A temporary advisory committee for the Town of Palmer Lake’s Elephant Rock property has officially been created and is underway.

The Town of Palmer Lake Board of Trustees authorized the creation of a temporary Elephant Rock Advisory Committee by a 4-1 vote, with two trustees absent, April 11 at town hall in Palmer Lake. The committee will not be a decision-making authority but rather designed to gather, manage, analyze and present data regarding the aspects involved with the development of the town’s Elephant Rock property.

Palmer Lake planning commissioner Susan Minor heads the committee and said its not adding any new information to the property other than what has been there and presented. However, possible funding opportunities would be facets to the property within the committee’s focus. The committee’s meeting will not be for performing work but rather reporting findings of the work which needs to be done for the property, Minor said.

In addition, the committee would be subdivided into smaller teams to perform data review in the variety of facets which make up the development of the property as a whole.

The committee would also be responsible for creating multiple versions of a site plan based on interested elements looking to be a part of the development. The resolution which established the committee calls for it to have 10 members including representation from the town’s Planning Commission, Economic Development, Parks and Trails, Arts Commission and citizens at large.

A project manager with Hewlett Packard campuses in the Americas for 11 years that has managed teams as large as 25 people, Minor is not worried about overseeing the committee, especially with it breaking into smaller “micromanaged” groups to work on one specific facet of the property. She said ideally each represented town group on the committee would have two persons, and personal agendas would be “parked at the door.”

“We know in this town it’s hard. We all try parking the agenda at the front door, but its really like parking one of your kidneys. It’s just as hard to happen,” Minor said. “If we have two members from each group, then we have less of an opportunity for one person’s personal opinion about something taking over the voice for their entire group.”

Even if a second person from the same represented group has a conflicting opinion, then it creates balance in the reporting to the committee itself and enables the committee to present pros and cons to the Board of Trustees, she said.

Minor said she would be taking on the responsibility of the property’s infrastructure analysis and the funding sources and feasibility.

“We are going to get the infrastructure because we have to get roads and we have to get power. We have to get it up to code on all kinds of stuff just within the lot lines,” Minor said. “The town’s not going to pay for that. We’re going to have to figure that out.

“But one could be well-funded by bonds. And this one could be really well-funded by crowdsourcing. We’ll make those recommendations of the different funding options that are out there and we will hand that to [the Board].”

It was also determined no member serving on the committee could have any kind of financial gain by the development of Elephant Rock. Additional discussion also determined the resolution to create the committee would not repeal the Parks and Trails Commission’s project for the connecting trail project as it pertains to Elephant Rock.

“We are not intending in any way to interfere with what Parks has for plans,” Minor said. “We need to work with Parks. … They will tell us what they want. We want to make sure whatever trails they have in mind are properly laid out so we don’t build a building where they wanted a trail.

“We know from Day One, trails are highly important to our citizens so their work is protected.”

Minor also said the work provided by Richard and Lindsay Willan, which own the approved EcoSpa development within the Elephant Rock property, is also protected as a “done deal.”