CB’s Compass settles on four core values

Next up: polishing the strategic plan

[  By Mark Reaman  ]

Progress on Crested Butte’s Community Compass endeavor is grinding away as the town council continues to advise the staff writing the plan that the final document be concise and simple. Council and members of the Compass citizen’s advisory committee gave feedback on the most recent draft during a work session on Tuesday, July 5 and while complimentary of the staff having whittled down the “core values” to four, they pushed to have the strategy elements be as clear and lean as the values.

“I appreciate how much this has changed from the earlier version,” noted mayor Ian Billick. “It reflects a lot of work on your part.”

The Compass is meant to basically help guide the town council with future decision making by making clear the values and aspirations of the community. The town fully admits the community is at a crossroads given recent rapid growth and economic investment in the valley and it wants a framework for making decisions that may end up being contentious and controversial. 

The four primary values meant to represent the town’s deeply held beliefs and fundamental driving factors include: being authentic; being connected; being bold; and being accountable.

“Is this something we see in this community or something we want to see in the community?” asked councilperson Anna Fenerty. 

“My take is that it represents our values and what we aspire to,” said Billick.

“I like having the guidelines that we aspire to as a community,” added councilmember Gabi Prochaska.

Staff went through each of the four values explaining in detail what each meant and that having to “live by this value” might mean making hard decisions that included tradeoffs. For example, to be an authentic community, it was cited that the town has to have people living and working in it, have more rough edges than polished edges and have a vibe that is “diverse, modest and quirky.” To live by that value could mean mitigating the negative impacts of a tourism-based economy, ensuring that community members can continue to live and work in town, prioritizing the community’s needs over individual preferences and comfort, and “ensuring the town’s regulations and policies don’t inhibit creative and quirky architecture or art, and that new development maintains a modest feel.”

“It might be a worthwhile exercise to revisit a decision the town has made in the last couple years and see how it would fit in this Community Compass framework,” suggested Fenerty. 

“That’s a great idea to illustrate how this could be different,” said Crested Butte community development director Troy Russ.

“For context, you brought in 18 very engaged people to be on the advisory committee and vigorously debate all these values,” said citizen committee member Laura Puckett Daniels. “The council is reflecting the tensions and strengths we all felt during our discussions.”

“We may need to more clearly define the physical community,” said Fenerty. “Does it include Mt. CB, CB South, Almont?”

“It changes from topic to topic,” responded Russ. “Skyland residents may not care about traffic calming in town but they will care about the Whetstone housing project.”

The core values of being accountable and being bold generated the most overall discussion.

Being accountable included reducing development impacts on the natural environment, decreasing community greenhouse gas emissions and water usage, making CB accessible to those who work locally and “making the economy resilient…”

“I didn’t like the word accountable at first. I felt the word “responsible” would be better,” said Puckett Daniels. “But ultimately it felt like this word captured the mood of the room best.”

“Accountable is a bold word,” said councilmember Beth Goldstone. “I think it is amazing and great to use it as defined.”

“It is a strong word,” agreed committee member Jeff Hermanson. “Given our time and place it feels like we needed a strong commitment. Things like embracing higher density and putting growth near existing infrastructure are discussions that need to happen. It will be contentious, but the conversations are needed so being accountable felt right.”

“This stood out to me,” said councilmember Chris Haver. “It is one thing to have lofty goals and another to be realistic. So to be accountable for the realities that come with a decision is important. It encompasses to me what this is all about.”

“Being accountable will be easier to assess more than say the value of authenticity,” said councilmember Jason MacMillan. “We can use data to determine that success.”

“This value acknowledges we will be accountable for the decisions we make,” said Prochaska. 

“The accountability value introduces the reality of the situation where I think we have to give up some things to get other things,” said Billick. “It means we are dealing not just with lofty aspirations but real choices.”

As for being bold, committee member Sue Navy said that meant “being unafraid to take on challenges that might seem daunting at first.”

“It will take boldness to navigate the future,” agreed Hermanson.

“At first I interpreted bold as being rash,” said Haver. “But now I appreciate it. A lot of things Crested Butte has done have been bold. An example is the short-term rental (STR) situation being addressed early. I don’t see bold as being rash. I see all four of these values balancing each other out.”

“I almost see the bold value as being an umbrella over the other three,” said Prochaska. “It is okay to be daring. I really like that value.”

“Part of being bold is being brave enough to relook at things,” added Russ. “The STR example is only four years old, and it was very state-of-the-art when it was passed but we are already relooking at it and rewriting it.”

“Being bold and relooking at decisions is an antidote to the incrementalism that Troy talks about,” said MacMillan.

“Humans tend to often avoid decisions, which is a decision in itself,” said Billick. “This encourages decisions. The absence of a decision is often the demise of a situation.”

Implementation strategy…

The next part of the Compass is focused on how to use the core values as a guide for actual strategy to guide the community into the future. Using a five-year “roadmap for the town to implement strategies and actions to address the town’s most pressing challenges…” the goal of the Compass is to implement new action.

Russ outlined a four-step process in decision-making including what was deemed an “informed-consent model” that he said ensures everyone is aware of the tradeoffs and risks that come with a decision but no one objects to the solutions.  “The process is meant to empower you on the council to make a decision from the heart,” said Russ.

“It is important that people understand the process of how we got to a decision as well,” said Haver.

“It is important that everyone has the opportunity to be heard,” added Billick. “There will never be a decision that everyone agrees with, but it is important that everyone has the opportunity to get the information and participate.”

“The way the decision-making framework is currently defined needs to be distilled more,” said Puckett Daniels. “It was hard for me to get through this and I am highly engaged in the process.”

“It is important to have the right messaging and give people the opportunity to participate,” said Hermanson.

“We are still looking for ways to refine the draft,” assured Crested Butte planner Mel Yemma.

“Where we decide to focus will also be important,” said Billick. “Not everything is of the same importance. We shouldn’t be trying to tackle seven or eight things but rather three or four important things like workforce housing and climate mitigation.”

“Capacity is a limiting factor” suggested MacMillan who suggested more planning personnel might be helpful in implementing the Compass strategic plan. “We should think about putting more money toward the future.”

Billick disagreed with the idea that more funding would make it smoother. “We need to be careful. Necessity is the mother of invention. Just doing more doesn’t mean doing better. Sometime saying ‘I wish we had more resources’ is a crutch.”

“Connecting Compass to council goals will impact the annual town budget,” said Russ.

Billick emphasized he wanted less of a “punch list” and more of an actual “strategy” for the strategic plan and goals. He suggested a strategy of focusing on concentrating growth and recreation impacts near the towns and then preserving big swaths of conserved lands in places like wilderness and ranches for example.

The work session ended with the direction to continue to make the Compass even more simplified and trimmed down. A work session centered on a strategic action plan will be held August 2 while the final Compass draft will be presented to the council in October. Adoption is slated for early November.