Land Trust votes off three board members

Personality conflicts lead to dismissals

In an admittedly unusual move, the Crested Butte Land Trust board has voted off three of its members. Jim Starr, Beverly Griffith and Linda Powers were all dismissed from the board at a meeting last Friday, August 28.

“Every board member was put to a vote of whether the other members wanted them to stay or go,” explained Land Trust president Jeff Hermanson. “It was unusual but the vote was taken to essentially promote the mission of the Land Trust and the organization.”
While such a move is not included in the bylaws of the 501c3 non-profit organization, Hermanson said such a vote is allowed under state statute governing such boards.
The other board members include Keith Bauer, David Baxter, Tim Mueller, Joe Currier, Fred Holbrook, Dan McElroy and Peter Kennel. Kennel is new to the board and did not participate in the Friday vote.
“I’m not sure the voting process was even legal,” said Powers. “No matter what, I believe it was an unfortunate decision that was made. I certainly don’t want to be on a board with people who don’t want me on the board, but I just think it harms the community of Crested Butte in terms of land preservation. To have a board working in secret and making decisions in a non-consensus manner is not good for the community.”
Hermanson said the majority of the board felt the action was needed to preserve the mission of the Land Trust. “In order to move the Land Trust dynamically in a new phase of land conservation, CBLT hired a facilitator who worked closely with the board for the last several months,” Hermanson explained.
The board hired facilitator Will Murray, who has worked for the Nature Conservancy for 18 years and has since been a consultant for a variety of management assignments, including 45 land trusts across the country.
“His charge was to identify constraints and opportunities for the Crested Butte Land Trust to advance its mission,” said Hermanson. “We emerged from the facilitation with the release of several long-time board members who have given countless hours of dedicated service and who helped build this organization.”
“This truly difficult decision was the result of issues that arose over many years and was done to reaffirm the organization’s ability to focus on its mission of preserving open space,” Hermanson said.
Powers, a former CBLT president who has been on the board about two years this time around, admitted there was tension among the board members but she feels it could have been handled in a better manner. “It was a poor way to solve a problem,” she said. “There were certainly personality problems and conflicts among the board. The meetings had become unpleasant. We all agreed to that and agreed something needed to be done. But while the facilitator said some shake-up of the board could be helpful, I don’t think this move was the recommendation of Will Murray.”
Murray didn’t want to comment on the situation other than to say, “They need to tell their own stories. I like all those people and everyone was trying to do the best they could to help land preservation in the area. It is a group of smart, talented volunteers. It’s kind of sad.”
Starr was a founding member of the Crested Butte Land Trust and has been on the board since 1991. He said he had hoped using a facilitator would help the group dynamics of the board but in the end felt badly for Murray and the process. “There was a lot of difficulty with communication between the board members the last year or so,” commented Starr. “It was getting to a point where the distrust of board member motives created the situation and people weren’t really listening to each other. But I was surprised. I didn’t think it would come to this.”
Starr said some of the tension probably came about through an evolutionary process that many non-profit boards experience.
“These types of boards are usually started up in small communities like ours by people who have a great passion for the work,” Starr explained. “They are working boards and the people spend a lot of time doing the work and keeping them going. Then there comes a tipping point where the long-time working board members get replaced with people who have different ideas of how the board should work. There was a perception that new board members might provide more money than time for example. This situation evolved to a different dynamic and different values and that is not good.”
Hermanson admitted the board had seen some evolution. “It is very important for the CBLT board to represent the Land Trust honorably in the community,” he said. “CBLT, like other non-profits, has grown over the years from a grassroots organization to a larger organization with full-time staff and many land conservation projects that it continues to steward.”
Beverly Griffith has been on the board four years. She completed one three-year term and was a year into her second term. “How can getting rid of the last two women and the last three environmentally experienced and credentialed environmentalists add to the diversity and broad based appeal of the Land Trust?” she asked. “I’ve been asking myself that question a lot since Friday.
“How can getting rid of us better relations with the town of Crested Butte, Great Outdoors Colorado, 1% for Open Space, Gunnison County and major donors?” she asked.
Powers continues to believe in the need for land preservation in the valley but is afraid that this action essentially is a poke in the eye to a major component of the valley’s population.
“This community has always been made up of diverse groups,” Powers said. “When you get rid of one faction of the board you tend to lose that faction of the community. From my perspective, I’m not personally bitter but I am sad.”
Griffith said the action didn’t shock her, given the tension on the board, but it did surprise her.
“There was definitely growing tension within the board from last November forward when the president gained absolute control of the board. In this case, there were three soldiers left standing, so I’m not shocked at the result,” Griffith said. “I was surprised that all three of us were taken out at one shot.”
Hermanson said the Land Trust is in the process of “working toward bringing on new, vibrant and diverse members to its board.”
He also said that the Land Trust would continue to move forward. “In its growth over the next several years, CBLT will attain certification from the state of Colorado and accreditation from the National Land Trust Alliance, thus strengthening its ability to affect the outcome of land conservation in the valley,” he said.
Starr said the bottom line “is that everyone on that board was committed to preserving open space in the valley. The worst thing is that we went from a board that worked through consensus decision-making to a board that had to hold hard-line votes because the minority view was mistrusted.
“The saddest thing,” Starr continued, “is that we had very few disagreements with mission-related issues and decisions. It was an unfortunate outcome but I still want the land preservation efforts in the valley to succeed. There is still a lot of work to be done.”
That work will now be done without Starr, Powers and Griffith.