Although the Fremont County Board of Commissioners tabled consideration of a Temporary Use Permit for the artist Christo’s proposed ‘Over the River’ (OTR) project until their February 28th board meeting, the Board has now announced that the matter is expected to be tabled again to one of the board meetings in March. The Board of Commissioners was informed this past Tuesday by the OTR planning team that they will now seek an extension of all federal, state, and local permits so that the river exhibition period would occur in August of 2015 instead of 2014. Steve Coffin, Over the River project team spokesman said, "The thoroughness of the BLM's environmental review process resulted in the decision being issued several months later than originally planned. As a result, the BLM's final environmental impact statement authorized 28 months for installation, but only 24 months remained.”
Upon learning of the planned delay of the exhibition until 2015 the Board of Commissioners directed staff to inform the OTR team that they would not be required to have representatives at the February 28th meeting. The item has to appear on the February 28th agenda because of the formal action taken previously to table to that date. County Commission Chair Debbie Bell said it’s expected the Board will take further action to table consideration of the OTR permit to the March 13th or 27th meetings.
Coffin went on to say in the OTR news release that Christo believes that because the public continues to express a strong desire to see the specifics of the event management plan the public may not have sufficient time to understand this detailed information before installation begins. He also said the final details for the initial installation phases won't be fully developed for some months.
The Fremont County Board of Commissioners meets at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, February 28th, at the County Administration Building. Chairman Bell also noted that because the official written comment period ended on February 9th, no other public comment, written or oral, will be accepted at Tuesday’s meeting.