The first of two campaign pieces encouraging Basalt residents to vote for the purchase of the riverfront Pan and Fork Mobile Home Park landed in mailboxes yesterday.

The piece proclaims that “Basalt’s Future is in your hands” and states that “the Pan and Fork Mobile Home Park is for sale and Basalt has the opportunity to acquire the land at a fair price. A YES vote will mean protecting the river front for an active park and recreation area at our town’s entrance.”

It also says it was “Paid for by Citizens for the Entrance to Basalt.”

Two former Basalt Town Council members are the principals of the Citizens for the Entrance to Basalt, which was formed to help win voter approval for purchase of the trailer park.

Jacque Whitsitt, who is running for another term on the council, and Anne Freedman are organizing the campaign. Freedman is the official “agent” for the citizens’ advocacy group.

The cost of the design, printing and mailing of the two direct mail pieces is being covered by the bond underwriting firm of Stifel Nicolaus & Company of Denver.

If the voters approve the $5 million purchase of the park, bonds will be issued to raise the money to pay the current owner and Stifel Nicolaus would presumably get a fee to handle the issuance and sale of the bonds.

“Our funding has been mostly in kind from the bond counsel folks who are working on this project,” Whitsitt said. “And the labor is coming from just a handful of people on our end.”

In January,  Basalt Town Council voted unanimously to purchase the 5.3-acre trailer park, which today is home to 37 families.

The council members envision turning the 3.5 acres of the park that is in the floodplain of the Roaring Fork River into a public park, and redeveloping the remaining 1.8 acres along Two Rivers Road and Midland Avenue into a mix of commercial and residential buildings.

Whitsitt was out of town when the council decided to ask voters about the project, but got involved when she returned and learned that a citizens’ committee had not yet been formed to lobby for passage of the ballot question.

“I asked who was running the campaign and they said ‘No one,’” Whitsitt said. “We’re a little behind the eight ball and we’re just trying to get people up to speed.”

Whitsitt, who has been going door to door this week in support of her own candidacy, said that a lot of voters still have questions about the purchase of the trailer park, especially about the long-term outcome of the deal, which includes relocating the park’s current residents at some point.

And as one might expect, Whitsitt has been pushing the upside of the purchase.

“Normally, a public investment on a park has absolutely no return,” she said. “But this will return $20,000 a month in rental income until the trailers are gone. When it is redeveloped, there will be money to pay down the bonds. And when the bonds are paid down, the taxes will go away.”

At a Basalt candidates’ forum on Wednesday, Basalt attorney Garret Brandt spoke out against buying the park, saying there wasn’t a clear long-term plan for the property and that he wasn’t comfortable with relying on third-party developers to help repay the public’s investment.

When asked about the name of her advocacy group, “Citizens for the Entrance to Basalt,” Whitsitt said the potential public park would in fact be a key part of the arrival experience into Basalt along both Two Rivers Road and Midland Avenue.

But given that the phrase “the Entrance to Aspen” conjures up images of endless traffic gridlock and an intractable logistical problem, Whitsitt did acknowledge the potentially negative connotations of the phrase, “the Entrance to Basalt.”

The second mailing piece from the Citizens for the Entrance to Basalt, and the Denver investment bank hoping to issue bonds, should land in Basalt mailboxes next week.


That piece urges citizens to “Help Beautify the Entrance to Basalt.”

bgs@aspendailynews.com