Crested Butte Community Compass entering new phase

How are core values defined?

[  By Mark Reaman  ]

Crested Butte is moving into the third phase of the Community Compass process and on Monday, May 2 the town council held a retreat to listen to progress from town staff and provide feedback on the initiative. Phase three is centered on developing the decision-making framework and action plan that will help guide the council with decisions that might involve conflict of community values.

Several in-depth discussions took place in the almost two-hour Compass retreat and while council appreciated the emergence of draft community values that would be the foundation of the Compass, most wanted to trim those down to ensure a useable document emerges from the Compass process. The hope from staff is to refine the data gathered to this point and come up with a draft plan that can be presented to the council and community in early June.

“The Compass is meant to be a framework of how to address challenges,” community development director Troy Russ explained. “The values are aspirational statements of how we address the challenges.”

Basically, the seven values presented at the retreat included: being a welcoming culture; having a genuine connection to the outdoors; maintaining a great quality of life; maintaining a livable and functional town; having streets designed for people; maintaining the pursuit of a lifestyle that prefers presence over apathy; and having a community where everyone has a voice and a place in the town’s future. 

Mayor Ian Billick’s “quick feedback” was that he was concerned there was too much in the presented draft values, noting the seven identified values included detail of about 30 themes. “I would suggest a shorter list,” he said. “Bring it down since a value is something you are willing to sacrifice something else for. What are they?”

“We are hesitant to voice trade-offs now,” said Russ.

“Ideally the trade-offs are not included in the core values,” stated Billick. “But they could be part of the core document. For example, if we say we value working lands (like ranches), to what extent? Are we willing to give up trails? Are we willing to understand the inconvenience of cattle sharing the land we might use? If the values are just ‘wants’ we won’t have informed decision making.”

“I agree. There is probably no community in the world that doesn’t want to be a ‘welcoming community’ so I think these should be more Crested Butte-specific,” said councilmember Mallika Magner.

“I would say also that ‘streets designed for people’ is not a core value,” said Billick. “They could be designed that way but it isn’t a core value. I would say the core values list is missing the idea of the community being authentic and bold. It feels those are both core values.”

“We do pride ourselves on being innovative in many areas,” said Magner.

“I would suggest getting rid of statements that don’t immediately convey what they mean,” said Billick. “For example, what does it mean that everyone has a voice? That doesn’t seem a core value. For me, core value is community, and designing streets for people is a mechanism of helping community.”

“What is the right number of core values?” asked Compass consultant Myles Graham. “I’m hearing the core values have more to do with things like connectiveness, lifestyle, stewardship, authenticity and the courage to be bold?”

“Being a real town is important,” said councilmember Chris Haver. “It’s important to be a functioning town for the locals who live here.”

“Being able to come here to get things, holding events for locals, having relationships beyond those based in your occupation is the heart of it,” added councilmember Beth Goldstone. “The resort is up the hill.”

“Each value will have a series of success measures and those success measures will help explain the core pieces,” said Russ.

“I’d like something stating that we want to be able to afford to live here,” said Magner. “That we value a middle-class lifestyle. I’m not sure how to put that in a value but locals should live here.”

“I would expand that so that locals can stay here and grow with jobs and housing,” said Billick. “Being able to retain community is important.”

“Growing and thriving is important,” added councilmember Jason MacMillan.

Council had a long discussion on whether being welcoming was a true Crested Butte value. 

“The welcoming value sounded more like a tourist thing than a worker thing,” said councilmember Anna Fenerty. 

Billick said Crested Butte has always been a place that weeded out those who could not embrace some of the hardships and he reminded everyone that one part of the feedback being received was not to get rid of the “edginess” of the community. 

The council’s initial impression was that the draft values described a place they want to live but in the context of the Community Compass those values should probably be trimmed. The staff will attempt that exercise this month and actively engage the community at things like softball games and Alpenglow concerts to get more citizen feedback. From there, the finished Compass is expected to be released by the end of the summer. 

“We need to keep the community support and momentum going,” said Russ.

For the current information on the Compass initiative visit: www.crestedbuttecompass.com.