreed that “moving forward, this needs to be a different process. It’s painful for us, it’s painful for you.”

Selby asked if he could arrange a work session where “we could show you our whole plan and how we’re doing it and what we’re thinking and what that looks like. Because we would like that.”

“The one benefit of a one-year thing is you don’t have to do it again if you don’t want to,” Selby said.

Selby, who was communicating with the headlining artist for Meadow Creek by text throughout the meeting, offered to move the festival earlier by one week.

“We’re dealing with the time of year, right?” Hadley said. “The summertime is the busy time. That’s true for us. The north end of the county is extremely busy in the summertime. Our call volume really matches what we do in the south end. Being a week difference, I don’t know that it’ll have that much of an impact, to be honest. This has been my concern all along.”

In a final attempt to save the event, after the motion to deny had been made by Wood and seconded by Baker, Selby said, “Clearly, the concern is the two events close together. Would it be possible to approve the event with the condition that we select whether we do this event or Renewal?”

“We’ve already approved that event,” Wood said.

“We’re the property owner, though,” Selby replied.

After a few seconds of silence, Wood said, “I’m ready to call the vote. All in favor?”