The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Subcommittees being formed to identify specific goals
By Adam Broderick
The One Valley Prosperity Project (OVPP), spearheaded by the Gunnison County Community Development Department and facilitated by the Community Builders Task Force, has spent the better part of the past year gathering public input about what the community thinks it means to be “prosperous” and brainstorming ideas on how to move forward in changing times while managing growth to benefit the greater good.
Thursday night, November 5, the OVPP hosted a public gathering in the ballroom at Western State’s University Center, calling the event Prosperity—Getting From Here to There. After people mingled over complimentary food and drink, they filled nearly every seat in the ballroom and the action began.
Gunnison County Commissioner Jonathan Houck is on the task force and opened the evening with a question regarding the group’s work to gather community input so far.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know why we live here. We know why we love it. But what are we going to do now? And in the end, how does this not end up being some plan, in some binder, on some shelf collecting dust?” Houck asked.
One of the main goals of the OVPP is to determine how the community could improve collaboration from one end of the valley to the other. So far, the collaborative idea of prosperity has been narrowed down to three key components: Being surrounded by caring and engaged community members; feeling connected to nature; and enjoying a healthy and active lifestyle. So the question is, how do we keep these core values in line as we grow and adapt to change in coming years?
After about a half-hour introduction to the OVPP and what it’s working to accomplish, the audience got a chance to spend 40 minutes in an “open house” event format. They floated between three stations in the room, jotting down ideas on each of the event’s main discussion topics—sustainable recreation and tourism management, affordable workforce housing, and economic resiliency.
Once the brainstorm posters at each station in the room had been covered with countless sticky notes and everybody had a chance to anonymously give their two cents, the room broke into three groups to come up with a set of core values for each topic.
The affordable housing group, led by public engagement consultant Marjo Curgus, discussed things such as which values should drive future workforce housing policies, how to maintain community cohesiveness and promote social equity, and how to balance housing production so there is an opportunity to live at either end of the Gunnison Valley.
The sustainable recreation and tourism group, led by Russ Forrest, assistant county manager for community and economic development, discussed ways to respect the carrying capacity of the valley when considering things such as promoting recreation and events that bring large visitor numbers, how to educate the public about backcountry use and promote respect among different user groups, and how to further diversify the high quality of recreational experiences that abound in this neck of the woods.
The economic resiliency group, led by Clark Anderson, Colorado program director for the Sonoran Institute, made it clear that economic development and growth can legitimately be seen as a threat, and discussed ways to make that growth most manageable. Developing in a compound way to avoid infrastructure difficulties was a focal point, as were diversifying the economy to grow jobs locally and attract businesses that align with community goals, and improving access to transportation, working capital, and technology like consistent broadband service.
Russ Forrest says it is obvious that as a whole this valley will continue to grow, but that growth needs to be leveraged to protect the things we all love. Some community members in the ballroom last Thursday expressed appreciation with the number of people who came out, and some saw it as evidence that this valley is full of concerned community members willing to come together to discuss goals and strategies that will affect us all in the near future.
In fact, Forrest said earlier this week that the task force was still deciding how many people they will need to help compile all the comments.
Public engagement consultant Curgus lives in Salida and says when she and Anderson, whom she met when she also worked with the Sonoran Institute, look at this community as outsiders, they see a remarkable group of people willing to come together and share ideas, not just for individual benefits but for all involved.
“I wish I could have that in my community,” Curgus told the News. “I’m pretty jealous that everyone’s so well aligned. In comparison with a lot of places I’ve worked with across the West, this place is in a great position.”
Moving into the next OVPP phase, subcommittees are being assembled to put together action plans for each main discussion topic, and eventually a draft plan will be written. People signed up for whichever subcommittee they desired at last week’s event, but were advised that whichever group they joined would require a lot of work.
Forrest says the task force will have an internal organizational discussion on November 18 to lay out a game plan with structural details and a meeting schedule, then will be in touch with people who signed up for subcommittees.
For more information about the OVPP and its progress, visit OneValleyProsperityProject.com
