Ballots sent out, voters to decide whether Keystone should become an incorporated town

The time has come for neighbors living near Keystone resort to decide if they want to become Keystone the town, and not just unincorporated Summit County.

CBS News Colorado has reported previously on the efforts of Keystone resort's founder to bring this to a vote before, now ballots are officially in the mail for residents to make a few choices. The people in favor of incorporating feel pretty confident right now, after a pair of surveys showed majority intrest.

"Roughly 70% are in favor of incorporation, roughly 15 undecided, and 15 % no," Tim Huiting, VP of Keystone incorporation Committee told Mountain Newsroom Reporter Spencer Wilson.

Ballots can be dropped off at the Keystone Center on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M. They need to be dropped off by March 28.

While they're feeling okay about their chances, the organization is trying to help clear up common misconceptions when it comes to where the money is coming from in order to make this work.

"Property tax still goes to the county, what comes to Keystone, all of the sales tax which is about $2.5 million a year, then all the fees that we pay to certain programs ... all the workforce housing, all those things together come up to $4.5 million," Huiting said. 

"That would be for Keystone that we could decide what we want to work on."

That ranges from trail improvements to traffic control. Two Dillon police officers would be paid to make Keystone (the possible town) their zone of coverage, and therefore would include traffic control for the massive amount of skier traffic coming through all winter.

"You see the semis and hazmat vehicles screaming through here at 45-50 miles per hour when people standing there with skis trying to dash across the road," Huiting said. "We are going to be able to control that for the first time (if we win.)"

To put any fears of tax increases for locals to rest, Huiting explained why they would not be relying on property tax money to make sure things get done.

"This is unique, we have three sources of revenue that we would use before even thinking about a property tax," Huiting said. "We have sales tax coming from a huge resort, we have a lodging tax which we could put in place (which we don't have today,) or a lift ticket tax which we could do with Vail Resorts and fix transportation and parking and some of those issues."

"The only way we would put a property tax on is if the voters decided to tax themselves instead of taxing the visitors."

If people still have questions about how they'd like to vote, Huiting said he was more than willing to help educate people to make sure they are making the right choice.

"We keep saying 'Go to the website, go to the website, everything you could want to know is on the website, we are completely transparent to all of the data,'" Huiting said, referring to incorporatekeystone.wildapricot.org.