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Aspen City Council to continue review of hospital project

Staff report
The Aspen Times
Aspen CO Colorado

ASPEN – More discussion regarding the third and fourth phases of Aspen Valley Hospital’s expansion project is scheduled for Monday’s Aspen City Council meeting.

The meeting begins at 5 p.m. in the basement of City Hall at 130 S. Galena St. The hospital-project talks are listed at the end of the meeting agenda. While a council vote is possible, it’s just as likely that the matter will continue at the council’s April 22 meeting.

A recent memorandum to council members from Jennifer Phelan, deputy director of the city’s Community Development Department, states that hospital officials “will discuss issues that have come up at previous hearings” and provide exhibits.



Topics expected to come up for discussion include:

• Rightsizing: “The applicant will be providing an overview of why the hospital is sized the way it is and how it was designed using contemporary standards at the hearing,” the memo says.




• Sequencing of development: Hospital officials will discuss why the redevelopment was phased as proposed.

• Cost financing: “The applicant will further discuss their anticipated financing of the phases III and IV at the hearing,” Phelan wrote.

• Landscaping: Details for landscaping the site will be provided.

• Lighting: At a previous hearing, Mayor Mick Ireland requested that city staff review the lighting that is proposed for the site.

In other business, council members are expected to weigh an ordinance created by City Attorney Jim True that would require that campaign contributions of less than $20, and the names and addresses of the donors who make them, be reported on election finance reports.

State law allows undisclosed donations of less than $20. The city’s proposed change to its election rules would supercede state law.

“In recent elections, parties have collected money in individual amounts of less than $20 in concerted efforts to promote undisclosed donations,” True said in a memo. “Some have argued that obtaining these undisclosed donations, even in such small amounts, are harmful to the election process. It has been argued that this effort promotes a lack of civility in the election process and is unnecessarily and inappropriately divisive in a small community such as Aspen.”

A public hearing on that issue is scheduled, as well.

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