Chaffee BoCC Denies MeadowCreek LLC Concert Permit Application

A big meadow with bigger views, The Meadows is a gorgeous site that has hosted music events during the summer and fall seasons, in between baling hay. Greg Wright photo

Two to One Vote splits Board of County Commissioners, Leave a New Music Company in Limbo

In a roller-coaster session that had already seen some tension from earlier public comments demanding commissioners declare the county a non-sanctuary county (which isn’t a thing), the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners spent more than two hours of public hearing, going back and forth over aspects of a permit application from Meadowcreek LLC to hold a music concert at The Meadows, in mid-September, 2024. The public hearing had been continued from their March 5 session.

On a two-to-one vote with a motion made by Chair P.T. Wood, and a second by Commissioner Keith Baker, the BoCC voted to deny the application. Only Commissioner Greg Felt voted no on the motion to deny.

While the hearing began with Baker noting that they couldn’t consider information that hadn’t been presented to them, they first agreed to accept any new information that had come to them since their first public hearing.

“I want to bring this up since the last hearing, it struck me that those people who made public comments were all in favor, many of you are affiliated in some way with the applicant,” said Felt. “Nothing against the applicant, but I looked at our agenda, and in the past when we have considered new events, we often had a time-specific hearing … we’re not consistent,  I suggest we reopen the public  hearing.”

“The affiliates are people who live here and work here and their livelihood is here in the valley,” responded Selby.

A Wide-Ranging Discussion Without Much Structure

The BoCC quickly moved on to aspects that clearly appeared to trouble them, but not all at the same time.

Meadowcreek LLC  partners Jed Selby and Michael Sampliner had submitted a sound plan and a lighting plan and had been in contact with EMS Director Josh Hadley and Chaffee Fire regarding emergency plans. But they had not been successful in meeting with Sheriff John Spezze, and while they had been in contact with the Office of Emergency Management, Rich Atkins was out of town so the plan couldn’t be agreed upon until he returned.

While the BoCC faulted Selby and Sampliner for not coming back to them with a developed public safety plan, Selby pointed out that the sheriff had refused to meet with them, saying only that “if the commissioners approve we’ll find a way to make it work,”  and appeared uninterested in Sampliner’s offer to use his established contacts to provide security for the proposed event.

The session had its comical aspects. At one point, after applicant Jed Selby was asked whether he would be willing to reduce the requested concert size from 10,000 to 7,500 (Selby had earlier said it might be possible to reduce the concert size to 8,500, but below that was not financially viable) County Attorney Daniel Tom called the sheriff, and ended up in the middle of the room, holding his mobile phone up to the ceiling loudspeaker, whereupon the sheriff said that reducing the crowd by 2,500 wouldn’t make any difference in his staffing.

Selby was asked a leading question; would he be willing, as the landlord of The Meadows, to cancel the Renewal concert and do this as yet unnamed concert instead? There are likely many reputational problems with considering that option, including the loss of good faith.

At times it appeared that the BoCC was ignoring the fact that they were talking with a Chaffee County LLC that is setting out to develop a local music event industry in the area. It happens to include The Meadows, which is private property owned by Selby and his family.

What was not brought up during the BoCC discussions was the economic impact of denying the permit application, which was referenced during the earlier public hearing. More than 200 residents and more than 60 local businesses not only endorsed the permit application in letters to the BoCC, many spoke in the March 5 public hearing about the economic hope that it gave them.

“From the beginning, we submitted a site and sound design,” noted Selby. “The size and scope of the stage are similar to the Renewal concerts … the size of the sound system, the lighting, are consistent … there would be two sets of music beginning at 7:00 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. and ending at 11:00 p.m. The sheriff declined to meet with us, but our contacts have done a 50,000 [person] event in a town with a population of 400. If it is approved he’ll figure it out. We’re ready, willing, and able to help — that’s at the discretion of the sheriff’s office.”

Selby pointed out that in the March 5 public hearing, they didn’t discuss many of the technical details of their plans or the preparation of a resolution. But timing is an issue given that the proposed concert is six months away. “We’re on a timeline as the artists announce a nationwide tour, and it is imminent, to the date we’d get approved, to when we could sell tickets. We are hopeful that we could come to a resolution today … the Renewal resolution is fine with us with the two adjustments: 10,000 attendees and ending earlier at 11:00 p.m.”

As the discussion swung back and forth, the BoCC expressed concerns about the comms trucks (communications equipment). “So one of Sheriff Spezze’s concerns is the comms truck they use for Renewal comes out of El Paso county and might not be available… it’s a critical piece.”

Sampliner reassured him saying “We’d have to source it, we want a unified command system on site … that comms truck is critical to that.”

“But part of a comms truck [operation] is the inter-operability,” said Baker.

Asked about drug-sniffing dogs, Samplinger said “We have dogs. We search for bombs and weapons. In terms of drug checkpoints,  you have to have probable cause to pull over people and check them for drugs.”

The BoCC returned to the topic of the traffic plan. “We have a special event traffic plan done by a traffic planner engineer. Traffic and noise are the two primary concerns. The BV police are free to do anything they want within the law, and we should have a work session …”

Questions were asked about the lighting plan. “I went through your lighting plan, I do know that this thing is this wall of lights on either side of the crowd. If  it’s laser lights, they don’t just stop, right?”

Sampliner reassured him that the lighting wasn’t high-powered. “You can’t have it hit people or objects — it’s the type Billy Strings used on his band last year. The light will be contained within the bowl of the crowd within the meadow.”

When the discussion was opened to public comment, the remarks were positive, and one pointed out that the music from the Lariat every weekend was louder at his house than anything from The Meadows. The commissioners noted that they had only recently received a couple of letters expressing concern, relative to the total amount of communications that was positive.

Jed Selby listened to questions during the March 5 Chaffee BoCC public hearing on his permit application for The Meadows. Photo by Jan Wondra.

Discussion Swings Back and Forth, Punctuated by Silence

The BoCC took comments from both Hadley and Buena Vista Police Chief Morgan. Morgan expressed concerns that several years ago, “the Vertex show brought in a lot of drug problems – we are 100 percent giving the benefit of the doubt, but past experience with the dangerous drugs means we will be watching for this.”

“While all emergency people and first responder are not going to tell you they can’t do something — they’re going to say ‘yes we can do it’ … but it’s going to be at a cost to our people,” said Baker. “The ongoing security of the comm plan – has to be protected. It was brought up by Josh.”

Wood reminded the group that “One of the things we asked for two weeks ago was an actual plan that would incorporate EMS, sheriff, and emergency plan — what we have is ideas, not a plan. You’re under time pressure, we’re not.”

To which Selby reminded them not just that these plans are typically finalized 90 days prior to the event (not six months) but that they had reached out to these agencies to meet and make a plan. “Hadley met, the sheriff’s office declined, it’s ultimately submitted 90 days before…  at least on the Renewal resolution it is … the sheriff wanted to have this approved and if it is, we can then make a plan.”

“There isn’t a county agency that is going to say no we can’t do that,” said County Administrator Don Reimer. “If it is approved, he can do it, he did express sincere concerns, especially dispatch — there is major turnover on that dispatch staff – we are at one-fourth of dispatch staff.”

“We live in a mountain town where there aren’t enough people to do the jobs,” said Wood.

“We say the number one thing is you have to do your own job and we come in with external support,” said Sampliner. “We can bring in an entire dispatch, security, EMS, nurses, medical doctors, to support the concert.”

To which Baker responded that the BoCC’s concerns were for the county support staff.

“It sounds like we can’t grow as a community,” replied Selby.

“We’re asking so much of folks that we are already asking so much of … it’s hard to live here,” replied Wood.

Reminded again that this proposed music event was only two weeks prior to the Renewal concert, Selby, who had already offered to move this application forward another week, said “We got permits for Seven Peaks and Renewal that were only three weeks apart…  This is a gathering that is exciting for a lot of people – that energy and excitement is within the community around these events. There is an uplifting component for the whole community.”

Felt returned to concerns over the county and municipal law enforcement staff, pointing out that it would be the deputies who would develop the scenarios for the safety plans. “… I know they’ll do it, I know Michael [Sampliner] hasn’t made it this far not being able to organize what needs to be done. I am trying to figure out my job here, but I also feel that ultimately our job is to make a judgment here and I am really concerned about the overall impact to the community.”

“I was happy to approve Scotty and his Renewal. I would have felt really different about that permitting process if I’d known we were going to be hit with a different proposal two weeks earlier… I’ve asked a lot from that part of the community and heard their issues, tried to address them, but ultimately taken a position of ‘suck it up’ You live in a community and make space in your life for other people for an event like Renewal.”

He continued “We should compromise to fit things together. I don’t feel I can tell them to suck it up again in a two-week period of September. I’m open to how to mitigate those impacts to the community, to allow Michael and Jed to prove that this isn’t the ask that we think it is, without putting a serious impact to the people in that part of the community … you’d have to do something to turn this into something that is acceptable.”

Selby asked if he had any ideas, and at that point Felt raised the topic of smaller attendance numbers and the unknowns of the music and light package.

The BoCC sat in silence for several moments until Wood asked “What do we do, where do we go?”

Reimer suggested more discussion because of the questions raised by the BoCC about impacts.

Selby asked for the BoCC to have a little trust in him, reminding them that he has been helping to build community here since 2003. “What we’re asking for I understand you don’t feel completely comfortable but … grant us the courtesy to try this for one year. It would mean a tremendous thing to me, and to the 60-plus businesses supporting it — to the Boys and Girls Club. I’m asking for a favor that would mean a lot. To not get this would be a big setback for us. ”

Felt raised the prospect of more background about the long-term plans for the property. “I would like going forward, for the community and the future, some mechanism to understand the combo of this property and this property owner. He reminded the group that there is a Land Use Code and a special event venue permit and that this has created a vested right for a property. But he announced he didn’t want to do any more one-offs — he wants an over-all long-term plan to review things in context, even as he noted that there is “a situational element — the opportunity to add a [concert] stop.”

None of the BoCC raised what some might see as an obvious point; that what is being created in the environs of Buena Vista may be a fledgling mountain music industry.

There was another long pause and Wood noted that the BoCC was being asked to “give more to this event two weeks earlier than we allowed an established event and this would be a strain on local services.”

At that point that the commissioners began to debate attendee numbers and imagine scenarios in which Selby might return in three weeks with another event.

Selby asked for a work session with them to lay out longer-term plans for his property and his new LLC, and when he brought up the wish that in three to five years he’d love to put in sound and power to reduce the hauling in of everything, that began another tangent.

“Since this is a specific land use, I strongly discourage having a work session because it is a site-specific land application,” said Reimer, who then added the property is already an event venue. “If it isn’t, I don’t know what it is … Mr. Selby has indicated that he wants to do sound infrastructure in the next  three to five years. I’d like all involved to be aware of this. I suggest, that there is no more special event applications for this property.”

There was dead silence for a moment and Selby replied “I don’t agree with that.”

According to the Land Use Code (LUC), the county allows a property owner to do up to five special events/year. There are two total proposed for The Meadow. They are true special events, all equipment is temporary, there is a special event code and Selby is following those rules. He and Sampliner said that in the future there was “no reason why we couldn’t give you an overview for the year in like December before.”

Baker returned to his theme of crew rest and fatigue primarily for the sheriff’s office and at that point the BoCC began to suggest different attendee numbers. “8,500 would be a good benchmark for me. Then, I’d look for that notice about lighting, even if there isn’t any strobbing, there might be people sensitive to it that we don’t know about.”

Then he reminded the group of the outstanding cellular phone issue asking whether the new cell tower would be in (which is already a need for the Renewal Concert).

Wood returned to numbers, and again brought up the Renewal concert numbers (begun during a global pandemic). “We have to do something. My takeaway – we had success with Renewal at 7,500 people,  and allowed them to expand to 8,500. A known number.

Selby offered to move the new permit to the week of September 7, “less than ideal, but possible”.

The conversation swung back to the sheriff’s objections, and Wood said, “They don’t think they can do it, and you guys haven’t assured them that you can do it.”

Another silence followed. Wood noted that he was breaking precedent by making a motion to deny the permit application, adding that “the application isn’t complete enough for us to move forward. Baker seconded it.

“I think what I was going to suggest is typical of me in prolonging the agony,” commented Felt. “Despite John’s reluctance to meet with the applicant, to get together and talk about it.”

“It would prolong the agony for everybody,” responded Wood.

The question was called. The vote was two to one, with Felt voting no.