Since 2022, U.S. Air Force veteran Loretta Kuhlman has organized the hanging of Routt County Military Tribute Banners along the main street of Steamboat Springs to honor those that have served.

This year, for the first time, that recognition will come at a cost.

Kuhlman and the leadership of the American Legion Post 44 and the VFW Post 4264 jointly run the banners program.

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In the past the groups had an agreement to pay $250 to put the banners up and another $250 to take them down, but Kuhlman said the group had never been charged for that amount. This year, they were told by Main Street Steamboat that they would need to pay the $2,500 cost to install and then take down the banners.

“When Main Street Steamboat had their annual retreat in October, they said they were going to develop a banner program, a banner policy,” Kuhlman said. “Then last Wednesday, Main Street notified me that they’d had their meeting, and that they could put the banners up, but that there would be a $2,500 cost.”

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News of the unexpected cost came in a letter from Lisa Popovich, the executive director of Main Street Steamboat, who said that her organization had received several quotes for installation, and that $2,500 would be the cost.

Popovich could not be reached for comment prior to this newspaper’s deadline.

The price tag came as a surprise to veterans in the community who wrote letters and emails and showed up to Tuesday’s Steamboat Springs City Council meeting to make their voices heard. It was during that meeting that council decided to step up and cover the cost of hanging the banners this year.

 “We covered the $2,500 for them out of a contingency fund that council has,” said Council Member Steve Muntean. “I think part of the issue has always been that Main Street Steamboat operates on a very minimal budget, so as they started to look at things and trying to cover costs the banners turned out to be an area where they obviously were losing money.”

The good news for veterans is that the banners will be hung Nov. 1 ahead of the Veterans Day holiday. The discussion, however, is not over. The veterans groups will need to pay at least $2,500-$3,000 to have the banners put up next spring for Memorial Day and the cost is expected to continue to increase in the future.

“We have partnerships with Main Street on several fronts, including watering the flowers in the summertime, the banners on the polls and the banners that go across Lincoln,” said City Manager Gary Suiter. “They’re the ones that handle those (programs) administratively.”

Suiter said there are more than 200 nonprofits in Steamboat Springs, and that the city used to give away a large majority of services and assistance to those nonprofits. He said a few years back, the city looked at balancing its budget and identified the need to recoup those costs. The city manager said he believes Main Street Steamboat had been absorbing that cost, but is also an area where they need to recoup the costs.

“Hiring someone to do this with the expectation that it’s going to be super low cost, or free is not realistic,” Suiter said. “It just costs money to get things done. I know people are outraged by (charging veterans), but it costs money to get these tasks accomplished.”

Suiter recommends that community groups, like the American Legion and VFW, that are looking for services from the city go to the Human Resource Coalition of Routt County to apply for grants that could help cover the cost.

“I think the nonprofits that are looking for free services from the city need to go through the community coalition process, which has three categories of grants — including human services, arts and culture and environmental,” Suiter said. “It existed when I got here nine years ago, and I’m encouraging them to go through the community coalition process and apply for grants through that process. That way we don’t have individual nonprofits coming in and asking the city council for money as a one-off.”

He said it’s not an efficient way to do business and that it is not fair to all the other nonprofits.

“It’s better if they just go through the designed process, which is designed to have committees of residents receive applications under each category, and judge those applications, and award that $800,000 plus that we grant to the community coalitions every year. It’s important they go through that process, as opposed to coming in as individuals and asking for money,” said Suiter.

Muntean said Tuesday that the city stepping in will mean the banners will be up for Veterans Day and will give the officials time to identify solutions and explore other options.  The veterans had volunteered to hang the banners, but were told that the Main Street Board does not want outside volunteers to put up the banners because of liability issues.

“We are going to try to meet at the next Main Street board meeting and try to work through this and see what options we have,” explained Muntean. “These are veterans, and organizations with members that were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. I think we need to do whatever we can to support them, so we’re trying.”