Estes Park board denies refund of license fees for 440 Valley Road

The Estes Park Town Board on Nov. 10 denied a proposed $2,145.83 reimbursement of vacation-home licensing fees paid for three vacation homes at 440 Valley Road.

The proposed reimbursement would have covered part of the fees for August through December. The property was rezoned earlier this year, with the change taking effect at the end of July, and the owners then applied for an accommodations business license.

The board took the matter up as an action item after asking staff at a recent study session to bring the proposal back. Staff said they had received no reimbursement request from the applicant, the licensees or the property owners, and a staff member clarified that the member had personally received none. Another speaker said the applicants had made a verbal request during the process.

Trustee Bill Brown opposed the reimbursement, saying it was not clear the town was responsible for the problem. He said staff disagreed with some of the owner's statements, though he later said he could not identify them all. Brown also argued that approval could set a precedent for waiving the town's rights whenever it made a mistake.

"I have a little trouble understanding where the public purpose is of doing this," Brown said.

Mayor Gary Hall warned that the reimbursement could open the door to appeals from other businesses reaching back an unknown length of time. "That opens up a door of other appeals from other businesses going back who knows how far," Hall said.

Mayor Pro Tem Kirby Hazelton also opposed it, saying the board lacked information and that deciding the specific refund was not its role. Hazelton said a vote to approve would put the town on uncertain legal footing. Hazelton also said there had been errors in the past, possibly including errors by the applicant, and expressed sympathy for the owners' long history with the matter and for staff's complicated work on it.

"I don't feel like I'm educated enough to say you know, we really screwed up here and we need to give you this money back," Hazelton said.

Trustee Mark Igel first said he would move to approve the reimbursement, and asked Brown to identify the information behind his account of staff's disagreement, saying he wanted to make a fair decision. Igel later said he could not support it, saying he lacked information and believed an exception to policy should follow a process giving both sides an equal chance to speak.

"I think that there's information that's outside of my decision-making process," Igel said.

Trustee Chris Eshelman said the town should learn from the situation and address similar problems sooner. "Let's take care of this now instead of continuing on," Eshelman said, adding that he would not support the reimbursement.