Central hauls Of-Highway Vehicle plan of to junkyard

By Don Ireland

City is what we need. We need to
put our positives on something
everyone can agree on – not
quarreling on a project that we’re
not sure of.”

whole thing would’ve been costly.
I think that if there had been a
vote, it would’ve gone down. It
would’ve been a waste of our time
and money for a pilot program. I
think it’s a good decision to save
the money and stuff.”

ken voted against it. However,
the council hit the brakes on the
program recently, saying they
were busy dealing with the city’s
2024 budget and other matters.
At the time, they predicted that
discussion of the program would
resume in the early months of the
new year.

Senior Reporter
A controversial plan allowing
Off-Highway Vehicles to travel
along Central City streets won’t
happen anytime soon. At least,
not in 2024.

Fey said, “My hesitation in
backing down – so to speak, for
lack of a better term – was that
some people would see it as a
sign. It would be seen that if the
council made a decision they
disagreed with, they would only
have to come to the council or
have conversations on the street,
and we would reverse that [deci-
sion]. I didn’t want to set that
precedent. I hope the people –
especially
the Pros-
pector’s
Run folks –
won’t look
at this as a
conciliato-
ry measure.
It’s not that
we’re back-
ing down
from what
our opin-
ions have
been – we’ve just got bigger fish
to fry than whether we should
have side-by-side [vehicles] in
town.”

Alderman Todd Williams said,
“I would like to add that I ap-
preciate the conversations I’ve
had – both positive and not-so-
affirmative conversations – about
the whole program. Mr. Mayor, I
appreciate the time we’ve spent
talking about it, and I think we’re
in agreement on where we are
right now with it.”

Mayor Jeremy Fey said a pro-
posed pilot OHV program, which
had been eyed to begin this
spring, is no longer on the table
before the council. He announced
during the council meeting on
Tuesday night, Feb. 6, that sev-
eral other economic-related mat-
ters are a higher priority.

Since the discussion of the OHV
program surfaced last summer,
several residents turned out
to protest the idea. Aiken and
Enloe suggested at the time that
the proposal should be put to a
vote by residents. Residents who
opposed the plan said they were
concerned that trucks hauling
OHVs by trailer to the national
forest north of the city would
lead to speeding, noise and safety
issues for those who live along
Eureka and Lawrence streets.

While the short agenda indicat-
ed the council meeting wouldn’t
last long, a question about the
OHV program by resident Zane
Plzek led the council to slow
down the meeting and explain its
previously unannounced explana-
tion about stopping the effort.

Fey offered
the final word
on the sub-
ject, “I often
tell my four
girls that
wisdom is not
the ability
to get out of
trouble but
to avoid it
altogether.
The last thing
I ever wanted
to do was to put the residents –
or anyone – or the tourists on
these vehicles in harm’s way. I
didn’t want to bring conflict. That
really was the end of decision-
making for me. I wouldn’t want
to put any resident who would
be up in arms about it in a place
where they think they’d have to
confront a wrongdoer on a vehi-
cle. It wouldn’t be a healthy thing
to do. That’s one thing I wanted
to avoid – conflict.”

“It’s not that we’re
backing down from what our
opinions have been – we’ve
just got bigger fish to fry than
whether we should have side-
by-side [vehicles] in town.”

Several residents who de-
nounced the proposal told the
council they were nearly struck
by speeding vehicles traveling
up Eureka Street toward the U.S.
Forest Service lands. Among
those who voiced opposition were
Plzek and other Prospector’s Run
residents, whose HOA is near the
upper end of Eureka.

Fey gave a detailed explanation
of why the council is abandoning
the OHV plan for the foreseeable
future. He said he had discussed
the pilot program with aldermen
Kara Tinucci and Todd Williams,
who voted last August to move
ahead.

­— Mayor Jeremy Fey

“It wasn’t an easy decision to
make,” said Fey about postpon-
ing the plan for the foreseeable
future. “We have decided to table
the issue for now and not move
ahead with the pilot program.”

Some opponents cited a similar
situation in the southern Colo-
rado town of Silverton. Residents
there voted to ban OHVs from
community streets in 2021. How-
ever, several businesses said the
ban caused them to lose revenues
from visitors and asked for an-
other vote. In October, residents
again rejected the concept of per-
mitting OHVs in the community.

“To anyone who’s in favor of the
program, please call on me. There
were some people and busi-
nesses who were excited to see
what those results could be. Let’s
talk about it. At a future date, if
there’s a strong sentiment from
the residents or businesses, we’ll
reconsider it. For now, the coun-
cil has made the decision – and I
think [aldermen] Marsha [Enloe]
and Jeff [Aiken] would concur
– that it’s not worthy of further
consideration at
this time.”

“I want to be clear that our
decision was not based on a clear
understanding that it’s not the
right thing to do, one way or the
other,” continued the mayor. “We
just formed a Downtown Devel-
opment Authority and an Urban
Redevelopment Authority. We’re
looking at economic development
around this town. Not everyone
may be on the same page, but
nobody knows if the program
would’ve had a net positive or net
negative. The three of us believed
that it would be positive, and
that’s why we voted that way. We
don’t know. We do know that
further development in Central

Last fall, Fey, Tinucci and
Williams voted to move ahead
to study an OHV pilot program
for 2024, while Enloe and Ai-

Even neighboring Black Hawk
weighed in against the plan
last fall. Mayor David Spellman
warned that his city’s police

would immediately issue
tickets to any OHV that
ventured off Central City
streets into Black Hawk.