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Rifle raises park fees to snare visitor dollars

Alex Zorn
  

Both Rifle residents and visitors enjoy everything Rifle Mountain Park has to offer, even in the winter.
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For the first time in years, park and recreation fee rates for Rifle Mountain Park and other recreation areas in Rifle increased for 2017. Rifle City Council approved of the rate increase at the Jan. 18 meeting in hopes of keeping more tourism money in town.

“A lot of fees don’t get adjusted regularly and we are trying to do it on a regular basis to keep up with things,” said Parks and Recreation Director Tom Whitmore.

A county road bisects the park, so to get to Rifle Mountain Park, visitors can take roads through New Castle and Silt, meaning that they may not spend any money in Rifle. It also means that since the parking lot is on the honor system and costs $5 for the day, it can easily be abused.



“Folks that come to Mountain Park often don’t stay at Rifle,” Whitmore said. “Right now Silt and New Castle get most of the tourism dollars so we want to try to get out-of-towners to visit Rifle.”

Many of the park fee increases were determined by cost of service, but some were determined through introspection. The Rifle Mountain Park Community House fees saw the steepest increase because Whitmore thought that the fees there were “really too low because it was cheaper to go to the Community House rather than set up a picnic outside.”



Community House fees increased to $45 for Rifle residents and community groups for Sunday through Thursday and $80 for Friday and Saturday. Nonresidential rates are now $55 for Sunday through Thursday and $110 for Friday and Saturday.

Another fee that increased was the cost for a second vehicle pass at Rifle Mountain Park. The pass now costs $10 for Rifle residents, $15 for Garfield County residents and $25 for nonresidents, an increase of $5 for each. Whitmore said that the impact of vehicles on the park is one of the main reasons that it is necessary to hire city staff and Rifle police to look after the park.

The rate increases sought to be fair to residents.

“We try to make it as economically beneficial to residents of Rifle as possible,” Whitmore explained. “The fees are to offset the cost of labor. If we didn’t have labor, the park would become overrun.”

Whitmore estimated that the revenue collected through fees helps to offset 75 percent of the cost to run the park. The other 25 percent comes from the parks and recreation fund.


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