The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Suggestions focused on five areas….
By Mark Reaman
The Crested Butte town council has generated a detailed outline of what it hopes is included in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Gunnison County over the upcoming Corridor Plan. The five-page memo defines roles and responsibilities along with hoped for process outcomes. Council discussed the memo at the April 20 council meeting. New Assistant Gunnison County Manager for Community and Economic Development April Kroner was at the meeting as well.
Town manager Dara MacDonald said she didn’t expect the final MOU to include everything in the memo, but she and Community Development director Mel Yemma made clear they hope starting off with clear understandings can help the overall process.
“Clarity can help with a challenging process like this,” said Yemma. “The MOU is intended to guide us toward useful outcomes.”
The town memo focuses on five suggested topic areas: 1) Intended outcome and elected body adoption and endorsement; 2) Roles and responsibilities —staff vs. elected officials; 3) Communication, transparency, and conflict resolution- communication process; 4) Conflict resolution and managing changes; 5) How feedback is documented and used.
“My ultimate goal is to get something adopted,” said councilmember Kent Cowherd. “That hasn’t always happened. We need a collaborative process where we all work together.”
“I like the idea of defining roles with the staff and elected officials,” said councilmember Beth Goldstone. “I appreciate understanding those roles.”
“My take is that we’re looking for a process with the idea of ‘informed consent,’ said mayor Ian Billick. “We understand the county commissioners ultimately make the decision, but we want to be in a process where we know we are heard. We also want a process with a lot of communication. There will no doubt be issues that come up in the process, but we want a healthy, constructive way to get over the hurdles and disagreements.”
“The communication before and during the decision-making process needs to be clear,” added councilmember Gabi Prochaska.
“As Dara said, we don’t expect everything in this memo to be in the MOU,” said Billick. “It’s a way to continue the conversation.”
Kroner seemed amenable to the suggestions. “This corridor planning will be a lot of work, but it will be great in the end,” she said. “If things go off the rails we can get them back on track. Thanks for the comments.”
