The Routt County Planning Department in Steamboat Springs, Colorado plays a vital role in ensuring that land usage in the county is lawful, efficient, and sustainable. The department issues various permits for different land uses, each requiring a public notice component.

Blake Kelly, a Planner Technician for Routt County Planning, explained that these notices serve to inform adjacent property owners and the wider public about land events taking place in their neighborhood. “If a property owner is going to be having a special event on their land that’s public, the neighbors need to know what’s going on,” Kelly elaborated. The notices also tell the community about county hearings that are taking place related to these activities, so that everyone has the opportunity to provide comments and feedback.

Routt County Planning places these notices in their local paper, the Steamboat Pilot & Today. The newspaper then publishes and distributes the information to the public. In July 2022, the Steamboat Pilot & Today started partnering with Column to streamline public notice placement and offer a more convenient self-serve experience to their county.

Before the newspaper adopted Column, Kelly acknowledged that the notice placement process could be difficult. “It was burdensome to keep track of the notice and make sure that things were getting posted when they needed to be,” said Kelly. “Now, Column provides great visibility into the process, letting us know what we need to know when we need to know it.”

Michael Eggert, the Planning Office Technician, is an active user of Column. “I use Column a little bit every day,” said Eggert. “I use it to place ads, make the payments, and see when our planners are placing ads. I love how it all happens really fast. There’s not a ton of delay and I haven’t experienced any hiccups using it. Column is very intuitive to use. We had to add new payments recently, and that was really easy.”

Kelly commends Column for “helping us make sure we get notices out to the community. It increases our visibility into what notices are in progress and lets us easily track their payment statuses. It also conveniently consolidates all information related to each notice, including its progress, billing status, and any necessary actions that need to be taken.”

Favorite Parts of Column:

• Email Notifications. “I like that every email I get from Column is important,” Eggert added. “When I see that an email is from Column, I know that means I have to do something with it — put it in this folder or that one, or load the affidavit into our software and make sure that it’s publicly viewable. The notifications are all necessary.”
• Enhanced Relationship with Newspaper. Kelly said, “It’s clear that Column pays attention to every user on their platform. The experience is streamlined for us and for the newspaper. We still have access to everyone we need to talk to at the Steamboat Pilot. It hasn’t degraded any of those relationships. Column only enhances the services and offerings of the newspaper. Column seems more like a partner to the newspaper than anything else.”
• Fast Support. Kelly also commended the responsiveness and professionalism of the Column support team. “The one time we had any hiccup with the system, the Column support team was incredible,” says Kelly. “The system makes it very easy to get support when you need it. It was only one time and it was taken seriously and handled gracefully and professionally by Column support.”