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How Small Towns Can Not Just Survive But Thrive

12/30/2013

2 Comments

 

In the early nineties, I was asked by the National Civic League to speak to a delegation of the interim government of Kazakhstan about  group decision-making.* I gave my spiel, emphasizing basic techniques for including meaningful public involvement early and often, and achieving group consensus around controversial and complex projects. Then I said, “Any questions?”  The group was very quiet and one man finally raised his hand shyly and asked, “But what do you do when people disagree with each other?”  Unfortunately, I got their real problem only at that moment. These folks had grown up in a society that suppressed and punished individual wisdom. I had grown up assuming a basic right to have an opinion different from my government. My presentation was irrelevant to their needs.

Many of us are disappointed in our government. I am not immune from being angry at my government representatives from time to time. However, as Winston Churchill observed, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”  We are human beings and as such, when we work together - it isn’t easy.  We make mistakes, make imperfect decisions, and offend others.  However, if we keep at it, and practice respect and openness, we can wind our way through problems and make better communities and become stronger.

In the early nineties, the Western Slope began to experience rapid growth and change. Not only was the population growing, a different demographic of people moved into small mountain towns. Those that had grown up in those towns saw their values ignored and what they loved about their communities trampled. Tom Baker (now the Town Manager of New Castle, CO) and I began to talk about our concern that there was more to navigating successful growth and change besides zoning and regulation. People and values also needed to be attended to.

We convened a group of experts** and decided that instead of listening to speeches, we would ask hard questions about change and allow the experts to grapple with the unknown future through dialogue.  From that dialogue emerged these shared observations about what small towns can do well and can practice to move through change without breaking up the unique values and qualities of their cherished communities. These are the principles that guide how I approach civil service and community management. I am far from perfect, but having some guiding principles helps me focus on what’s important and lasting.

Behaving Our Way Into New Ways of Thinking

 1.  It’s Up to Us.
If we decide there is no hope for a future, then we have no responsibility to the future. We are not just cogs in the wheel. We can find new ways to work together and meet new challenges.

2. Reclaim Your Power
“We are all part of a huge family.  Within the family, our acts of caring, insignificant as they may seem, are nevertheless an integral part of a vast network of compassionate acts that are occurring throughout the universe at each moment.  Just as billions of tiny acts of ignorance, greed, violence, and exploitation have created most of the suffering and breakdown that now exist, so the billions of tiny actions of compassion – which include wisdom and skillful means of joy – preserve and heal the situation.” – Ram Dass

3. Pay Attention to Intention
“A real ‘new world order’ is not a question of economic of political adjustment, but a realignment of our motivation.” – the Dalai Lama


4.  No Quick Fixes
“There is the question of whether we have time enough to engage in something as messy as collaboration.  We believe things are happening so fast that we’re better off sticking with the more tried and true – often more confrontational – ways of addressing things.  Because if we don’t, we might run out of time.  We have exactly as much time as there is. There is no point in worrying about how much time there is, because there is just that much.  When people hear this, they say, “Well, you’re just a total determinist. What is it that the people of Missoula pay you for anyway? To just watch things happen?” But I have come to the conclusion that there is a certain way of being frantic that we have adopted that serves us very ill, and there is a certain way of being with what’s going on that would serve us better.”  - Daniel Kemmis

5. Co-Operate
Manipulation and control are no longer effective ways to solve problems.  If leaders don’t behave with integrity, people lose trust.  Important issues go underground, where they fester and re-emerge to damage important work.  The control paradigm views the world as good guys and bad guys, winners and losers, saviors and savages – all in competition for power. 
If we choose to behave in new ways, we can forge a better world. We can begin to work cooperatively. We can be flexible and creative. We can include ALL affected community members in the decision-making process. We can share leadership. When we honor different opinions and needs, better solutions present themselves.  When all community members participate in building their future, positive change is possible.

6.  Be a Mensch.
“A mensch is not just a human being, but a humane being.  Without being a Pollyanna, these people manage to be positive, optimistic, and generous in their thoughts and deeds towards others.  They definitely leave the world better than they found it.
·         They don’t interrupt.
·         They take turns.
·         They don’t take advantage of people who are down.
·         They are gracious in victory.
·         They are noble in defeat.
·         They are consummately fair.
·         They have integrity.
·         They are the people you want to grow up to be like.
·         They are the kind of person you want your sister (or brother or child) to marry.
·         They are the kind of person you’ll cherish, if you’re lucky enough to have one in your life.
- Mark Goulston, MD

7.  Widen the Circle
We are inter-dependent and our decisions affect those outside our own neighborhoods, organization and governments.  It isn’t always easy, but we must work together. While acknowledging our diversity, we can work collaboratively with respect. Where there is a choice, choose to be inclusive.

8. Focus on Right Relationship
“We will succeed only to the point we learn to work well with one another, to depend on each other and embed ourselves in community for the long haul.” –Margo Adair

9. Find Power in Diversity
We practice tolerance of differences. We ask for help. We give help when needed. These are hard choices by today’s cultural standards. Our choices are often based on fear for our security. When our attention is focused on living well with our neighbors, the paradox is that we may end up happier than when we spend our energy trying to cull out those we find offensive.

10. Learn from Success
“One of our greatest failures as community builders is not learning from success. We spend way too much time on what didn’t work and don’t spend enough time on what does work.  What will take us in successful directions in the future is the successful direction of the past.  That’s part of the history that we ought to value and share.“ – Milan Wall

11. Choose the Open Door
“I think we have two ways of looking at the things we face – one is through a sense of threat and fear, and the other is through a sense of healing. If we paid more attention to what we are building in small pockets, and how that can grow out from itself, we would do better than when we try to force things all at once.”  - Daniel Kemmis

12.  Celebrate the Journey
“We are going to at least have at take the little successes and string them together and start making the necklace for the headpiece to go on. People have to feel that they can see some small successes for their time and effort, or they’re not going to keep putting the kids in day care and coming to meetings.” -  Rachel Richards, currently Pitkin County Commissioner

13. Commit to the Long Haul
“Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”  - Louis Pasteur

13.  Deliver New Leadership
“Rather than imposing onto the system, a midwife allows the system to move in its own ways. She doesn’t push, but accepts. The midwife is prepared to take more active steps, but only when they become essential. She represents a safe place into which new life may emerge.  She holds new life with awe and reverence, and claims no credit for its miraculous arrival, satisfied to have been present for the journey.”  - Janet Quinn, PhD.

15. Leave Room for Grace
“Grace is such prolific concept that no single understanding can exhaust its meaning. But surely some part of grace has to do with a manner of acting in the world that is striking appropriate to time and place… Such acts are supremely human; they only occur when we bring our very best human traits to bear upon the situation at hand. But such moments always evoke as well an unmistakable element of givenness, of something at least in part beyond our control.”  - Daniel Kemmis

Many big city folks look down on small towns as unsophisticated. That’s not my observation.  In small towns, you can’t afford not to work together and you can’t rely on experts and professionals to do it for you. You have to learn to do it yourself and do it well.  Small towns have much to teach the world about inter-dependence and building successful and fulfilling communities.

* There were many professionals to choose from, but because I have been active in the faith-based campaign against nuclear testing and nuclear weapons, I was also able to give them an update on where the US was with testing and weapons production which is a primary interest in Kazakhstan – the location of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons testing facility.

** Daniel Kemmis, Director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West; Ed and Betsey Marston, High Country News; Milan Wall, Co-Director of the Heartland Center for Leadership Development; Raye Ringholz, Author of Little Town Blues; Jim Lochhead, water attorney and Director of the  Colorado Department of Natural Resources; Rachel Richards, currently Pitkin County Commissioner and former Mayor of Aspen; Jim Hooker, former Mayor of Snowmass Village; the late Ted O’Leary, former Mayor of Glenwood Springs among others.


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December 23rd, 2013

12/23/2013

14 Comments

 
PictureDevin meets our first visitor to my rented home on Ball Flats.
End of Year Greetings to those of you who love Lake City.  I got just what I wanted for Christmas – to be able to live in and be a part of your awesome community.  Thanks from deep in my heart for your welcoming and kindness and help moving and finding my way around during my first days.  I’m Leslie Klusmire and I’m your new Town Manager.  I’m so grateful to be chosen to serve you and the community of Lake City.  I will be writing a weekly blog to keep you up to date on Town issues, policy changes, talk about process and practice of small town community policy and project making, and just write about what you’d like to know.  Send me suggestions.

Since most of you don’t know me yet – a situation I hope to remedy soon! – I will make my first two posts all about me J. This one will be about me personally and the next about my philosophy and practice of civil service and community development.

A brief background: I was born in Long Beach, CA. My father Jake was a WWII and Korean War vet, and was a Navy athletic coach (mostly baseball) when I was born.  My mother Margie just celebrated her 90th birthday and was a Headstart teacher and expert seamstress and tailor. She lives in Encinitas, CA.  I have 5 half sisters – all older and from my father’s previous marriages, 3 live in Phoenix – and a younger brother Jim - a master plumber in Glenwood Springs, and a younger sister Lisa - a thoroughbred horse trainer and ranch manager in Rancho Santa Fe, CA.  My family’s hobbies growing up included attending musicals and concerts, hiking, camping, backpacking, geology and horticulture. 

My undergraduate degree is in Landscape Architecture from Cal Poly Pomona, and I have an MBA with an emphasis in finance and am finishing a second master’s in Ministry from Creighton University in Omaha, NE. I am a little over half way to becoming “pre-certified” as a Chaplain and did my training at Banner Good Samaritan in Phoenix and Bridgeport Yale/New Haven Hospital in CT.   I also have considerable training in municipal law and finance, as well as advanced mediator training.

As an employee or contractor, I have done planning, municipal or project management work for Colorado’s Crested Butte, Gunnison, Craig, La Plata, Pitkin and Garfield Counties, Aspen, Basalt, Carbondale, Snowmass Village, Castle Rock, and for Butte (MT), Inyo County (CA – Eastern Sierra and Death Valley area), San Clemente (CA), Oceanside (CA),  Hemet  (CA), Mammoth Lakes (CA), Park City (UT),  the Columbia River Crossing Project (Portland/Vancouver) and other governments and private clients. If you noticed a theme in my locations – mountains – you are correct. Even though I’ve worked in and for several world class ski resorts, I don’t downhill ski, just cross-country.  

In Colorado, I’ve done facilitation for Leadership Aspen, the Colorado Association of Ski Towns, the Governor’s Smart Growth conferences and other entities.   I was Community Development Director in Glenwood Springs for 9 years.  I developed skills and a specialty of shepherding complicated and controversial projects through the formation and decision-making process and getting them into the ground. As a planner, I don’t just talk about it; I want to get it built for the community.  I broadcasted for KVNF for a year and if you’ve lived here at least ten years, you probably have heard my voice broadcasting the call letters for Lake City et al.

I’ve been married and divorced two times and have three children who you may have met last week here in Lake City.  Devin is 34 and lives in Seattle; he graduated from college in math and science.  He’s a great cook and baker. My twins Ansel and Mariah are 24. As Klusmires, the twins are fourth generation natives of the Roaring Fork Valley.  Their great grandfather Eldo came to Aspen from Rocky Ford to build the first ski lift. Their grandfather Neut operated the White Kitchen in Aspen and owned and operated the Frying Pan restaurant in Basalt. Their dad Jon was a reporter and/or editor at the Rifle Citizen Telegram, the Aspen Times, the Glenwood Free Weekly, and the Glenwood Post/Independent. He started the Glenwood Independent which later merged with the Post.  Ansel moved to China after he received a degree in economics, lived there for two and a half years and has just moved back to the states. He’s a writer like his dad. Mariah was a Catholic Worker working with the homeless and other social justice issues for five years. She is now in a pre-nursing program in Santa Barbara and will enter a BS program in nursing in San Francisco next year.  They are planning their return trip to Lake City this summer.

Personally, my main interest is in art. I have been serious about art since I was very young and spent most of my adult life in fiber art – first in weaving, then papermaking. I switched to oil and pastel painting five years ago and love it. I’m best at figure painting but love landscape and still life as well. I play the violin and have played in community orchestras in the places I’ve lived. I was a founding member of my first orchestra – Symphony of the Valley - and noticed that your own Kelly Thompson is the new conductor of that orchestra.  Small world!

I like to read non-fiction, hike and backpack. I completed my ultimate backpack trip – the Sierra’s 56 mile Evolution Valley Loop – a few years ago and am making plans with family to do it again.  I have two cats – Sheba – a calico named after the Queen of Sheba, and Vashti – a kitten named after Queen Vashti the first wife of King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther.

PS – A grateful shout-out to Jud Hollingsworth,  Greg Collins, Greg Levine and Clint Ediger for hauling my boxes and boxes of books and art supplies into my newly rented home.  I’m now halfway through unpacking. I am not fond of moving and hope this is the last one.

For those of you who study personality types, I’m an INTJ on the Meyers-Briggs scale and a One on the Enneagram. 

I’m spending Christmas Day with my brother and his wife Rose and my three kids in Glenwood Springs after which we will all return home. For me, that now means Lake City.

I sincerely wish you a peaceful, gentle and meaningful end of the year season and if I haven’t already met you, I hope to meet you soon.

Next week: What I’ve learned about small towns and my approach to management and community development.  I believe in democracy and even though it can get messy and complicated, we all count!


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    Leslie Klusmire is the Town Manager of Lake City, Colorado in Hinsdale County.  

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Town of Lake City, P.O. Box 544, Lake City, CO 81235. Telephone: 970-944-2333