Long-time local wants to help Steamboat address challenges rather than respond to crises in Council bid
- Dylan Anderson
- 7 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Kelly Phillips, who helped overturn Brown Ranch annexation last year, says city is often caught reacting to issues, rather than planning for the future.
For 25 years, Kelly Phillips was a commercial diver spending months away at a time — a career sparked by one call after he got out of the Army. But eight years ago, Phillips was ready for another change that would keep him closer to his family in Steamboat.
“I got a chance to buy this,” Phillips said, referring to his business, Precision Repair Service & Sale, one of the only shops in town that specializes in small gas engines. “I’m not a tourist-based business… I’ve just gotten to know everybody in the Yampa Valley.”
Getting to know so many people is the most satisfying part of his job, Phillips said. It’s also made him feel like a lot of people trying to make it in Steamboat are just like him.
“This is where my people are,” Phillips said. “I’ve lived a lot of different places in my life; I’ve been all over the world and I still think this is the best place that I’ve ever been.”
Phillips, who is running for the District One seat on Steamboat Springs City Council, said the City Council is constantly responding to crises rather than properly setting the city up for the future.
“Every time someone says crisis, it sets off bells and whistles,” Phillips said. “That’s where I feel like you need to take a step back and have a balanced approach and think about the future instead of the absolute present.”
An example of this, Phillips said, is when Council paused and later repealed inclusionary zoning policies during the Great Recession in response to what developers called a crisis at the time.
Phillips said also believes City Council is “out of touch” with the community, a point he said is supported by a 27% approval rating of Council from 2024’s community survey. A survey earlier this year put City Council’s approval rating at 35%. Phillips is challenging City Council President Gail Garey for the District One seat.
The biggest example of Council being out of touch for Phillips is when they opted not to send Brown Ranch annexation to a vote in October 2023. Phillips was on the petitioner’s committee that would later force 2024’s Brown Ranch referendum. Now, he sits on the Brown Ranch Deliberation and Stewardship Team.
He said he feels that Council wouldn’t listen when people said they wanted fewer rentals, more single-family homes, creative solutions like mobile home parks, and a market-rate component to help pay for development at Brown Ranch.
“All those things that we were talking about a year and a half ago, we were talking about at the last meeting,” Phillips said, referring to last month’s DST meeting. “I know we need affordable housing. I don’t know if Brown Ranch is the answer, but we could be a year and a half ahead of the game if somebody would have listened a year and a half ago.”
Phillips said he also feels the city needs to think more outside the box to address the future. One of those out-the-box ideas for Phillips is redevelopment on 13th Street.
“It’s on the bike path, doesn’t impact traffic on [U.S. Highway] 40, and you could have the Yellow Line be its own personal taxi,” Phillips said. “You could fill restaurants with dishwashers and cooks and waitresses and waiters and they could actually walk to work.”
That area, which is where Phillip’s business is located, is currently home to several industrial uses, but more units have been built there in recent years. While he understands there is concern about losing commercial and industrial space in Steamboat, Phillips said that could be a great use for some land out at Brown Ranch.
“We build out some commercial and industrial at Brown Ranch, then you come over here to the owners of the property on 13th Street,” Phillips said. “It doesn’t matter to these guys whether they’re here or up behind Napa. … You could totally reinvent 13th Street.”
Not only would that address shortages of commercial and industrial space, but it would also locate housing in a place where impacts could be limited. More commercial and industrial space could better support the buildout of infrastructure at Brown Ranch too, as both generate revenue for the city.
“It goes back to the challenge versus crisis,” he continued. “Everybody wants to jump in and all hands on deck and throw money and energy and resources at a crisis. What that makes them do is stop the forward thinking.”
Transparency, especially around the city budget, is another big issue for Phillips, especially as the city budget has seen steep increases since COVID. Rather than look for new revenues right away, Phillips said he wants a thorough look at whether the city is spending its money judiciously.
“Before I start saying okay to a bunch of different taxes and property taxes and things like that — which we may end up at,” Phillips said. “We’ve been a sales tax-based economy since the 70s. I’m wondering what’s changed.”