Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

He was there. Well, he was there last night.

Yeah. Okay. I am going to call.

Yeah. Okay.

An echo. Okay. I'm going to call the board of trustees meeting for Wednesday, July 8th to order at 302 PM. Can I have a roll call please?

Adam quick one.

Peggy Smith. Julie White.

Lewis Gregory.

Katie Soles.

And Brian Sirkvenik. Could I have an approval of the agenda, please?

I make a motion to approve the agenda.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. All right, we are going to move into town manager interviews. Just if anybody's listening and is interested, we're going to have the three candidates go. We're going to have Paul at 3 o'clock, Patrick Davidson at 4.15, and Sarah at 5.30, at which point we will take a break and then jump into public hearing and possible action on the couple of items before going into an executive session. So with that, Paul Johnson, welcome.

Good afternoon, Wayne Airport.

Good to see you. Tom Preston- All right, we have a series of questions that we will be asking all of you guys and we're just going to kind of run through Tom Preston- Each of the board members are going to ask the question. We'll just kind of go in order Tom Preston- And There are a lot of questions. So section one is three questions with a 10-minute max. Section two is five questions with a 10-minute max. And the third section is three questions with a 20-minute max. I'm going to allow a little flexibility there. So the idea is kind of 40 minutes with that stuff, and then we have some staffing and location questions. That should be pretty quick. So if you want to elaborate a lot on a specific one, I'll let you go longer, just knowing that we have 40 minutes to work with.

Adam Meckler, I don't have a clock so rely on your judgment.

Adam Meckler, All right, well let's jump in. Adam Meckler, And we know you so we will just jump right into the questions and why don't you ask the first one sure.

Adam Meckler, Please provide a brief summary of your education and work experience identifying how you would inform your role as town manager.

My education experience is I have a bachelor's degree in engineering with some graduate work in civil engineering. And then I have a master's degree in executive leadership that I pursued once I moved out of the day-to-day engineering field and started managing employees. So as I began to manage employees, it made more sense to move into leadership so that I could better work with them. My work experience started out in the private sector working for a small design build firm. So we would design... custom homes and also site plans for commercial properties. So worked for them for a number of years before we relocated to Virginia, where I worked again for a private engineering firm that did large subdivision planning and large commercial planning. So did a lot of work with master planning of large thousand unit subdivisions. similar to what we have going here with Rendezvous in Grand Park, phase development on smaller 50 home parcels, so work through that. And then unfortunately got hit with the downturn of 2007 through nine and went into the public sector then in public works and have progressively worked my way through public works starting as a design engineer, All the way up now to Director of Public Works through various municipalities. This is currently my third municipality, having worked with two larger municipalities there in Virginia before relocating here to Fraser. And I think my education serves me well with having managed large staff, up to 153 employees at one time while working at Henrico County. And then with the education in executive leadership, helping to bring out the best in employees by finding some of their strengths that may not be necessarily tied to their roles, but knowing that people have various strengths and that their jobs don't always fit with what some of their expertises are and allowing them to shine in those roles as we can use in their current. Thanks.

Why is this position in Frayser right now for you and how are you a good fit for this role? And what do you bring that others might not?

I think it's a good fit for me because I'm here. I've been here for three and a half years. I have never used having to live where I live on the other side of the county as an excuse not to be at work. I'm at work every day by 8.30 at the worst, and that's in bad weather. And I feel like it's just the right role as I've progressed through my career over the last 17 years in the public sector that this is the next step for me if the job is offered. But I enjoy working in Frayser. There have been other opportunities that... We're not pursued because I love working here at Fraser. I love the staff. I love the the camaraderie we have, the way we work together and we support each other. So it's been a wonderful thing. My family is established here in Grand County. My wife is a school teacher. My daughter is going to be a school teacher. So my kids are involved. My family is involved. And so we're very invested here. And we fell in love with the area, I guess, 13 years ago now. And I've looked for a reason to move here for a long time. And then it happened in 23. So we're here and we're not, I have no plans to go anywhere.

We're invested.

Great.

All right, describe your management and leadership style with specific focus on the town managers role in working with staff community and with the town board.

So I think my approach is to allow them to come to me with a question, but hopefully they have an answer to the question already and they're just looking for approval to move on. I used an example earlier this morning that when I got here, staff had taken it upon themselves to find ways to be more effective and more productive and were concerned that I was going to stop that. And my two questions were, are you better able to do your job now? And is it helping you? And they said, yes. And so why would I stop that? So I'm always looking to support them. Always have tried to take my employees and let them know that I have their back. I'll stand with them. I'll defend them. They just can't back me into the edge of the cliff where I have nowhere left to stand. And then working with the board, I've enjoyed working with the two boards I've worked with over the three and a half years and just providing, I think, the role of the managers to make sure that the board has all the information needed to make a decision. The board is expected to make decisions in a three-hour meeting on sometimes a 500-page packet that they got two days before. So I think it's preemptive communication to the mayor and the vice mayor to make sure that all the information is out there so that we can get things out there and have questions. I would much rather take an agenda item and push it two weeks or three weeks in order to get the right information so that we make a good decision and we're not retroactively changing a decision two weeks later. Great. Thanks. Get all the parts.

You crush it.

Okay. All right. What is your experience with ideas for facilitating cooperative efforts with neighboring jurisdictions and with voters? Please describe your experience interacting with neighboring communities. Is your style to work collaboratively with them or to compete with them?

My style is always to be collaborative. This valley depends on both municipalities in this valley, but our county as a whole depends on everybody working together. If we're fighting, then Things don't progress. We're a very small county. So decisions in one municipality can affect other municipalities. And if there's no collaboration there, I think we harm ourselves. I've worked closely with both public works directors with the town of Winter Park and communicating with them. I have a very good working relationship with CDOT on multiple projects that we're working on. So I look to continue to collaborate with those. Currently I serve on the Planning Commission in Kremling, so I have the connections there for the west side of the county that sometimes doesn't show up to things in the past. So I think it's getting better, but just trying to work together. I know that there's a manager's meeting between all the town managers and the county monthly, so I feel that you just continue those collaborative efforts to work together. Since I got here, Winter Park and the town of Frayser up until this year have collaborated on the paving projects to try and get a better cost of doing business so that if the town of Frayser is doing one mile but they're doing two, we get a better cost because they're only mobilizing one time. So, just working together with those municipalities to make sure we're on the same page currently, we have to collaborate on the wastewater treatment plant. We have 3 facility or 3 managing. Sanitation districts that all use the same facility. So we have 3 separate boards that all. Run their systems and then form a joint facilities operation committee, which is members from each board to make decisions. But we have monthly meetings with the managing. employee of those districts to come up with decisions. And again, there's just a lot of communication to make sure that town of Fraser as the operating entity is communicating things to those other groups. I think we had a little misfire earlier this spring on some things with the drought. things were told to us and then different things happen. So we got kind of behind the eight ball there. But I think a lot of it comes down to communication. If we all know what we're doing, then we can all work towards the same goal, which is bettering the valley and getting more people here permanently.

Okay, let me give you an easy one here.

Describe your experience overseeing wastewater treatment plants for his facility or special district. How would you plan for expansion over the next five to 10 years?

So over the last three and a half years, I've worked very closely with the JFOC and the managers sitting in on every manager's meeting, a JFOC meeting, helping to direct the staff there as Logan Ray, who runs the wastewater treatment plant as one of my direct reports. So making sure that they have the tools they need to continue to operate that plant appropriately and within specs of the permit. As far as expansion goes, there's been a lot of discussion over the last year with the two districts, one district being almost out of taps and another district having a surplus. So trying to use maybe some of those extra taps that are available in one district to supplement another to maybe buy us five years 10 years before we have to enter into a large capital debt that would be somewhere in the range between $34 to $40 million, potentially, depending on what the state permit looks like. So we've actively started when our brand county number one has asked for a plant upgrade. So we've started that process with the plants engineering firm. The town of Fraser has looked at our next 10 to 20 years at what our potential potential growth looks like and have provided that to the engineering firm looking at what that would take to upgrade the plant. One little small caveat we have with the plant is that we had a new permit issued at the end of May that we are currently contesting some of those limits that are at the basically the limit of technology currently. So we don't want to design for the new permit that somehow limits the expansion of the plant. So looking at those together so that anything we do over the next five years does not hurt us if and when we go to expand, that we end up with lower limits than technology can even meet because we've looked to expand a plant after we've already met a permit. So there's a lot of work currently going on on that. And then it also requires some... communication with developers. As the board knows, we have West Mountain, and then we also have potential, any potential annexations in the future, but just looking at what we currently have, it's speaking with the developers, the developer who's actively working in old town and downtown to revitalize some infill lots. What does their timeline look like? What does our out-of-town service area and the Byers Peak properties look like? And then what does West Mountain look like? Trying to determine, is that a 10-year timeline? Is that a 15-year timeline? Or is that out at 20 years when we have time to build a new plant? So it's kind of juggling all of those things, but we're moving forward with that plant expansion and we're ready. Okay.

Oh, goody. What strategies would you recommend for diversifying Frasier's tax base? And how would you evaluate tools such as economic development incentives, zoning changes, or annexation to support long-term fiscal sustainability while maintaining community character?

I think as far as the economic diversifying from our current two large sales tax strategies, bringing businesses. It's to continue to pour into the downtown and the Clayton Court that we have spent a lot of time and funds on over the last two years to allow businesses to have a place that's off of Highway 40 that's walkable so that you're walking past all of the businesses that end up on that that stretch, that block there in downtown. But housing, I think, is also paramount to economic development. We can get a business to open, but if we can't have somebody who can work there and live here, it becomes very difficult for a business to stay open. Now we have the St. Louis Landing Project here within town boundaries that hopefully will have the first unit open and leased up in November or December with a second at the start of the new year. And then we also have just outside of town, we have going up two more apartment buildings that hopefully can provide workforce housing for these businesses. But if we don't have somebody to work in those businesses, those businesses struggle to compete with other places that have housing. And I think as far as zoning goes, we take a look at the zoning and see if it, does it still make sense that some of the zoning maps were created 40, 50 years ago before we had a large annexation and do those zoning still make sense? Do we allow business to flourish in that area or have we restricted them somehow with some of the zoning that we've done? So I think we have to take a look at zoning to bring them in. Economic incentives, depending on the length of those incentives can vary. really help in getting a business up and running. There's a lot of upfront costs when you look at taps. Depending on what the business is, if they're looking to put in four taps, we're looking at upwards of $100,000 just in utility taps. So finding ways to maybe defer some of those costs over a period of five years as we have in the past allows a business to get up and running and maybe get established. and not have the burden of that large upfront capital. So I think economic incentives work well when done well. And I think we've spent a lot of time over the last three years refining our economic package for incentives and also knowing that there's still work to be done, that we continue to work on that every time that the topic comes up.

Okay. Thank you.

Let's go back to Anna.

What was your assessment of the critical issues facing the town and what. Are the opportunities what is your assessment? Sorry.

So mentioned, I already mentioned 1 of the significant challenges currently is, uh. Affordable workforce housing. Um, it's a very, um. Expensive place to live doing being that it's a resort community. So we have the privilege of being a resort community, but also the burden of high high property. So that's one of the challenges. Another challenge is an aging infrastructure. So we have brand new infrastructure in one half of town and some older infrastructure in another part of town. And so it's making sure that we are addressing those at the same time. Currently, my role as public works director, we are looking to at least annually try to address some of the old sewer systems within town to prevent a failure. There is there some of those are still clay. So, making sure that we're lining those lining up projects that best serve the town. Another challenge we have is potential. water issues we currently have more we currently have enough water rights uh you know decreed by the courts to supply all of our commitments but we don't currently have the ability to get all that water out of the ground so it's looking to upgrade that infrastructure to maximize our water rights so that we are set up well if a property owner or somebody would like to annex into the town that we make sure that we're setting that up well. And I think another economic development is how do we diversify from Safeway? If Safeway would ever pull out, we would have a problem. But how do we get more people to visit the local businesses? I know we talk about getting them past Safeway, I think. If we get the downtown Clayton Court area, we could start bringing people by. I don't know how often the board sees the bike park, but there's constantly 50, 60, 100 people there. So I think we're starting to drive families to that area that can start maybe utilizing some of the Safeway Marketplace if those businesses were to get built out and to be more a service industry. And then just retaining staff. I know it was a lot of turnover prior to being here and we've had a lot of turnover this year, but just treating staff with respect and honoring them for who they are and making sure that they feel appreciated and know that they're doing a good job and make sure that we encourage them to continue to pursue greatness.

What would your role, should the manager, what role should the manager have with the community and what issues are you aware of from your research at Fraser? What would you, what would be your approach given what you know now?

The role of the manager is to in the communities help to push, continue to push forward the board's vision because the board sets the vision the board is elected by the public. So the public has put their trust in the board to create a vision for the town. So it's helping to facilitate that. Vision to the staff, but I think. It is the manager's job to champion the town in the public. I think one of the biggest challenges I see currently is we're still dealing with some industrial users and some pushback there and repercussions from things that happened back in 22 and 21 that are just hard to get past when comments are made that of a personal nature that people Hold on to for a long time, and I think it's just communicating and being honest with. Our citizenry on agreements that we've entered into and that we're going to honor our agreements and they continue to listen to them as they come to public forums. I think 1 thing that would be a wonderful thing for the town is if more people were to get involved in board meetings and show up for public hearing so that we can actually. hear what they have to say, but working with the citizenry who is disgruntled, trying to find a way to solve their problems. I know I have a citizen that has been dealing with a problem for probably close to eight years, and hopefully I'm able to solve her concern this summer and this fall, but making sure that we're listening and not forgetting about just the single citizen when we're bombarded by large larger issues of development and annexation or wastewater permits and things like that.

Great. Thank you.

All right. Made it through another section. All right. What is your experience making thorough assessment of an organization, staff, and board, and then leading through necessary changes?

So when I first got here, everything I was told was that it was very dysfunctional prior to me getting here. So one of the first things I did was try to emphasize to my staff and public works that at the end of the day, we are Frasier. It doesn't matter if you work for finance, if you work for the clerk's work in the manager's office. At the end of the day, we're Frasier. All the citizens see is that we are the town of Frasier and we're Frasier employees. So make sure that we're representing ourselves as Frasier and treating them as the citizens who are paying our checks. And so working through that change and then just encouraging collaboration between departments. I know that we've had a lot of support. I get a lot of support from the clerk's office, try to make sure that they have any support they need from me and just making sure that we're supporting each other because we serve the community. And if we're working together, we can better serve the community. And I think that there's been a great working relationship while I've been here between the manager and the board and understanding what the board is looking for, and then providing that information to the board so that we can all move forward cohesively together. Even when there's a contentious item, if I've provided the board with the information they requested, then they can make a solid decision.

Great.

Okay. Okay. Talk about your experience in a major land use or development negotiations. What has been your role in that process? Would it be similar to Frasier? Tell us about lessons learned.

I'd say my biggest, my biggest land use, uh, negotiation currently was here in Fraser with what is known as the J&L property. We started negotiations over a year ago to try and acquire the necessary right of way for that sidewalk. And then just a lot of back and forth with a property owner who was a developer themselves living out of state, and then just trying to work through that process. I believe we finally have gotten there as of Monday. that we can move forward with that. But it was a long process and it was a lot of back and forth listening to that property owner on what they're looking for and making sure that we weren't making guarantees we couldn't back up. So there was a lot of things being asked that we could not guarantee. We could not guarantee economic incentives for a project we don't know what it looks like. We can't guarantee parking for a project we haven't seen a sketch plane on. So working through them and just letting them understand that There are some things allowed in the code that staff has the ability to grant you once we get to that land use application coming in. And then another example would be West Mountain. West Mountain has been 20 years in the making to get to the point where we are now. and just working through with that developer what we can, can't do, how we get that moving forward. So there's been a lot of back and forth with that developer and finding ways to satisfy the code, satisfy the agreement, but also find a way to make sure that the town is kept whole in everything we're doing up there. So that's probably the biggest land use outside of having a land use project fall apart. When I was in Virginia, the municipality was going to grant $8 million in bonds and pulled that funding right as the recession hit. So that thousand home development fell apart, but we had done a lot of work on that. We had interchanges, we had connections to a tollway and a freeway. So it kind of worked through a lot of that, but I would say the biggest negotiation to date was with, well, two negotiations. I had one also with CSX Railroad. It wasn't in a land use capacity, but they wanted to turn a trestle bridge into an embankment, which happened to be right over my water lines, which were transite, which is similar to the ones going out towards Clark House. If you even look at them, they will explode and have a leak. So they were going to drive sheet piles on top. So it tried to push back, they said, read your easement, you have two weeks to comply. So we started the negotiations with them and worked through getting that project done. So I've got some experience in negotiating with high powered corporations and finding that path forward in a way that serves them so they can get rid of the failing bridge and serves us and we can get, continue to supply water to 35,000 people and then military base, so.

Okay. Do you have any experience or ideas to help enhance disaster preparedness and build resiliency in the face of uncertain future? Looks like there'd be around fires.

How about if I ask the next? So we'll make it a separate question.

So most of my disaster relief is in hurricane and flooding. So I have extensive experience in dealing with hurricane response, hurricane preparedness. But a lot of the preparedness comes down to the same as fire. What equipment do we have on hand? What mutual aid agreements do we have? have with other people? And are we preparing our staff to be ready? So obviously a fire is much faster of a scenario, but it's the same thing, making sure you have communication. An example is today, we may or may not have radios that work on the new encrypted system. Realized that last week when the fire started there in partial, realizing that with them going encrypted, we may not have the ability to answer. We may be able to, or not hear, but we may be able to speak. So today we reached out, we reached out last week before 4th of July to Interim Chief Ransom, and then also reached out to Chief Holdsworth and Interim Chief Ransom today to see what we need to do to make sure our radios are ready to go. And then the resiliency is just working with those groups and any state or national organizations partnerships we have to make sure that we're ready. I know one thing that would greatly help us, the initiative is kind of stalled, but interconnect between Grand County number one and Winter Park Ranch on water. Grand County number one is very susceptible to a fire, but there are some limitations to those connections based on water treatment so that the state would have some issues with. So I'm not sure where it is right now. The Rendezvous Development Group is championing that cause right now to make a connection somewhere with Winter Park Ranch since we both use wells and both have the same treatment that we can have an emergency interconnect, say a fire were to come or even start in Winter Park Ranch and they lose their ability to supply water, we can supply emergency water. So I think those are some of the big things and you have to just be willing to go out and do what's needed. I have experienced multiple disasters where we worked, I think the longest we worked was 47 12-hour shifts in a row, working through a hurricane disaster, and then also working through what they called the derecho storm, started in the Great Lakes, blew all the way out to the outer banks of North Carolina, and we spent 37 days picking up trees. So it's just understanding, I think that, I think it's making sure we understand how disaster relief works with FEMA, what you're allowed to do in those first 72 hours, what you have to do after those 72 hours. It gets very complicated. And then making sure that we have good communication with all of our partners because if a fire starts in Kremling, we need to be aware. When I saw the fire last Tuesday, the first thing I did was text Michael and Sarah to make sure that they were aware that there's a fire starting over Williams Fork again and be ready because it could come this way.

Great. What is your experience with trails, parks, and open space development?

Not as extensive in that. I'd say my biggest experience there would be working with Sarah on the bike park and then working through the Lions Ponds master maintenance agreement that we're working on currently to figure out what do we want it to look like, how do we trim the willows to allow visibility of the Fraser River, which is one of our amenities, without destroying fish hatcheries, moose habitat. So working on that and then just making sure that we have Good maintenance of our trails. I know we spend a lot of time on the Fraser River Trail making sure that we have decent picnic benches working to make sure that the drainage is working. I know just two months ago we installed two beaver deceivers there in the river to not have to trap the beavers, but they were impacting the trail, starting to erode the trail. And so using these devices to not let them flood more area, but create greater wetlands in that area. We do have a plan this fall to repave the Fraser Winter Park paved trail. So we're working to just maximize and enhance the trails we have in town. We don't have much land left to use as trails, but the thoughts of annexation mean that we can continue to improve our trail system and protect wetlands and wildlife at the same time.

Thank you. All right. In a mountain community or in an area with limited access to resources and employee pool, How would you handle this? And what have you learned about your... I'm sorry, I butchered this question because it said in your role is, have you been a manager before? And I already know that. So I'm trying to reconstruct it as I read. I'll read it as is. Okay. Have you been in a manager role before in a mountain community or in an area with limited access to resources or employee pool? What did you learn about how... this role and how would you propose addressing staff development and retention?

So I have not been a manager before, but I have worked in The community here has lack of employees at times, but I've also worked in a previous municipality that had lack of hireable citizenry to perform certain roles. And it becomes difficult at times. And so staff retention is paramount that we provide for our staff. I think Fraser has done an amazing job in obtaining some master leases for some employees who were gonna have to quit because their leases were not renewed and they had nowhere to go. And so we've been able to secure multiple leases through the town that have allowed those staff members to stay and they have no desire to leave. We now have St. Louis Landing coming online, which will help with staff. But it's getting that affordable housing or a housing that is deed restricted up and running and helping support those developments so that We can retain staff. I think we've done a great job on not making it be a 40-hour work week for 52 weeks a year that allows people to work the jobs they enjoy and have those shoulder seasons. I think 32-hour work week, but over the entire year, allows the flexibility to be working at the resort and then Good runoff here. You can go work the rafting companies and still enjoy being here for all the amenities. But I think if we can get more permanent residents and more ability for people to live here permanently and have attainable housing, that would be one of our greatest goals that Frayser can do. But I think we're on that path with St. Louis Landing. And if things to the west continue to develop as they are, the more units that come online, the more affordable everything becomes.

Okay. What do you think is the right amount of time for a manager in a place to be the most effective?

It's kind of a weird question. So my first municipality I was at for almost 15 years. So I think longevity helps. You become more connected to your community. You understand the needs of the community and you can see the changes that are happening in our community and help to push them forward or mitigate some of the concerns that may be arising. I'm not a fan of... jumping ship back and forth all the time, uh, circumstances in everybody's lives caused that. That's what caused me to come to Colorado, uh, personal circumstances in my, in my job and in my family was we needed to, we needed to change. So we moved here. Um, but, uh, you know, like I said earlier, and one of the questions were established, my wife's a school teacher and, and West Grand, my daughter's a school teacher in West Grand now. So we are, we are connected. My We're very much involved as best we can with the schedules we have. But I think a manager's role takes more than a year, two years, three years at a location to really understand what you're doing. I think my three and a half years here I've been invaluable to know what that role looks like, interacting with the manager on almost a daily basis, the board on an almost biweekly basis at board meetings. So understanding what that role looks like and then being that facilitator to keep things going with development and making sure that we communicate. I think communication at the end of the day, if the board doesn't know what the manager is doing and the manager doesn't know what the board wants, that's when we start floundering and start getting in trouble.

how do you see this position fitting into your career plans and progression? And where do you see yourself in five to 10 years?

In five years, I see myself still here. 10 years, I mean, I have 20 years left to go before I can retire. So I don't see myself moving unless there's some sort of drastic change in my family situation. A child gets sick and needs help, but my wife is... is probably the one who would travel first, being as she has more time and more flexibility in her career than I do. But this just feels like the next step in my career. I didn't expect to be a public works director at the age I was, but it happened and I was able to fill that role. And so I have 20 years left in my career and I want to maximize my strengths and continue to learn and continue to advocate for my communities.

Great, thank you.

when would you be available to start?

I'd be available to start as soon as the board would like me to start. Obviously there's some transition and there's some wearing of double capes in the role. I've already talked, discussed that with staff and let them know and let our consulting engineering firm know that there would be some additional burden on them to carry some of the things that I'm carrying now. As the public works director, a lot of things are high level. I'm looking at things at high level. I'm not down to the minutia and getting them to move from minutia to maybe a mid-level to a higher level. So pass off some of those things to them. That's already kind of started when Michael announced his resignation. Things were kind of ramping that way. So I started stepping out of some of those meetings and stepping into some meetings of sort of more of the leadership just to make sure that everybody knew what was going on. So, you know, both Sarah and I started attending meetings that maybe we both didn't attend in the past, but then realized it was too much for both of us. So we kind of stayed in our, stayed in kind of our strength areas, but just kind of taking more responsibility there. And so staff knows, public works staff knows that there'll be some additional burdens until that role can be backfilled. But I'm available to start as soon as I get back from vacation, to be honest. But maybe it makes more sense later and let some things flesh out. It just depends on where we end up.

When's the vacation?

Pardon me?

When is your vacation?

It starts Friday.

Okay.

I won't be back until the 21st. Okay.

Thank you.

Very sporadic availability.

Okay.

Okay. In closing, the town has contacted your references and conducted a background check. Is there anything you'd like to make the board aware of?

Nothing that no i mean i can't think of anything pretty much an open book clean slate ah yeah you know i try to be but i try to be open try to be honest and you know that's one of the things i always try to instill both of my staff is uh accountability and honesty um you're accountable for your actions i can continue to back you if it's the wrong decision uh we had a prime example as i'd given a work order for a way i thought a problem should be solved they had a different idea I let them run with it. We ended up at my idea. But then they learned that, okay, maybe that doesn't work. Let's do that. And so just trying to make sure that I'm giving them the space. I think that's the biggest thing I've allowed my employees to do is have space to make a wrong decision and then correct it.

Just like your children.

Which I have five of.

Good training for that skill.

Do you have any questions for the board?

Do not appreciate the opportunity and I thank you for giving me the time to. Interview with you.

Great thanks. Um, so just so you're aware of the next steps, so we will conclude the interviews tonight. We'll have an executive session, uh, where we will choose a candidate. Um, John will inform the candidate, um, the chosen candidate on Thursday and negotiate the terms of the contract. Once the terms of the contract are agreed upon, the other two candidates will be notified. Town Attorney Ken Whitmer will write the contract Monday, July 13th, and the contract will be ratified at the Board of Trustees meeting on July 15th.

Not sure I'll be able to see the contract. Depends on where I'm at. I'm taking a cruise to Alaska. I don't know where I'll be on certain days yet.

we'll work it out all right thanks what about this last do you have any questions for oh does the board get to ask him any questions um sure you guys can ask if you want i just have one question one of our challenges in the past with a long-standing manager was he let his personal opinions and bias about what was best for the town guide his decision-making versus keeping staff and board abreast of things and that sort of thing. So how would you go about keeping your personal bias out and continuing to do the work for the board?

Thank you, Katie. I was thinking the same thing on how do you maintain your objectivity when you have long-term buy-in. You know, you end up with ownership as a manager of a decade or so.

And that's exactly, I was just wondering the same. I think it comes down to communication with your staff and that your staff understands that. the decisions being made, but your staff needs to be involved in the decisions. In my role here, the first six months I did a lot of research in LaserFish going back to the 80s and 90s and then finding things where there was not staff involvement and it was a kind of a decision made by a manager. And I think your staff, you've hired your staff and you put your staff in a position to help you not isolate them. So for example, Lucas is my water superintendent. Lucas knows more about water than I'll probably ever learn about water because that's not the role I'm in. So it's making sure that we're addressing those issues there. It's making sure that I'm talking to Logan down at the wastewater treatment plant to make sure he has the skills he needs and that he's involved in decision making there. I think that's a prime example of what the JFOC managers have been asking for and other boards are looking for. There's always been a concern of what happens to Logan. Is Logan going to quit? And if Logan quits, we're in trouble because we don't have anybody licensed at that level. And so we took the time to ask Logan if he is even interested in what this process looks like going forward. And he has no interest in that. He loves doing what he's doing and only wants to do with that. And he can have somebody between he can have a new boss. He's he's fine with that. So I think it's making sure we have the buy in and that any decisions that are long reaching for the town for so annexation, for example, that there's buy in and that we've gotten the the information and the opinions of our staff. If we're gonna bring in a thousand acres, how do we treat that sanitation? So a prime example of is the current property that's for sale extends north of the wastewater treatment plant. So there's no way to get gravity flow sewer to the wastewater treatment plant if you're downstream. So that would cause the town to have its first lift station. Is that lift station gonna be private? Is it gonna be public? And so it's making sure that all staff who are involved in that down the road know what's going on and had input coming into it. In my role, the town signed onto agreements that I think are poor agreements at times, and that can currently cause me some stress, but we have to honor that. So I just work with staff to make sure that we're honoring those agreements. in a way that is feasible and can be maintained over time. But it comes down to communication. It can't happen in a vacuum. It can't happen in a silo. Your staff, you have department heads are created. They're there for a reason that they're to support that manager. The manager has their support and it's finding that that way forward and not pitting one against the other.

Right. Thank you.

Just a real quick question, Paul. You seem to be pretty adept at dealing with difficult personalities. How do you manage that? What's your style and how are you successful in managing?

Generally, I let them vent what their frustrations are. and don't argue and then work to find a solution find find that middle ground how can we move forward um i hear their frustrations um we i for example we had a meeting with a developer and heard their frustrations and i had to push back your claims here i get it but here's all the reasons why we're where we are and maybe you need to go look back at your team and see why you're not getting the results you want on their end because I'm saying the same thing five times. And I think it's providing clarity. When I got here, we had the town's planner and the town's engineer basing comments, referral comments on opinion and not on code, which their strength lies in using the code. And so now anytime that a referral comments come out, we're always trying to reference code, whether it be local, town code, state, federal, and then we have something to stand on. It's that analogy that if you back me off the cliff, I can't support you anymore because I'm not there. So using our code and using those things, but just listening to them, understanding what their concerns are, and then seeing if there's a path forward or if we need to stand firm. If there's roadblocks we can remove, then let's remove the roadblocks. I answered that in one of the questions for the previous session. Uh, interview that, you know, when I got here, there was a big hang up and there hadn't been any preliminary acceptances or final acceptances in 3 to 4 years. And just finding out that it was just stagnant and how do we move these things forward? Um, getting those done and so we did a lot of final acceptances in those 1st, 18 months. Um, just going out and looking at things that have been sitting there for 455 years that. We just needed to accept. We needed to deal with. We had some agreements. We had some judicial judgments that stated certain things. And we hadn't gone out and done our part to make sure that those were cleaned up. So I think that's how I've dealt with it. But one situation there, and then again, I mentioned that there's a citizen that they've been trying for 10 years or more to get something fixed that was not the town's fault. And then ultimately had to have a hard conversation with them and show them the plans that the town had approved that they didn't install properly. that most of your drainage problems are because the system the town allowed you to install in order to give you a driveway were not installed properly. And so just having some hard conversations, but just being honest with them and then trying to get those projects move forward. I would love to have this project done last year. It just didn't work, but hopefully it's going to work this year. But I think it's listening. A lot of it is listening and hearing what they have to say and then getting back to them with a potential solution if possible.

Okay, thank you.

No questions. All right. Thank you, Paul. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Ah, okay.

Hello. How are you? Good, and you? Doing well. Doing well. All right. Well, thanks for being able to get started a little earlier here. So the way we'll run through this is we have a list of questions. I won't even mention the time limit because I think we have plenty of time to get through these. So, yeah, be as brief or as verbose as you'd like to be. Sounds good. And we'll kind of run through and we'll just ask all the questions kind of one at a time and take a bunch of notes and give you an opportunity to ask us questions at the end.

All right. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Great. Okay. Who asked the last question? Was it me? No.

I just figured out it's for me.

I will mix it up. You know, I get to ask different questions.

Okay. All right, let's go ahead and get started then.

So welcome. First question we had was, could you just provide a brief summary of your education work experience, identify how these would inform you, your role as town manager?

By way of introduction, thank you for having an opportunity to interview with you and hopefully I can answer any questions you have. Education background, I grew up in a small town in Wyoming, Saratoga, Wyoming. went to high school there, ended the University of Wyoming, bachelor's in economics, bachelor's in political science. Both of those had a decidedly local aspect to it. Much of the classes I took for my political science were police administration, economic development, things like that. The economics degree focused largely on state and local finance, bonding issues, things like that. I took a couple of years off, worked in a lumber mill, and then went back and returned to college. I got a law degree. I received that in 1998, moved to Gillette, Wyoming, practiced law there in a private practice firm for about 16 years. Part of my work was centered on litigation, but part of my work was also working with developers, land use, water law, Oil and gas law, those types of things. At that point, Gillette was growing. Gillette, when we moved to there in 98, it was about 12,000 people. It was about 33,000 when we left in 2021. Had a hand ultimately on both sides of that growth, working with developers, for developers. And then ultimately left private practice when there was an opportunity to work for the city of Gillette. I was deputy city attorney there and then city attorney. During that time, I was on the other side of the table when there wasn't a conflict. dealing with growth and development that took place at that time. As city attorney for a full function city, obviously had hands and code development, working with bonding, bonding issues for projects. Um, writing policy, uh, writing handbooks, uh, those types of things and specific projects, but also then was, uh, advisor and consultant to the board and to department heads and the staff in general. I had an opportunity to transition after some shakeup within that community. Specifically, the town administrator had left. There was approximately a $60 million budget shortfall. And a series of department heads had left at that same time period. So I was brought in as the city attorney in an interim role to try to stabilize the organization, get it through the financial difficulties. That transition then from an interim to a full-time position. I was there for about four years in the administrative role. I then made a transition and moved to Elizabeth. I served as Elizabeth's administrator for a little over four years. The last year I was there, I also served as the community development director. So dual roles in that capacity. Did a fair amount of, I don't want to qualify it as legal work. I did work that in times would have been done by an attorney. but was always reserved and reviewed by existing council to make sure it conformed with Colorado law. Obviously two different roles and I don't want to enter interloop those and I don't want to combine those. That's not appropriate. But let's face it, if you've got an administrator that could do some of those tasks, it's more cost effective to have the administrator do it and the attorney review it and have the attorney drafts. So kind of a good working relationship in that. So that's what brings me here today.

Thank you.

Why this position in the Frayser right now for you? And how are you a good fit for this role? What do you bring that others might not?

I think a couple aspects to that question. So as I look at the Rocky Mountains as a whole, there is growth and development in different pockets throughout many states. I think Frazier sits in a unique position because Frazier has done, in my estimation, what a lot of communities have not done, which is you've looked at housing, you've tied that to transportation, you've tied that to economic development, you have tied that to creating, in essence, a parallel main street that would garner access rather than on the highway. promote that. So many communities look solely to a problem and focus distinctly just on that problem. Housing would be an easy one to label as a siloed side and say, well, we're going to fix the housing issue. If you don't look to transportation, which you have the lift system, if you don't look to daycares, regional partners, things like that, a lot of things are lost in translation for lack And Frasier is one of those few opportunities where there has been considerable thought given to it and the interplay between all of those relationships. And so it's from a political perspective, as far as administrative perspective, from a manager perspective, that's exciting. And there is an energy here to that fact. I recognize that growth is hard and there are people who don't particularly care for it. It may be not what they envision in growth. But having an active role in that process rather than being a victim of circumstance, which many small municipalities in particular are, is vitally important. With regard to my role, I've spent my professional career finding answers to problems. finding solutions. There are a lot of factors here to be considered. There's a lot of positive things that are going on. Being in the implementation phase of that is really where I find a lot of joy in what I do and what I like to do. By way of experience, when I came to Elizabeth, I was hired by the board at that time because Elizabeth had had no rush sets of plans, things that had set on shelves for years and three ring binders that hadn't had any progress on. And so my job was to come in and figure out how do you fund them? How do you make them work? How do you proceed? That was rewarding and challenging in every regard. This offers some of those same aspects to it, but it's more of a here and now rather than going back, taking 15-year-old plans, now updating them, now getting them ready to go, knowing that there's a lot of changes that could happen in that meantime. And so for me, Frasier is a right point professionally in my career. I have the ability, I have the background knowledge, I have the experience to assist in that. And in those regards, I think I would welcome those challenges. And I think it would be a real benefit to the community in that regard.

Thank you.

All right, describe your management and leadership style with specific focus on town manager tool in working with staff, the community and with the town board.

Okay, I may have you come back and we'll take that in a couple of different pieces. Sure. But let's talk first about the role of the administrator. I think you can ask all kinds of different administrators. You may get different answers. I view my role as being collaborative in nature and a team builder to force to accomplish what's been asked. When I look to the public, my job is to take input and criticism Let the board know that those things exist and what those problems and concerns and and accolades are for that matter. Convey that to the board. If problems are there and they arise and there's something that I can work on and can remedy, I do so when I can. If I can't, it comes to you. Uh, through the process, and we find a solution that works for all involved at the extent we can. Um, 1 of the things that, uh, when I work with public is, I want them to understand that, uh. Um, if there's a problem, and it comes to my attention, it was serious enough for them to bring it. All too often, people will make comments and sometimes misunderstandings about what the role of government is, particularly in small municipality. To the extent I have those interactions, I want to make sure that those are positive. That does not necessarily mean that the citizen or the resident is going to have the same view of the answer. They may dislike the answer. What I want them to understand is the process by which that answer is answered. If it's if it's because the code says so, there's a means to change the code that relies on you and you need to be aware of those questions or concerns coming. My role is to be the board is to. Really meet the challenges you present to me, accomplish the work and the goals that you have set and to assure that you are informed timely informed and that you have all available information to you at your disposal to make informed decisions. My process of working with the board in that regard is I generally try to make sure that a board receives information three times before a formal action. The first is generally an email. I like to send out an email on Fridays. I try not to make them overly long. Sometimes they're a 30-second read. Sometimes they're a five-minute read. What it generally reflects is what happened during the week. Citizen interactions, if it rises to a certain level, I think is important. Where we stand on projects, things like that. And also what may be upcoming in the upcoming weeks. Well, there's your first opportunity, and it won't be an all-encompassing idea of what's there. Somewhere along the line, you'll get a more formal memo from me, maybe half a page, maybe three, four pages. I try to make it in a very... stylized who, what, when, where, why type approach so that your time is not wasted reading a lot of unnecessary things unless you have specific questions. And then ultimately when an item comes up for further discussion, workshop, or vote, you at least feel as though you have a good understanding of what is being asked, why it's being asked, the benefits, the burdens, the good and the bad of what decision you make. be uh making and so that you're as informed as as we can make you and provide you going into something there's nothing in my mind and in my career experience surprises aren't welcomed and they're not helpful and to the extent i can remove those surprises i should try to that doesn't mean that when somebody grabs the microphone i know what they're going to say or what they may do Well, I'll sit back and enjoy that, see what goes on. But as far as what I can, I try to make sure that you're informed, staff is informed, so that we're all consistent in what we do and how we look at it in the future. I think I hit all three parts of your question, but I'm not sure. Yes. Okay.

What is your experience with ideas for facilitating cooperative efforts with neighboring jurisdictions and with voters? And please describe your experience interacting with neighboring community. Is your style to work collaboratively with them or to compete?

My goal is generally to work together. Now, I have worked for boards and organizations that were more adversarial in that regard, and I think that does a disservice to the community and to the citizens. It causes redundancy of tax dollars being spent, and that's not welcoming to any. My experience with working with that is I try to establish those baseline relationships early and I keep them current. As I mentioned in a staff interview earlier, I really am a big believer in just going and grabbing a cup of coffee with someone and have a discussion. We have lost so much of that as a society with text messages and internet. As an administrator, look, we deal with facilities and things like that. But a community is not the roads. A community is not the streets. And so I work very hard to establish those ties. You have ongoing relationships with numerous entities right now. I would offer police with Winter Park as a prime example. That is a cost-effective means of dealing with law enforcement as it exists now. There may be a time that that isn't quite as economical for either party. We address that if that happens. I have, by way of experience, in Gillette, the fire department there was a combination of the county, the city of Gillette, and the town of Wright. So you have three entities. Each had decidedly different concerns. For the city of Gillette, it was buildings. And if you were, you know, it was mostly residential homes, you were worried about fires. If I was a county, dealing with the county perspective, it was brush fires, it was grass fires, and it was tree fires. And that required an extensive amount of money for aerial attack on a fire situation. Conversely, the county thought nothing of bringing in fixed-wing and rotary aircraft to fight a fire, but they were not happy at having a 90-foot ladder truck because it didn't do them any good in the count. But we worked through those issues. We talked through those issues. other relationships that are there. When I was in Elizabeth, we worked very hard to reestablish what had been a failed relationship, I think, for lack of a better word, between the school district, the park and rec district, which was different, the sheriff's department, the county commissioners, and the library, making sure that we all as administrators, as directors, could get together and talk and visit through any questions we had. When we first started that, There have been periods of time when those weren't good relationships. None of us who sat in that room understood or knew why those were bad relationships from 10 years ago. So there's the first thing. What's the dirty laundry we have to air so that we do what's right for our citizens? And so that's how I generally approach those type of issues. And that's a few of the examples of experiences I've had with that. And every community has their own relationships that way, their own issues. You work to ensure that you're doing what's best for your community. And like I said, I think cooperative efforts, which are seen all throughout this valley, whether it's the lift system, things like that, those are all vitally important. And I would strongly recommend that that relationship continue across all of it.

Thank you. All right. Describe your experience overseeing a wastewater treatment plant, joint use facility, or a special district. How would you plan for expansion over the next 5 to 10 years?

Anytime I think you're expanding public works services, and I use that very broadly. I think you have to, one, you run an analysis of the here and now. Where do we stand? What's the capacity? What are the deficiencies that we have? What's the age of the building? Things like that. Far above what an administrator is capable of doing. But you have those people that are in the field. They may be your own employees. Where are we and what are we looking at? How old is it? What needs improved? Then we look to, um, but what would a realistic view of the future hold for this? Um, there's little point and if you're going to expand, say, a wastewater plant to expand it to what will work in 5 years or 10 years. Um, take a more aggressive approach. It will cost more. Initially, uh, to build out with the 2025 year projection. The problem is, is that the time value of money means that that is still going to be cheaper in the long run than. continuing to build out. Then what is the phases that can be done? Perhaps there are systematic phases you can work into a capital improvement plan where that's taken in three-year, five-year fights, if you will, so that you're not doing all those costs at once. I think the other thing that is vitally important when we look at these is what does the long-term maintenance look like? What is the maintenance schedule? How are funds set aside for future maintenance? I always look at it this way. The moment you pave a road, that road's yours. And that paving has a finite life, but the road itself is infinite. And you need to have plans going into it. What is that going to look like? What is the natural upgrades that need to be? And start saving money today because you know that that will happen. You know that you will have those expenditures. So I guess to kind of sum it up, what are the things you wish you would have done 20 years ago when you built it? How do you build it out projecting 20 to 30 years in the future? How are you going to fund it initially? And then how are you going to fund it long-term?

Okay. What strategies would you recommend for diversifying Frazier's tax base? And how would you evaluate tools such as economic development incentives, zoning changes, or annexation to support long-term fiscal sustainability while maintaining community character? Sure.

Would like to say I wish I had the magic eight ball for some of that, but I can give you kind of an overall view of issues that I see that are there. I think a lot of times local government, municipal government gets a bad rap that they are the hindrance to growth. And that may be true. There are places that are specifically difficult to build it. I think that that is lots of times a way of blaming costs that were not calculated when the plans were originally developed. I think that's a convenient way of articulating a much more complex concept. But I think if you hear that enough times, You get a fresh set of eyes on, say, your building code or your zoning code and take a look at it. Does it need updated? When was the last time it was updated? I'm a firm believer that policy manuals, things like that, need to be updated on a fair, examined, I should say, on a fairly regular basis and updated when necessary. It's very easy to have, say, well, we did that a few years back. And then when you look, it was 10 years ago, actually, it was last addressed. And there are things that are lost in that regard. When we talk about economic development, I think one of the things that you have to keep in mind is that economic development is not instantaneous. Very rarely does a great idea appear on paper and then magically generate tax revenue. The work I did in Wyoming was years in the making to be able to get, for example, we were able to successfully have a couple of businesses relocate from California to Wyoming for manufacturing. Those were years in the works, years of relationships in a way that there was days we were sure that that wasn't going to happen. Um, because for a, for a business, whether you're a new business opening up a new, or you're trying to import a new business, um, there's, there's no The entrepreneurial spirit's got to kick in. There's a chance you lose money and you may lose everything. And so I think having incentives to assist in that, maybe reduce some of the pain, if you will, of starting up, I think those are important. You can see that different ways, whether that is getting creative on tax revenue or sale of property, things like that. One that kind of comes to mind, it's slightly off topic, but deed restrictions, which you have in place to assure that there's a level of workforce housing, things like that. Those are incentives that can be there. I think you also have to look to what can be done regionally perhaps find ways of working together. Look, we want Frazier to succeed, but if somebody wants to put a house of development grant, it's not going to hurt Frazier, not in the grand scheme of things. Now, that doesn't mean you get the sales tax revenue, and I recognize that. But those are people that are struggling to come here to shop. They may be working here. So taking a much more global approach to things, very similar to what Trustee Smith said with regard to how do you work on these relationships. That would be an example of how I look at it. I think the first part of your question, if you could refresh my memory of it.

What strategies would you recommend for diversifying Frazier's tax base?

I think... I hate to think that there's any way to get away from tourism. Tourism is such a vital part for the overall county, the overall area of Colorado. People come here because it's beautiful, because they engage in outdoor activities that they can't do other places. That doesn't mean that you're solely limited to skiing and mountain biking and things like that. I think what you do have to do is take and make an analysis of what can we do realistically and reasonably. And I think you go back and you look, okay, is this a prime location for adventure tourism, sports tourism, things like that, that may be slightly different. We can take use of what we have here. But let's face it, you're not going to open heavy manufacturing here because there's no place to do it. There's not water to do it. There's not electricity to do it. And you're not going to build it up here on top of the mountain. And so I think there's a lot of, a lot of people have really good intentions, good ideas, but sometimes it just simply can't come to fruition when you start looking through. So I think ask the citizens what they're interested in, what they would be wanting to work with and how they would work. Look at Chambers of Commerce. What are they willing to do? Are they able to assist in the buy-in? There are grants sometimes available. Look at that. But I think, at least as I look at it, admittedly a bit of an outsider, it has to be tied somewhat to the tourism industry and the ag industry, which is still surviving in the county as a whole. but let me offer up maybe one aspect to that extra. I like to look at the big vision. I can see a situation in the not-too-distant future where I live in Chicago. I fly to Denver. I take the A line to Union Station downtown. I get on the ski train, and I'm up here. I can come up here, and I can rent a bike in the summer. I can ski in the winter. I don't need to rent a car. I don't need to worry about driving up a mountain pass. I can be here for three days and I can return to Chicago or wherever having had a wonderful weekend being here and doing those things. And I think that may be the niche that is there. And I get the feeling having looked at all the other documents that that's a belief that's out there underlying. It's how do we make that work? Is that advertising? Is that very select advertising in very specific areas. Those are things I think that is not necessarily just a Frazier question. I think it becomes a broader tourism question for the area. But I think those are the kinds of things that can maybe potentially take you out of the cycle. of strictly tourism in the winter, summer months and maybe add to some sales tax revenue in the shoulders as well. Because let's face it, September here is beautiful, October's here is beautiful. The skiing is lousy in September and not much you can do there. So that would be some initial thoughts going in.

Okay. What's your assessment of the critical issues facing the town

and what are the opportunities for us um critical issues they don't think that they're they exist and those critical issues include um underlying issues that i think a lot of small communities particularly mount committees are doing okay you've got water issues water is tied in numerous ways. That's your tourism dollars in the winter. That is your ability to offer basic services that government should do. That is also an issue for fire suppression and other health, life and safety issues. I think transportation becomes a critical issue if, you know, based on driving up the pass, some of that. Are there ways that we can work on some of those transportation issues? Also tied with transportation is food costs, supply costs. You know, your Safeway is expensive. It's expensive for a reason, and I understand that. Is it possible to, and I just throw this out as an example, I don't have the foggiest idea, but what's it take to add two boxcars to that train that comes up? And would that offer an opportunity to have goods shipped in?

It may not be feasible. I don't know.

But it's something more than thinking. Other critical issues, I think they're the standards. Housing. We talk about affordable housing. I'm not sure if there is such a thing anymore. And I hate to say that. As a father of a 25-year-old and a 23 or 22-year-old, that's a question they have for me. I don't know if there's an answer for that right now. Daycare. Daycare is probably the second most difficult issue to deal with. Traditionally, those people that we... and trust our children with, whether they be teachers, daycare teachers, or some of the worst paid employees that we have, which is ironic at some level. I trust our children to the lowest paid. That shouldn't be the case. But it is, and I accept that, and I don't think I can change that. But that is an issue and an answer. I think having a tax base, having sales tax tied to Mother Nature, which is not unique, but I think that's one of the other things I would look at, is sales tax revenue is down. And the problem with sales tax revenue is you see that you don't get the full picture until a couple months down the road. And frankly, if it's relying on snow, there's very little you can do to fix that. Those are the things that at first look at that's concerned. I'm not sure any one of them jumps out as more important than the others. I think they all are so intertwined that it creates a lot of challenges. Challenges are not necessarily a bad thing. It's actually more efficient if you were .

Thank you.

What role should the manager have with community What issues are you aware of in your research in Frasier? What would your approach given be at what you know now? What would be your approach given what you know now? Sorry. The role of the community and issues that we're having. What's your role?

That feels like a weighty question.

I know.

A role of an administrator manager in a community, particularly a community this size, is you have to be a listening post. You have to work with the community. You have to be present, physically present, mentally present. I always look at it this way, which is there's any time I leave My house. There's an opportunity. I'm going to run into an individual who is going to be immensely displeased of the way government's running because I don't generally hear from people that are content or happy with That's not to be that's not To be mean about it, but that is part of it. And you need to have the patience, you need to be calm, you need to listen to what the comments are and reflect on it. Sometimes people just need to vent and that happens. I understand that. But as a manager, it's so vitally important that citizens' residents hear it. And I think then ensuring that that information is passed on to you is important as well. You asked about the research I've done on the community. What do I hear out there? I think was the second part of that question. You know, I think there are those people that are concerned about growth, the nature of growth and what growth looks like. I think there are concerns that perhaps the expansion of growth is getting ahead of what is manageable, what is feasible. And I understand some of those concerns. I also understand that across Colorado right now, growth is kind of a bad word in many, many places. And so what they see is a downfall or a downside in other communities that we're worried about here. Now the realities are that transportation does get, there is an impact of transportation and bringing more families here and more individuals here on a handset. So what are we doing ahead of time to try to curtail some of those concerns? People are worried about water, water depth. You know, are we depleting, are we using water or are we mining water? Mining water, you never get to reclaim. And where does that really lie? And how is that? And what will that not just impact me as a resident here, because probably there are solutions, but what about somebody who's out in the county that has a very shallow water? Interesting. I think that's an issue that's there. I think concern for the unknown. Unknown in the fact that, and I think it's beyond Frasier, I think there's an unknown with the current economy. I think that current economy feeling may be some of the reason why skiing was down, although assuredly smell levels and things like that have an impact. If society is feeling pulled different ways, people react in some really funny ways. And I think that has an impact as well. And I think that is, you know, that is one of the issues that's there. I'm sure, I am sure that... You know, developers are afraid to say that you're here to stop growth. You don't understand it. That's a common phrase you hear everywhere. So I can just throw that one out as a safe response. And so those are the things that I see coming into it from what I've seen on social media and other things that way. And I think that's the role of the administrator too, which are the managers to quench some of those rumors that are in there. It's very easy for people to get online and make the most outrageous comments. I don't think you can win jousting with people on the internet, but making good information known, damn information out there, and be consistent in the message is vitally important. For the manager, it's important for staff, and ultimately it's important.

Mayor, just a point.

It's your prerogative how long you want to take because you have that extra time.

But if you want to stick to the hour, you've got 20 minutes more and about seven questions before applicant asks questions. Okay.

All right. So I guess we'll look for a little brevity on the questions. But so far, so good. All right.

So what is your experience making a row assessments of an organization, staff and board, and then leading through necessary changes?

There are seven more questions altogether. We have for you just to let you know.

Okay. Traditionally. And I want to emphasize this, this point as, as a manager, part of my job is to inform the board. of where things are working smooth and where they're not and look at changes if necessary. That's not a rush decision by any means. That is a process of listening and learning and observing. I would not be interested in, and I think I would be troubled by trying to make any staff decisions to the first 180 days that are here, unless there are certain issues that the board's aware of that need immediate attention. When it comes to staffing assessments, one of the things I did in Elizabeth was, and it was multifaceted why I did it, but I had the employee's write their job description based on what they were doing at that moment in time. And it was interesting to see how the job description had changed over years and how those things had come into play. And frankly, were employees being treated fairly for the additional duties that they had? and some things like that. Those were important because that also told me where there was tasks not being done or too many people assigned to a specific task. One of the things that I think would be a concern for me coming into it is I'm unable to glean from the public record and public documents with the projects that are coming up. Has there been sufficient time and sufficient thought putting What should staffing levels be in the future? And I offer an example is if you have more lanes of travel to plow and maintain, what's the magic number before you trigger the need for an additional streets operator? If we're looking at building out a wastewater center, expanding wastewater, granted, we're only doing the collection end of it. and not the processing, but more pipe in the ground means more problems. At what point do we need additional staff for some of those things? Assuredly, as you have more transportation, you'll have more wear and tear on vehicles, snow removal. Everybody still magically will want to be able to get out of their driveway and see black Blacktop, which is not realistic, but particularly if you don't live here year-round and you're here seasonally only for a few weeks, making sure that the appropriate steps are there. The final bit of that is how do you do that assessment? Some of that can be done in-house. I would think most of it can be done in-house. I rely on the department heads. I like to have a relationship with my department heads. That if they need something, they tell me. They don't beat around the bush. They don't, but it's a trust issue. If they say they need X, Y, and Z and they come to me, then that means that they need it. We're not playing, let's make a deal. We're not saying you need two employees hoping to get one. If you need an employee, tell me you need an employee and let's proceed and figure it out. but we're not playing any type of games with that. That's a level of trust I expect, and that's the same level of trust I get back to.

Okay. Talk about your experience in a major land use or development negotiations. What has been your role in the process? Would it be similar in Frayser? And tell us about lessons learned.

There was a project in Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a home rule, or excuse me, not a home rule, a statutory community as you are. the uh developer had uh not to beat in too many of the specifics it was 1400 homes 31 residential or commercial sites uh and the water was not there And so I worked to narrow down expectations and dealing with a developer that had a had a bit of a reputation for being aggressive in pursuing things. He recognized that, you know, I had I had represented people like him in the past. And so we had a frankly, we ended up having a fairly good work relationship. Part of that process was getting him to be realistic in the amount of property that was involved, realistic in the number of homes that were involved, realistic as his expectations. He had been annexed in, but what was the reasonable expectations of the level of service? What would go on in that way? Were we going to take common lands as parks or were we going to let the HOA deal with those? Things like that. And because he had had a bit of a reputation, I was more hands-on than what I would normally be.

But that happens. That's okay.

Different people have different personalities and different working styles. So I try to be very flexible in that. At the end of that, ironically enough, the board had supported it, planning commission supported it. The voters did not, and it got put on a special election. It was killed at that point in time. It was transferred to the county, and now it is going to end up being a lovely county project. We have exactly and I bring that up because I think that's a not too uncommon theory across most of the state of Colorado 1 point or.

Yeah, and they're doing it.

All right. Do you have experience and ideas to help enhance disaster preparedness and build resiliency in our community in the face of an uncertain future?

Um. I look at a, uh, I look at that and I take that fairly critically because, um, I think 1 of. If we, we talk about the most basic services that government should offer, I go back to health safety. And so, um, each region of the world has their own little. hiccups, if you will, whether they be tornadoes, avalanches, monsoons, floods, things like that. Those are the things that protection of human life, I think, is probably the most important thing government can do. I had an opportunity in Elizabeth working with the police department, the sheriff's department, the fire department to create a fire mitigation plan that took care of to prevent wildfire urban interface and deal with those issues. We created an evacuation plan that divided the city into four different, the town into four different quadrants. Each quadrant had a separate and distinct evacuation process. That had to do with the fact there was two bridges within the town itself, as well as a bridge that separated the town from the county seat, meaning that you could be cut off through several bridges to being away from emergency management, the sheriff's department. So we worked on building those out. Comfortable with that. After 9-11, I took a real interest in some of the planning and processes that came after that. I was a private practice attorney at the time and needed something to do on the cold winter nights. And so I did what's called CERT training, which is a community emergency response team training. Undertook that, learned quite a lot from that. That was taught by local emergency services, members of FEMA, things like that. So that was interesting as much as now I find it beneficial. um at that time it was just something going on a Tuesday night but uh you know I take some some interest in that um one of the things uh I may have mentioned this previously um we were up here when I say we my wife and I were up here um Sunday uh touring around and I you know we come to Fraser every so often but I was surprised at Just how bad the traffic was Sunday afternoon trying to get back down. And I couldn't help but think of my wife commented, what would happen if there was a wildfire right here right now. The answer is it would not be good.

Go the other way.

Yeah.

In a giant traffic plan.

If you could have. Yeah. And so having those regional agreements, understanding where those lines are, I mean, forest service, state forestry, those plans should be there. They should be in place. And that was one thing I don't see is I wasn't able to find an overarching evacuation plan, things like that. What are the routes? How do we get people in and out of here? who don't know the area that's the other so that's kind of my thoughts on it yeah okay all right what is your experience with trails parks and open space development um i've uh i've had the opportunity in gillette we did uh uh hit a little bit on that sports tourism aspect we built out uh a fairly elaborate system of trails. We did a fully inclusive ADA park, which I'm quite proud of. It had including zip lines for individuals that were not as mobile. You could do zip lines if you were in a wheelchair, which is a fascinating concept too. particularly for little kids. In Elizabeth, we did a parks, trails, and open space master plan working between the school district, the city, the county, and some HOAs trying to come up with a master plan for trails that encompassed pedestrian trails, bike trails, and equestrian trails and how those would interplay with one another. Ultimately, the goal in all of those is to work to leverage funds, both from the state to the federal government, private donations. One of the nice things you can do, for example, when you're doing ADA is there is a series of foundations out there that are more than willing to give you money, including the Christopher Reeves Foundation and some others. So you can really leverage funds. The key is having funds. money set aside in the way that when that fund cycle comes up and that funding cycle for grant comes up, do you have the funds available to match? Or can you reasonably expect to have those funds available to match? And that's a whole other financial issue, but that's the experience I have.

Okay, great. I'm just going to paraphrase this because you have been a manager in a community I assume with limited access to resource and employee pool.

Yes, Elizabeth would clearly fall within that category.

Okay. So, what do you learn about that? Um, and how do you propose addressing staff development and retention of staff and.

An area like pressure, I think staff development. And employee retention, I like to think many times it's more than just. compensation. Compensation is a piece of it. We all know that. And if you're honest and candid with your employees that there's only so much tax dollars to go around, they generally understand that. That may not mean that they can continue to work. But I also like to challenge employees to find something that they want to do. What do they want to learn that would benefit their position? What would they want to learn that would benefit the community or the town? I am always open to suggestions to see growth and development. I also want to make sure that employees who do well receive the necessary recognition, accolades, things like that. I'll give you just one quick example because I know we're on the clock. When we were doing some of the park work, to hit it back on Trustee White's comment, when we were doing some of the park work, I used the park maintenance people to do much of the design work, much to the chagrin of the professional park planners. They know what kids like. They're out there every day that the kids are out there. They know what the maintenance responsibilities are. They know what type of trees and plants and bushes. And through that, they have buy-in. They want to see it succeed. They want to take care of a park they designed, they operate, things like that. So that's a unique way of trying to get some buy-in that way. But they're better. I challenge my employees all the time, and I hope they challenge me.

to do better. What do you think is the right amount of time on manager and a place to be most effective? How do you see this position fitting into your career plans and progression? How about five to 10 years? What's that look like?

I think there's probably, particularly for a small community, the turnover of a manager is so detrimental to the organization. I think it's detrimental not so much because of, okay, so you've got a new manager in charge and you have new qualified managers. Nobody's getting a manager. is not qualified by me. What it does do though is it creates ebb and flow or peaks and valleys, whatever phrase you want to use with the morale of employees. We each have a different leadership style. We have each different expectations. And so anytime there's a change in that makeup, it causes disruption. Disruption inherently costs time and money. There's no other way around it. It may not be, it may not be trackable as far as money is concerned, but it is trackable as far as time is concerned. Productivity is lost. Your staff today, when they were interviewing me and have sat in on other interviews, they They were doing that. They weren't doing what we'd have to do as members of the organization.

So those are things that have to be kept in mind.

I think traditionally, I've known administrators that served two, three years and were very influential and did a good job. I've seen administrators last 15, 20 years who did an excellent job. I've seen administrators that last five to 10 years who... frankly, did a horrible job over there for five to 10 years. And so part of it is, is you have to get the right fit, particularly if I'm sitting in your seat, I've sat on board. It's just the most drastic decision we probably make other than, you know, annexations and a few things that way. But consistency within the organization is vitally important. With regard to how I view it, you look at my resume, I've had basically three employers my entire life. I consider that a bit of an honor and a day where people are very quick to change jobs. I guess I'm old school is what they say. I'm not looking for the next best job. I am looking for a job that I think I can succeed in, that I can do meaningful work. And if it's five years, great. If it's 10 years, even better. I have no interest in using this as a stepping stone. for anything else. If I wanted to do that, I probably would be looking at the career I had in Gillette, a community of 33,000 moving up, trying to stay in a small town. And so that's how I view it. And that's my interrelationship that I want.

Thank you.

Can I ask a question?

Yeah.

Related to that, I just did

Yeah, and you had mentioned to me that Elizabeth, her partner is only an hour and a half, but how does this job

So I did. I grew up in Saratoga. And so we would work through these mountains on a regular basis. It's a mountain community. It's very much within the lifestyle that I grew up in. I grew up playing in the mountains. Ditching school, ditching high school, go play in the mountains. I grew up fishing, hunting. I grew up on a working ranch. And so this lifestyle is very attractive. My snowshoe, I used to cross-country ski. My wife and I were joking about whether that was going to be an option in the future. I'm a little... a little scared of that option but maybe we'll do that um my wife likes to do wildlife photography this is a wonderful place to do that um and frankly pressure's kind of kind of without sounding uh uh formal enough uh you just got a great vibe to it it's just a really neat town And it always has been. And so that fits in very well with what I do and what I can do. I have a son who's looking at going into law enforcement. There's law enforcement opportunities up and down the valley. The county, Granby's looking, and obviously Winter Park's looking always. There's a lot of that that fits together real well for us looking for a future.

Thank you, John. I wanted to ask about non-work. So that did it. Simple one. When can you start?

I think from a practical perspective, I could start fairly quickly. Housing, but fairly quickly within the next couple of weeks, I would think. Housing is obviously an issue here, and I would need to find, you know, there might be those couple of days as part of that transition. I need a day off here and there just to get caught up on life other places. But that would be really my time frame is try to look. What are we?

Weeks to a month rather than months.

No, no, no, no. If offered a position, I'm excited. Let's get rolling. Two weeks, three weeks at the most would be nice.

Okay. Closing the town has contacted your references and conducted a background check. Is there anything you'd like to make the board aware of?

Um, on the background check, I'm sure that you saw that, uh, There was some concerns related to my departure from the city of Gillette. I'd be more than willing to visit with you on those. I don't think there's anything there that's not already out in the public. I would always make the cautionary tale about what you read in the press may not be the entire story, as is the case. I'm sure that you've appeared in the press enough to understand the comment. There is... Couple other videos out there. One that's kind of amusing. I had one of the First Amendment auditors that cornered me in the parking lot in Elizabeth. That was kind of a fun instant. That may or may not come up on a social media search. I get a lot of cases. I was involved when I was in private practice. Um, I sued the city of Gillette numerous times prior to becoming their attorney. Uh, one may have something to do with the other. Um, and so, uh, those are probably out there. Um, and, uh, I'm not sure what else might come up. There's nothing as far as DUIs, arrests, uh, any of those types of things are not in my background. Uh, maintain a current law license, um, Meet all the ethical obligations to go with that. There's probably commentary with regard to nonprofits as well. Boy scouts, uh, chamber colleagues.

All right.

Um, and what questions do you have for the board?

Um, so probably. I take it as a two part question. What would success look like in the first 180 days? What would success look like in the first year? I think

In the 1st, 180 days, I think you're on the right path with 1 of your other answers that I don't think we're looking for big changes. But I think a good assessment of the town would be an interesting thing to report on back to the board. And after the 180 days, I mean, there's a lot of projects that are in motion. So, you know, a continuation of those projects and the other initiatives of the board, I think, would be the most important things. What else to add?

I think maintaining momentum on those projects. We're pretty busy. We're pretty diverse in projects. Um, and I think, uh, secondarily would be keeping an eye on the budget and in relation to those projects. Nothing else.

So your law licenses are Wyoming or Colorado or both.

I have, um, uh, licenses in Wyoming state federal court. Colorado Federal Court, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit Bankruptcy Court. So we're in the Tenth Circuit, Colorado, Mexico. Oh, no, Kansas are all in that. And then U.S. Tax Court, all the weird ones that have a license. So, yes, a little bit in Wyoming, a little bit in Colorado. Okay, I've never actively practiced in Colorado. I have. Done cases, um, as as joint council in Colorado. I've never actually called it.

Thank you any other questions for us?

Um. Along that line, um, so, uh. What what is what is the. what are you looking for in an administrator? And I know what the advertisements say, but what are those, say, two fundamental traits or three fundamental traits that you're looking at in your next administrator?

Yeah, strong collaboration skills, I think is probably number one.

With the staff and the community and other key players. Staff is a big one. We've got really good staff. Yes, you do. Yeah, really good staff.

I had a lot of fun.

Good. And I think being transparent to the public, I think that's a big piece of it. We've had difficulties in the past with somebody not being quite as open as they should have been with the board and with the public.

Mm-hmm.

Again, I go back to the fact that I don't want you to be surprised. If you're surprised, I'm surprised. And we're both surprised at the same time, the same way. That's the only way that this relationship really works. Conversely, if you know something's coming, that's the new guy, I would ask that you keep me informed. Let me know where there are problems. We know what's out there officially, but what's the backstory on it? um more of a comment as well as i would i would i would ask i would appreciate that uh you assist me in becoming uh vested in there you know the vested here um it's a two-way street you want me to be um if selected to be part of the community i need assistance in that it's hard to be the new guys and so making the appropriate introductions giving me advice as to what events to go to who to meet, who to set up a coffee with. I will welcome all of those and I will follow up on all of those. So that's finally important as well. I throw that out as well.

Yeah. Any other questions for...

Yeah, I thought about bringing that up when you asked your question. But being a community member is pretty important. We've had town managers that live here. We've had town managers that were just here during Monday through Friday and never here on the weekends. So, yeah, what is your take on that?

My preference is one to live in the community in which you play a vital role. I think if nothing else, it causes... Concern for the public, which in turn causes a board concern of the administrators back here. Um, so that would be my goal, uh, is to is to live in Frazier. The reality is that there is some limited housing, and so I'll have to deal with that. But that would still be, in my view, a short-term solution that can be fixed if it's living in Winter Park, living in Granby, something like that. I don't know how other administrators can really claim to work for a town anymore. That's a condition that I've had when I've worked other places, and that's perfectly agreed. Unfortunately, the administrator position, manager position, is not a nine to five. So if you've got to run down to the office at midnight, heaven forbid, or something like that, you've got to be able to do it, and you can't do it from afar.

Do I like to go away on the weekends?

Yeah, but I'm not going to live a dual life, living one place and working another. Just calling it that. I live where I live. Right. And I recognize that concern. I don't have that concern. Hopefully this explanation meets that you don't have those concerns.

Sure. Sounds good. Anything else? Okay.

Okay.

Okay. All right. I want to take this. Thank you so much for the opportunity and for the good questions and the responses I've received. I look forward to hearing from you, whichever way this may go.

Okay.

All right. There's a couple.

Okay. Hi, Sarah.

Hello.

How are you? Good. Okay. We have a list of, what is it, like 17 questions or something? We have about 45 minutes to an hour. So however you want to break up those questions, feel free. But I'll start us off and we'll kind of go around the table here with the questions. Okay. 1st, 1, please provide a brief summary of your education and work experience at identifying how these would inform your role as town manager.

Hey, thank you all as you all know, I'm currently the assistant town manager for the town of Frazier. So I've been here for a little over three years and definitely learned a lot in that time. I had the opportunity to kind of be thrown right into some pretty critical projects. I've been able to gain some really valuable experience in a variety of areas, affordable housing initiatives, including the St. Louis Landing Project and helping to support that $75 million capital stack. economic developments, working on downtown revitalization. A key piece of that was formation of the Downtown Development Authority, which I helped lead the effort for. So we had an exploratory committee, a ballot measure, and then put the organization together from bylaws to putting a board together and creating a plan of development, which we did in all in about a year's time, which I've been told is record pace, but really trying to leave the foundation for a strong and vibrant downtown center and core. I've also worked in kind of the environmental realm with conservation easements, helping to oversee kind of wetland mitigation and efforts around the protected natural area and working with the Corps. Efforts for kind of solidifying support around early childhood education, which has really been a regional effort. So really just kind of a breadth of responsibilities that's helped give me A background on town operations really given me a pulse on the community. A lot of solid relationships across the board with the neighboring municipalities and counties. Working on the Fraser River corridor master plan and that implementation led to the bike park project. And that was just really a great community effort again, with a lot of community partners and just that experience of engaging with the community, engaging with the board, working with staff, all of these have been team efforts. So it's definitely given me avenues into all the various departments here at the town and getting to learn kind of the, the daily operations and how all of that works. So I feel like I have a really solid foundation and institutional knowledge for Frasier. Prior to my time here at the town, I got a degree in policy studies and then a master of public administration at Syracuse University. After that, I joined the Peace Corps and was a small business development volunteer in Guatemala, working with women's microcredit lending groups. and then really kind of worked internationally in community development and in intercultural education for the last couple of decades. I had the opportunity to go to Peru and start off as a volunteer coordinator and then lead an organization there that worked across a number of spheres in community development. So we had projects in Agro tourism, we worked with women's groups and kind of some again, small develop business development projects, health and education, water systems, stoves. So really just a breadth of projects and gave me some great experience in leading an organization and managing staff, managing budgets and programming. And really navigating sometimes some complex kind of community dynamics. We would have volunteer groups come down to work in the community and bless their little hearts. They all wanted to save the world, but sometimes what they wanted out of their experience and their ideas were not the same as what was best for the community, right? And not what our community partners wanted to see. So I think that was great experience. And again, navigating those types of situations and how do you let everybody feel like they have value and they're heard and And they're contributing but really kind of landing at a common vision and goal that's going to serve a greater purpose than you know what Johnny wants to do for for spring break kind of thing um so that was a great experience I went to Ghana with that same organization and. developed a site there we hadn't worked previously in Ghana, so I there I hired. staff and forge those relationships in the community from the ground up. I also spent two years with Teach for America. So I feel like I have really great understanding of kind of our education system. And again, just to look at how complex issues can be. And it's not just about having great teachers in the classroom, but all these different factors that contribute to success in the education system. Again, I think it's very similar to just community development work and local government in terms of you're generally looking at all these different approaches to something and all these different pieces that are playing a part in the larger puzzle. Spent about a decade at the University of Denver and then continued to adjunct teach there, managing international programs, a lot of experience with risk management, again, collaboration across campus, working with staff, faculty, and students. And that time in international kind of community development and intercultural education has really shaped me and my approach to community development and just teamwork and leadership. I think that the crux of kind of intercultural competencies and adaptation is just being able to be resilient and adapt to be able to read the lay of the land when you don't know it. It's coming in and knowing you don't have all the answers and that it's not your way or the highway. And just being able to see things from multiple perspectives and to recognize people's values and what drives them and what's shaping their behaviors and how they communicate and to be able to work with different communication styles. um so i think all of that sets me up really well to be able to have all the important dialogue and just to look at policies and problems and solutions from multiple angles to work with the board. So as the town manager, I would be here to serve the board and the community as a steward of the public resources. And so really working with you to define what those priorities are. We have an updated comprehensive plan that a lot of work went into. So how do we now strategize? How do we get you good information so you can decide what you really want to prioritize within that plan and then build a strategic vision and the steps to get there? And then working with staff to empower them to go out and do good work. I think I was really privileged. And having a town manager in my time here that really kind of set me up for success to be able to help implement projects that the board had defined as critical priorities. And so my role as manager would be setting up staff to do the same.

How long have you been in the community?

I'm here. Well, like many, it was kind of a gradual migration. So my husband and I bought a house up here in 2015. At the time, he was working up here and I was working at the University of Denver. So we were kind of back and forth for a while. So a long time. I mean, I guess not long time compared to a lot of people, but

Why this position in Frayser right now for you and how are you a good fit for this role? What do you bring that others might not?

I think something that I bring to the table that not everybody would have is just that institutional knowledge and the pulse on the community and the understanding of the various issues. that we're facing. I think I am a strong candidate for continuity with some of those projects already being deeply involved in some of the priorities that the town has set and really having an understanding kind of in the weeds, as well as they think kind of an overarching vision. So having that institutional knowledge, having all the partnerships, a lot of what I've done and worked on has been so collaborative again with staff, but also with outside partners. And so having the relationships with the neighboring municipalities, the counties, you know, the rec district, HTA, working with agencies like CDOT and Amtrak, you know, CPW, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, like really I think allows me to keep things moving and hit the ground running without needing to establish those relationships. I'm very passionate about the community. I think one of the things that I've really enjoyed and has been so great about working here is that, you know, our job as staff is to implement the board's priorities and vision, but I share a lot of those priorities and vision. It's really important to me that Fraser, you know, protect its natural resources. You know, water is a critical resource. you know, our trees and our forest, our river and waterways, our wetlands. So really wanting to be able to preserve those things, wanting to see a place where people who want to live here can afford to live here and can have a strong quality of life, that we can have a workforce that's built around things like affordable housing and childcare. So sharing those priorities makes it really easy to be passionate and to jump in. And I think I really have this as well as the understanding the skill set to play the role of town manager in terms of helping to support the board again and further defining those priorities and what the next chapter looks like for Frayser as well as helping to guide the staff team.

yep next question i think it's a good question one i wanted to ask anyway uh describe your management or leadership style and specific focus on town manager role working with staff community and the working board and also how you might handle difficult personalities in the community um can i grab a pen i forgot to grab my

And sometimes I get to halfway through the question and I forget what it's answering.

Yeah, that's understandable. And there's four or five different things. All right.

So you asked for leadership style.

Personal relationships.

Yes. Difficult personalities. Thank you. So again, I think the town manager is really kind of a unique role just in juggling so many stakeholders and players, right? The town manager is kind of that key person for the board to come to with your concerns and to help, again, give you, make sure you're getting good information from staff and things are being set up so we can have productive dialogue around important policy decisions. And the board has, you know, lives outside of the board. You know, a lot of people work or have other things going on you don't necessarily have the time to spend hours and hours diving into each issue that's coming in front of you, right? That's the staff's job and making sure we're getting you that good information to make those decisions and setting us up for productive civil conversations. And I think it's been great that even when this board has disagreed for the most part, things have always been civil. I think we can always continue to work on how we kind of better shape those conversations, again, to arrive at good decisions. In terms of my leadership style, I do have a background in education. So I think seeing myself as a teacher and a guide is really important as a coach. I've been an athlete as well and have adored my coaches and the role that they've played in my lives and really kind of setting people up for success. I see myself as... kind of a servant leader. Again, I think being in this role and being the steward of public resources at people's hard-earned tax dollars is a privilege and something that has to be taken really seriously. So I see myself as here to serve the board and the staff. So working with staff, I want to make sure they have what they need, that they have the guidance, that they feel empowered to really lean into what they're doing. I am not an expert in all areas that the town works in. So I see myself, you know, as kind of that conductor and, you know, making sure they have what they need, but really giving them the space, you know, to run with it and the support where they need it. So making sure they have professional development, making sure the whole team is working together and kind of has that collective vision that's moving forward. I think as part of my leadership style, kind of, again, going back to some of my workings in intercultural settings and that background really recognizing that, you know, we don't all operate the same. Right. And so one staff member might do great with really direct feedback and somebody else might not. And so learning everybody's kind of work style and communication styles and figuring out how I can best support individual staff members, as well as the collective team is really important. Um, in terms of difficult personalities, um, I will say no, um, I honestly, I don't love conflict, right? Which I think is a good thing. I don't think that's a bad thing, right? I am not looking to explode and when the heat rises in the room to, you know, do that myself as well. I think I'm pretty good at staying even keel. Again, I think people want to be heard. I think they want to be validated. I think it's important that we're not just doing that for show and that we're Really listening to people and where they're coming from and what their objective is like why is this person pissed off at the town if that's the case and really recognizing where people are coming from. I think. a lot of times we're asked to work with imperfect solutions. And sometimes, you know, we move forward in difficult situations with the best solution we can come up with. And I think we have to acknowledge when that solution is not the best, you know, not a perfect fit for everybody and everybody's interests, but that we, it's not because we don't care about their interests, that we have heard their interests and that we are doing our best, again, collectively for the community good to move things forward.

I guess I'd like to see the town manager have a more visible role in the community and be out front. I like what you did with the bike park and you're on the local news and presenting the story of Frasier and showing I think it's important for the town manager to have a more visible role

Well, I think the town as an organization, something we can do better is our storytelling and kind of presenting what we are doing. I mean, the bike park's a great project. It's a fun project. It's been a really cool one to be involved with. I agree that I think it's great that we've gotten press for it. And I think it's bringing people to Frasier. which helps for our brands and economic development and, you know, supporting local businesses and all of that. I think, again, just how we're using people's taxpayer money, right? The projects that aren't as sexy as the bike park, like, you know, are still important and critical in terms of like, you know, updating our infrastructure and things like that. And I think that is an area that we could perhaps do a better job of getting that information out there so people do know what the town is doing.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. What is your experience with ideas for facilitating cooperative efforts with neighboring jurisdictions and with voters? Please describe your experience interacting with neighboring communities. Is your style to work collaboratively with them? or to compete with them?

Definitely, I would say collaboratively. I think a lot of efforts that I have worked on have been regional efforts. Hence why I have strong working relationships right now with the neighboring municipalities in the county and the various partners. I've been involved in the Fraser River Valley Housing Partnership efforts, which were started shortly before I came on staff, but have been involved in that working group and you know, that group trying to kind of find its footing. Childcare is another great example of a regional effort where I've worked closely with our community partners, our childcare providers, as well as the neighboring municipalities and the county. I think so many of the challenges that are faced by our community are really regional, but that approach really makes sense. And Frayser's small and Winter Park is right there. So I think the ability to work across jurisdictions is really important. You know, sometimes it's complicated and it's hard and it's not quick and it's not easy because not every community While child care might be an issue that we all face, not everybody necessarily wants to address it in the exact same way or prioritize it in the exact same way or have the same approach. But we have a workforce and a community where people are moving amongst Fraser, Winter Park, Granby, across the county. So I think it would be silly to silo ourselves and not look at these. and have partnerships. I think we also have, you know, so many resources in Fraser, and if we can combine those resources for some of these issues, I think we're going to have a lot more success than trying to go it alone. I know with economic development, there's some folks out there that kind of maybe trepidation around what it looks like for Frayser as the resort grows and becomes larger and there's more things going on over there. I think there's still room to collaborate there on these things. We've been collaborating on wayfinding and various other projects to kind of help that continuity between the communities. But I think we also need to give them a reason to come to Frayser, right? If we want people in our downtown, if we want people shopping at our businesses, if we want to be able to have that tax revenue, which we need in order to provide services and amenities, we need something unique for Frayser, right? We need to give them a reason to come a bit further down the road. And I think that's something that we've been working on and delivering on. And I think the future hopefully looks bright in that area.

Next.

Please describe your experience overseeing wastewater treatment plant, joint use facility, or special district. How would you plan for expansion over the next five to 10 and further?

Yep. I have no experience overseeing a wastewater treatment facility plant. I have obviously been on the kind of perimeter in my one week as interim town manager. Michael got me up to speed. So I am familiar with the issues and challenges that face the JFOC. I think... I mean, if I'm honest, there's a lot of things that I jumped into when I started working at the town that I did not have direct experience with. So I think what I have proven and demonstrated is my ability to get up to speed and to figure out what I need to know, to ask the right questions, to bring in the right experts and people and to lean into the staff that does have that expertise, you know, to again, help guide the process, but not needing to be a subject matter expertise in every area of town government, because that is why we have an experienced staff for those different areas. In terms of working with special, the JFOC, and what was the rest of that question?

You know, I didn't say, I think it was just trying to get the concept of a joint facility, a wastewater treatment plant, or a special district. Not each and every one of those.

Yeah, I mean, I know that, you know, there's three different entities, and again, I think sometimes you get competing priorities, but at the end of the day, everybody... wants, you know, we don't want to be polluting the Fraser River, we want to be able to properly treat our wastewater, we don't want to be sanctioned by the state. So I think it's really finding that common ground amongst the different districts and how we can work together. And it seems like the JFOC has moved in that direction in terms of finding solutions that everybody's gotten on board with. In terms of the questions about expansion, You know, I think it's planning for large investments for a capital project, which is what we've done with the St. Louis Landing. It's what we've been looking at with COPs for the public works facility. So I do feel confident that I can work with those already involved as well as creative financing solutions and make sure we are setting those plans in motion so that we don't have to be in a situation that some have been where we have to raise rates drastically because we haven't planned properly. But looking at bonds, looking at COPs, looking at some of those different financing tools.

What strategies would you recommend for diversifying Fraser's tax base? And would you evaluate tools such as economic development incentives, zoning changes, or an annexation to support long-term fiscal sustainability while maintaining community character?

Yes, so I have been working a little more directly in this area than the JFOC. So I think we all recognize that it is difficult to run businesses up here. We have shoulder seasons. Businesses have to be able to survive on certain really busy times, and it can be hard to get the workforce to support those really busy times. And then there's a lot of slow times where they don't have much money coming in. So I think recognizing the challenges of small businesses is really important and how we can support them. One of the areas that I've worked in while here is economic development, revamping the business enhancement grants to try to make them more valuable to businesses and get businesses to take advantage of them and try to provide that kind of facelift for the town of Fraser, as well as revamping economic incentive packages to try to bring in more commercial development. We live Our general fund lives largely off of a sales tax base. So we need a diversity of businesses to support that sales tax base. I think we've all seen in this past year, we had a bad snow year and that hurts our sales tax. The more diversity we can have in our businesses that are supporting that sales tax, the better. I think looking at different... sources of taxes and possible revenue sources is important as well. So we're not relying entirely on sales tax. Um, I know lodging tax has been one that we've talked about, um, that's currently collected at the County, but I think if we were to look at home rule in the future could be collected locally and we'd have more control over that as a funding source for the town. Um, in terms of annexation and zoning. I know the Riverwalk district has been zoned to try to create this vibrant mixed use downtown, having people live where they can also shop and dine and tourists can come and visitors can come. I think we need to recognize, again, that piece of it's hard to run a business if you don't have that critical mass of people. But we also want to preserve space for downtown, right? Once you put housing in, it's really hard to take that housing out and put in a commercial center. So how do we help incentivize and support businesses that might not otherwise just jump on board so we can start building that base, we can start building that vibrant town center? As we look at annexation, I think there's a lot of opportunities to plan development holistically. What does the community need? What are things that we want to ask for in terms of setting land aside? What will, again, continue to increase that tax base? Projects like St. Louis Landing, again, are incredibly expensive for the town. I think it's much more ideal that we have developers putting in affordable housing. So looking at things like inclusionary zoning and building that into our code or into annexation agreements, I think can go a long way in helping to support a workforce and affordability for local residents without this huge bill that the town has to put forth to do so. I'll just add that I think that I was remiss in not mentioning the Downtown Development Authority, because that was a tool that was created specifically for that purpose, right? To have money that can go into really developing a downtown and to help with some of that infill and redevelopment and incentivizing that development. Again, without the town specifically needing to create new tax sources or put additional general funds into that.

What is your assessment of the critical issues facing the town and what are the opportunities?

I think really livability for our residents first and foremost. And I think that the town's taken very proactive steps to address that, but I think that's something that we need to continue to work for. So obviously housing is a big piece of it, but just affordability across the board is really hard. Childcare is a piece of that. sustainable smart growth development is happening. So again, how do we protect those critical resources and making sure we are planning appropriately for the infrastructure that's needed and that we are not overbuilding, that we're going to have enough water, that we're going to preserve our surrounding open space. And so where is that development going and being intentional about that? We do have a lot of aging infrastructure And so we need to make sure that we are carefully planning for how we are going to fund replacement and improvements to that aging infrastructure. The public works facility, we've talked a lot about that this past year. And I think I'll recognize that our current facility is continuing to grow more and more inadequate for Frasier's needs, but it's also a very expensive project. So looking at appropriate kind of financial planning for that. environmental stewardship is something that I think is near and dear to my heart and to many in Frayser. So making sure that we continue to work with our community partners and are a leader in environmental stewardship. continuing to build out our downtown and a commercial center and really having a vibrant community center, I think is important just to the heart of the community, as well as again, like that is a big piece of our, our tax base and our ability to provide services and amenities to both residents and visitors. So how do we continue to be creative with our downtown, make something unique that some people are going to want to come and to support those businesses that are kind of the heart of that commercial center. with our wastewater treatment plant. I know we have new permit requirements that we're working through and challenging some of, but somewhere down the road, there's some very expensive improvements that need to happen. So planning for that, and again, making sure we can be good stewards, and then just continuing to diversify and increase our revenue sources so we can provide services.

Okay, what role should the manager have with the community? What issues are you aware of from your research of Frasier? What would your approach be given what you know now?

So I think the town manager's role with the community. As elected officials, I would hope that the community oftentimes is bringing you their concerns and what they want to see in the community, right? And that you, the board is responsive to that collectively. I think the town manager also plays a role in being a sounding board and again, making sure that there's a pulse on the community and what the needs and challenges are. Again, a lot of times, you know, people want to be heard and they want to be validated. And sometimes they are bringing concerns forth that it is the town's role to address. So the town manager I think makes, plays a role in helping to address those concerns and making sure that the appropriate staff are working on those concerns or that those concerns are being brought to the board if it is something that required the higher board action to see if the board wants to take that action. You know, in my role as assistant town manager, I think I've been able to be an advocate for a lot of different causes and entities and individuals. Again, recognizing how difficult it is for small businesses, recognizing the challenges of our child care providers that are trying to provide this desperately needed service to our community. And there's not a way for them to make the economics work on their own. They can't. charge enough to run their centers to hire and retain teachers and provide them a livable wage without some sort of support. And so I think it is part of the town manager's role to really just be kind of taking this all in and being a forward face for the community, as Lewis was saying, to understand their concerns and where we need to be addressing those concerns. In terms of issues, again, I think affordability in child care is a big one. I think A lot of the community is also concerned with growth. There's people that are for growth and people that are against growth. But again, growth is happening. We have agreements from way back when that are committed to certain aspects of that growth. So I think we need to work with that and do our best to incentivize and guide the development that we want to see. And I think having positive relationships with developers is the first step with that. I think there's also a lot of citizens that are concerned with, again, our environmental stewardship. What's happening with our water? Are we preserving our wetlands? And what does that look like? And so really trying to have a balance. We have great opportunities for recreation and making sure we're balancing those recreational amenities as part of like the Fraser River corridor master plan with conservation efforts. So I was really excited that the board was in support of both the bike park and the conservation easement. Because I think that just provides that balance, and I think that's a balance that's important to our community.

Thank you. What is your experience making thorough assessments of an organization's staff and board and then leading through necessary changes?

Could you say the first part of that again?

What is your experience making thorough assessment of an organization's staff and board and then leading through necessary changes.

So in my time here at the town of Fraser, I think this is something that I just, I don't know if informally doing is the right way to phrase it. But working with various departments to see in my role as assistant town manager, how can I support you? What are the pain points? What are the challenges? In my role leading the organization in Peru, this was something that I definitely did stepping in. We had a lot of complicated staff dynamics. It was a mixture of a lot of local Peruvian staff that had been there for a long time and were very dedicated to the community. And then you'd get folks like myself that were younger and from the US or elsewhere. kind of coming in and sometimes getting put in positions in charge. And that did not always go over so well with somebody who, you know, had a lot of great experience and had been there for a long time. And so really, I think recognizing the roles that we all played in validating those roles and working through is what we're doing, making sense. Do we have policies that make sense? So I did a lot of work there in my time to really kind of how can we improve kind of this staff dynamic? And then how can we do things like make sure our Spanish instructors are getting paid because my boss in the United States was not always sending those bills on time. So I do have some experience with that. In terms of leading through change, I think, you know, just based on my leadership style and seeing what I think has worked well at the town thus far, it would be a very collaborative approach of, again, checking in individually with different department heads and staff members, as well as collectively as to what do we see working and what do we see not working kind of operationally? How can we make some improvements here? You know, there have been all these advances in AI, and while we don't want AI completely running our government, I think there's a lot of ways we can improve things like billing and you know, core requests that right now are just sucking up staff's time. And so making those changes. I think we could use a, you know, kind of strategic plan. Again, we've got our kind of comprehensive plan, but then how are we making this comprehensive plan happen? So starting with the board on what your priorities are at the community level, and then looking at efficiencies and inefficiencies at the staff level in terms of where we can improve operations. and working collectively to have a plan. I think the biggest challenge, honestly, is just time and bandwidth. And so really figuring out what we prioritize and where we can improve kind of some of our efficiencies so that we have more time and bandwidth for the more exciting stuff and critical priorities.

I want to add, do you see any necessary changes from your role in assistant town manager today?

Any changes at the organizational level?

Yeah, that you think need to happen.

I think Michael and others have done a really great job of building a positive work culture that staff can thrive in. So that is something that I would want to continue. I think in working with the board, I think The staff retreats and things like that have not staff retreat, board retreats have been really critical in helping to, again, just strengthen relationships amongst the board and kind of look at some critical things that we may be working on in a year and kind of doing some of those deeper dives. I think we can also use those sessions to better collectively with the board and with staff prioritize what we're working on for a given year and making sure that all board members have a chance to kind of weigh in on that. And we have maybe a more structured process for that as well as doing those deep dives on some of the critical things that we're working on that you can't fit in a one hour workshop, but really that kind of strategizing and visioning as a board. I think is really important so that when we ideally kind of head into budget season, we've got those priorities, we can build our budget around those priorities and then we can execute. At the staff level, again, I think we do have some inefficiencies that we can address hopefully with modern technology as well as just kind of brainstorming around some of those pain points. Overall, I think we've got a really dedicated staff that's been working really hard on a lot of critical projects and doing a pretty solid job of moving those projects forward.

Peter, we have about 20 minutes left, if you have some questions.

Okay, talk about your experience and major land use or development negotiations and what has been your role in that process. Lessons learned also.

So my role. In land use, I have not worked directly in our planning department. So most of that land use has happened there. I have worked quite closely with our planning department on strategizing and putting together policies to bring forth the board around things like affordable housing and how do we incentivize that. Looking at the zoning for things like the Riverwalk district and what makes sense again, both in terms of an affordable housing, as well as trying to build that vibrant town center. Working with master plans for like the downtown Frayser strategic plan from 2017 informed a lot of my grant applications. And again, just kind of strategizing for that area. as well as the Fraser River Corridor Master Plan and looking at what makes sense for that open space. Again, with that balance of wanting increased recreational amenities with conservation of natural resources and the importance of both of those pieces. In terms of working directly with kind of the developers and that side of the land use, it has been more of a tangential role. I think I've been able to, through the work with the Downtown Development Authority and other projects, been able to gain a good understanding of what some of those pain points are for developers in the process, as well as for others involved, and gained a good understanding of kind of the community vision. involved with the updated town comprehensive plan, which a lot of discussions envisioning around land use and what we want land use to look like for Frayser, both in terms of our current land, as well as future annexation policies. And again, just bringing that lens of the community needs and all the different projects that I've been involved in that are trying to help with some of those pain points for our community that we would want to make sure we were addressing in kind of future annexations.

Maybe the conservation is involved with that.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so working with Colorado land trust now on that conservation easement, as well as involvement with, um, conservation is not on the other side of the highway.

Okay. Thank you.

All right.

Uh,

Do you have an experience and ideas to help enhance disaster preparedness and build resiliency in our community in the face of an uncertain future? What is your experience with two different concepts? We'll hold off on the next.

Okay, thank you.

Tricky.

yeah i think there's there's kind of two pieces there right there is being prepared for when everything hits the fan and what do we do and how do we react to provide necessary services and keep people safe and deal with the emergency at hand and then preparing in such a way that hopefully you can avoid some of those disasters and emergencies so how do we build resiliency in our community um and I like to look at resiliency across the board, right? Economic diversification, sustainability and conservation of resources, as well as kind of the more disaster emergency pieces. So again, I think that livability factor and economic development just helps make us more resilient across the board when we're looking at things like all of a sudden there's no sales tax coming in this month because there's no snow. In terms of looking at things like wildfires and other emergencies that could hit our community and I think are unfortunately very real possibilities. Building into our code measures for things like droughts and how we respond to droughts. measures to increase wildfire resiliency in our building code, I think is really important. And then when it comes down to that actual kind of disaster preparedness, working really closely with the county and the neighboring municipalities, EMS, the fire district, the police department, the sheriff's office, so that we have a strong plan in place. In my role in interim, one of the first things I did was, you know, reach out to the county because I'm not up to speed on their latest plan to figure out, you know, what is that plan in my role and making sure that everybody knows their role. So being in constant communication, I think something that I haven't seen while I've been here that I think is really valuable and needs to happen are kind of more staff-wide trainings around what happens in a disaster and what role everybody is meant to play. We have kind of critical positions that are very involved in those discussions and ongoing kind of conversations at the county level and with our emergency services, but making sure that all staff has that knowledge and can play a backup role, you know, if the person in charge is not there that day. In working with international programs abroad, a lot of my role was focused on risk management and evaluating appropriate levels of risk and kind of the cost-benefit analysis and preparing for Again, what happens when there's a bombing in Paris and you are trying to track down study abroad students that are all over Europe, but may have been traveling to Paris that weekend, because we have a clear list of who's supposed to be in Paris, but not knowing that people travel, your study abroad student in London might be there. And so we did a lot of work around our communication systems and tracking systems and just making sure we had really good protocols in place and that everybody knew those protocols and those plans and was ready to execute when disaster hit.

In the second part, I think we all know the answers. It is. What is your experience with trails, parks and open spaces?

This is when But I think it's quite fun. Yeah. So, again, another area that I got the privilege to work with was implementation of the Fraser River Corridor Master Plan. So I think maybe on day two on the job, I went out with Monica, who was leaving and was handed over the Marianne's Trail project to finish. Met Jeff Elliott with Grand Environmental and began working closely with him on some projects. wetland mapping and mitigation, working on the protected natural area at St. Louis Landing and making sure that we were working with the Corps to get the permits that we needed and that, again, we were being good environmental stewards, doing our trail planning around when the birds were going to be nesting and, you know, when we weren't going to disturb things. So, again, an area that's really near and dear to my heart, both on the conservation side and on the recreation side. I worked closely with DPW Colorado Parks and Wildlife throughout the Brazier Bike Park process. I will say they were not immediate fans of the project. I've also worked with them on addressing, you know, desires to have more access and visibility of the river, but recognizing the importance of the willows. And so how did we come to kind of common solutions that allow for some degree of both. And so I think I have really strong partnerships there and kind of a solid understanding in those areas again leaning on the experts who have deeper knowledge of the biology or the ecosystems than i do myself and i think those partnerships are really critical to the town so i've been really happy to see that we've been able to work with those partnerships to deliver even when maybe what we were initially proposing was not um not something that they were excited about, right? And to feel like we could move forward with some of these priorities and be good environmental stewards and maintain strong relationships. So the Fraser Bike Park, I think was a great project. I think it was a great project because there was so much community support, but also just really great partnerships and really leaning into those partnerships. So again, working with CPW on kind of that environmental piece, working with Grand Environmental on that environmental piece, working with Paul and Public Works on kind of the infrastructure pieces and making sure that we were not getting sediment into the river and all of that fun stuff. And then just all the various community partners that played such an important role. I think for trails and parks and recreation as a town that does not have its own trails and parks and recreation department, it makes those partnerships all the more valuable. So being able to work with the rec district, work with HTA to kind of advance those common goals has been really critical. And then also working on the conservation side with Colorado Opens Lands and before that I'm blanking on the name of Headwaters. Thank you very much. Worked with Jeremy Crohn's on that before they made that switch. And so I've gained a lot of knowledge of that process as well.

Okay. Have you been a manager in a manager role before? in a mountain community or in an area with limited access to resources and an employee pool? And what did you learn about this role and how would you propose addressing staff and development retention?

I have been a assistant town manager and an interim town manager in a town just like Frasier. Prior to that, my management experience, as I said, was really working in Peru and Ghana and definitely communities with their own unique challenges around staffing. Yeah, it's been interesting because I know the town was Dealing with this when I came on board and one of my first questions was I hear there's a lot of turnover at the town of Fraser, should I be concerned about this. I think. we're in a difficult position sometimes. And it's been a little perplexing to me on the one hand, because I'm like, doesn't everybody want to live in these mountain communities? Isn't what holds people back getting a solid job? So if we're giving them the job, why are they not here, right? And some of the answer to that is just the affordability question, right? So I think having St. Louis Landing be able to help provide housing has been critical with the property that the town bought last year. We've been able to put, you know, Jack, for example, in that housing for a period of time while he had time to find housing. So I think as we are recruiting for positions, being able to advertise help with housing and then all of the other kind of perks and making sure there are perks, I think is really critical. I know we've advertised through different venues. I think there's times where it is appropriate to maybe use a recruiter for some of those department head positions that might be hard to fill otherwise. And then I think it's really about retaining staff. And I think having that positive work culture, paying people what they're worth. And I know sometimes we can't offer the highest salaries out there based on our budget. So what are other perks we can offer? may not forge this week one, but I am all about flexible work schedules and finding ways to work with employees to make this job work for them. I think you all know I started at 24 hours a week because I didn't have childcare and was finishing up other commitments at the University of Denver at the time. So having that flexibility, I think is really important. I think cultivating staff, providing professional development opportunities, providing opportunities for them to move up within the organization. We all wear different hats. If you can find a hat for an employee that is something they are passionate about and going to do well with, I think that's a great way to retain staff, even if it's not their primary role, because we do have all these areas to cover with a limited number of staff. Providing that credit and that acknowledgement to keep people here, I think, is really critical. And again, going back to being able to just really be a cool place to work and being able to put that on the forefront of our recruiting efforts, I think is really important.

On the note of that flexible work schedule, this time manager is a pretty important role and people are expecting you to be available. How are you feeling about that jump from assistant time manager to time manager?

Yeah, I don't have a problem being available. It's honestly the piece that I probably wrestled with the most. As you all know, I have two small children that are super important to me and I need to be there for them. Sorry.

Okay.

This is not a result of your question, Brian. Some of you know, some of you don't, that my daughter just got diagnosed with diabetes.

And so it's been a really challenging couple of weeks.

So going back to your question,

I wrestled with this decision. I talked a lot with my husband. He has been supportive, but I also know, you know, the limits of my family support and what's important to me. And so it would be my goal in taking on this role to do this in a 40 hour work week, not a 60 hour work week. I think I've, Shown in my role as assistant town manager that I will get the job done. I've been up till 2 in the morning, finishing grant application because I can't turn in a half completed grant application. And so I would continue to bring that dedication to the role. But I guess in return, I would want the board to respect some boundaries. If it is an emergency or something critical, then I am able to make myself available, whether that be a weekend or an evening. But if it's not, if it's something that can wait till Monday, I would ask that it wait till Monday. You know, I think it's a balance. I think I know the board wants to see somebody that can stay in this position for a good amount of time. And that for this position to be sustainable, I would need a certain degree of flexibility. But in return, I would make sure that I got the job done. And I think that's important. I think burnout for this position and for other staff positions is a real thing. And I think being able to cultivate a workplace where if you're dedicated and you get the job done and you need to leave at 3.30 one day, that that's okay. And that is something that I had with Michael and it made me that much more dedicated to the town and to completing the job because I had that flexibility. So if I was working in the evenings or early in the morning or on the weekend to finish something, that's what I did. So- Definitely can be available when needed for emergencies. But I think we also just need to recognize that work-life balance is something important, not just by the town manager, but for staff. I think it's really valuable to have that town manager demonstrating that when they say that to staff, that that is something that is important. I've seen that in some people who've had that role and with other bosses, I feel like we've talked about it, but it never felt like you could really have that work-life balance. And I think it just makes people, again, that much more dedicated and able to do good work and be productive if they have that balance. So.

I'll say I did my best to not bug Michael on weekends and stuff like that. So I don't actually know. Do you feel like he set a good example of working 40 hours a week and not a ton more? Yeah.

I do. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, this was and again, I recognize that that is not always possible. Right. In my role as assistant town manager, there were weeks where I worked more than 40 hours because there was a lot going on. And, you know, I was committed to getting done what needed to get done. And again, it's probably the biggest thing I weighed in. Applying for this position is really wanting to be able to keep that work life balance, wanting to be there for my kids. But knowing that I was going to, you know, that this would be a big commitment and wanting to only take it on if I felt like I could fulfill that commitment. You know, I think Frazier is a community where people are here because they want to. have a life outside of work. You know, they wanna be able to recreate, like it's such a special place and there's so many opportunities here. And I think as an organization, that's something that we can really embody. And I would be really excited as a leader to embody that, you know, myself and for my staff and for the team. Because I think it's really important. We're public servants, but, you know, we, I think we're better public servants when we have time and space in our own lives for what's going on outside of work and that that is respected and valued. And as a manager, I would want to value that for my employees. Thanks.

back on track you're back on track you're next oh my next oh it's me sorry um what do you think is the right amount of time for a manager in a place to be most effective how do you see this position fitting into your career plans and progression and where do you see yourself in five or ten years

So I think to be effective starting out, um, you know, as an internal candidate, obviously I know a lot of the lay of the land. I think one of my strengths as an internal candidate is what I would bring and helping Matt transition and not needing as much time. Um, that said, I've been intimately involved in, in the weeds and a number of critical projects, and there's other areas of the town that I would need to learn better and really lean into our staff in those areas. Um, So that's going to take a little bit of time, right? I mean, I think any sort of transitions, if I were in this position and we're filling the assistant town manager position, I'm doing two jobs for a while. So there's going to be some ramp up period before we're really hopefully taking on a ton of new projects. But I think I'm prepared to kind of hit the ground running in that regard. In terms of longevity, yeah. You know, I've looked at this. I think another aspect of taking on this position is realizing that this job is perhaps not as secure as the assistant town manager position. you know, it seems to be about five to eight years. I think that's a good amount of time. I was at the University of Denver for 10 years and just professionally maybe could have left a little earlier, right? When I did leave, I felt good about leaving. Like I had kind of done what I was going to do there and was ready for new challenges. And this has been a great new challenge for me as the assistant town manager. I'd be really excited to step up into that leadership role and kind of be the holder of the forest a bit more than the individual clumps of trees. Again, I think if I can maintain work-life balance and a positive working relationship with the board that I could see myself in this position for a long time if the board continued to think I was a good fit. There may be some point in the future where there's somebody that's better suited to continue on. You never know what life brings you, but right now this is where my husband and I are raising our children. We're really happy in the community. I think this would be a great challenge for myself professionally and could open up a lot of doors in the future. But I mean, honestly, I think it's just a really great fit for me and where I would want to end up. So I think I could be here a while if that's what the board wanted to continue to see.

Okay, when would you be available to start? Well...

As the interim town manager, you know, I know, I know Michael took a couple weeks that the request to the board when he started, I feel like it gets a little more complicated when you're the interim town manager. But as I mentioned, it's, there's been a lot going on in my family life in the last couple weeks. It's been a lot just managing the transition and stepping into this role and are being in this position. So obviously I'm already here. I could officially be the town manager tomorrow or the next board meeting. But I would look to be able to take some time just to kind of recalibrate and kind of step up to the new challenge and spend some time with the kiddos. And I would be happy to work with the board on what that looked like and when that time period would be. There's already a lot of meetings scheduled. So I guess I'm not looking to jump ship tomorrow and go to Tahiti. But I would want to work some time in between now and the end of the summer to kind of have that recalibration time. Yeah.

All right. Well, I guess last question before we give you an opportunity to.

Right here. In closing. I thought you were with me.

Sorry.

Sorry. I think it's Curtis. He got me earlier. I was lost earlier.

So you've already shared some intimate details with us. I'm sorry to hear that. That's really.

Thank you.

But is there anything else you'd like to make the board aware of? Do you have any other plans, exotic travel? I mean, I don't know. But you know, anything else we should be aware of that might complicate things?

Yeah, we are, as I said, you know, this diabetes diagnosis is pretty new. We got it two weeks ago. So there, we know a lot more now than we did two weeks ago or a week ago. But right now we're working through camps and rec camp has been really supportive in terms of getting her back into rec camp, but we're just, you know, there's going to be maybe some childcare stuff for the next couple of weeks. I'm not overly concerned about it, but you know, my schedule might just be a little more, need to be a little more flexible than, than needed for the next couple of weeks as we figured that out. Other than that, though, I mean, just kind of like what I said, looking for hopefully the opportunity to recalibrate sometime before the kids go back to school, but otherwise, we're, we're here.

Okay.

Yeah.

So do you have any questions for the board? Anything you want to ask us?

I know I asked this of Brian and Peggy when they were, you know, on the initial committee when we were doing our zoom interviews, but I would just be curious about what the board sees as, you know, positive and working well, and where you might want to see some changes, particularly for this person in this role.

I'd like to see that our civility code or the code of conduct become more apparent, maybe even easier to read and something that's more available on our website and posted here. So people are kind of put on notice before they come in, staff as well as our whoever community members and people with concerns so that um that's that's right there you know to protect everyone yeah i think along with that just increasing the communication between the town and its residents that's important yeah definitely it's a good one i did have people say to me well don't put all that money in the bike park and i was like well think about this and like you said telling our story yes and the additional income and um it's going to bring into the town i have most people here oh yeah yeah i didn't think about that

And I know that Michael was working with Kent on an updated civility policy, so that will be coming to the board for approval.

So from my perspective, it seems that the culture internally is pretty good. I would like to see a little bit more proactive outreach to the trustees on issues. I feel in the past, sometimes it's at the table that we get our indication or that I feel like I had to go into the office to ask questions or make statements to have input before we get to the table. So I would like to see a little bit more just conversation.

We can get Michael to start sending out that sort of briefing ahead of the meeting.

And I think that's very helpful.

It was helpful. Yeah. I think so.

I sort of, especially when there's an issue of concern with a particular trustee, incorporate them. They shouldn't have to go to your office or to a manager's office to be heard as a trustee is my opinion. So.

That's good. So what would be your ideal, well, like what, what did that look like ideally to you and the manager?

I don't think it has to be formal. I just think, uh, When you're familiar with us, you kind of know our expertise and our issues and those kind of things. And so, you know, I look at the emergency board meeting. That could have been more proactive in education. You know, when it's a surprise, it's a surprise to everyone. And the outcome becomes a surprise and that kind of stuff as well. So I just think... not catching us off guard, you know, kind of things.

Yeah. So would you honor to keep that weekly update? Oh, yeah. Really useful.

I think that's a great update. And then there's a briefing on the board meeting upcoming, which I think has been a big improvement.

Yeah, it's a lot of extra work, but you're fast. You're a very fast typer.

Any other questions?

No, thank you for the opportunity.

Thanks, Sarah. Thank you, Sarah. All right.

So, yeah, just so you're aware, so after the board meeting, we'll have an executive session. We'll choose a final candidate there. John will inform the candidate on Thursday and negotiate the terms of the contract. once the terms of the contract are agreed upon the other two candidates will be notified at that time uh town attorney ken whitmer will write the contract on monday july 13th and the contract will be ratified at the board of trustees meeting on july 15th so those are those are the next steps great thank you all right thanks so much thank you sir thank you all okay all right all right down a little early

Okay.

What kind of motion?

A motion to suspend the board meeting until we are done with dinner, followed by a public hearing.

So moved. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thanks. Is anybody on line?

Good to go. All right. All right, we are back. Could I have a motion to continue the town board meeting?

So moved.

So second. All right, all in favor? Any opposed? Okay, now, could I have a motion to enter into a public hearing?

I move to open the public hearing.

Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. We are now in public hearing and the first item up on the agenda is vacating the planning area 20W subdivision exemption plat on property located Frazier.

Yes, Jack. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. For the record, Jack Seward, the town planner. If our clerk would be kind enough to let me join the meeting, you can see what we're talking about here. Thank you. So it's my computer's thinking about it. Oh, look. Oh, it's talking to me too. Can't let it do that.

Let me change the view on the channel. Thank you. Or move Jack.

Okay, so this is, you have my staff report there. I'm just going to display this, until it does that, display this image and give you a little background on what's happening. Back in May, the Planning Commission approved a final planned development plan, the FPDP, which is quickly becoming my mostest favorite acronym. um which uh contemplates this 20w planning area which is outlined with the red line the um current plaque though uh that 20w exemption flat is uh depicted with the purple line and so we have uh two different areas uh that are being depicted that we have two different diagrams depicting the same space. And so the purpose behind the exemption vacating the exemption plat is then it will enable the board to approve the FPDP when it comes to you, likely in August. So the ordinance, again, relatively simple. It just gets rid of the exemption plat so that the FPDP's boundaries are correct before we record the exemption. So the ordinance gives the mayor authority to sign the exemption vacation. But before we sign and record that exemption, Clark needs to bring to you a plat to plat the 20W so that the 20W exemption plat remains on the books until the subdivision plat gets platted because that land is actually promised by an agreement by a private party agreement between Rendezvous and Grand Park. And so that needs to get flatted so that Rendezvous has a legal description of the land that was promised to them, but just hasn't been conveyed to them because they have some deal amongst themselves. Clear as mud, I hope. Happy to answer any questions.

So does Rendezvous own this land at this point or does that not matter to us?

That does not matter to us. And I'll look over at my trustee attorney for that particular thing. But there is a private, my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, there is a private party matter between Rendezvous and Grand Park. Rendezvous takes the position that the 20W land is theirs. Grand Park takes some other position. They're working it out amongst themselves. But what's relevant to us is that in order for you to be able to approve the FPDP, we need to correct the battery loss. I get that right, Ken?

Yeah, essentially, there is an agreement between Rendezvous and Grand Park that was done many years ago at the time of their split back in 2003, 2004. And it kind of I've seen the agreement. It's been a while since I looked at it. But my recollection is that one of the commitment there was commitments made back and forth as part of the splitting of assets. And one of the commitments made was by grand part to convey this planning area. to rendezvous at a point certain in the future, which I think that dates long past. So I think that back in 2012, when this exemption plat was originally recorded, they were moving towards creating a parcel that could be conveyed and fulfill that commitment. For whatever reason, the plat was created, the parcel was created, but the conveyance never happened. And I think what I have heard is that it didn't happen because the infrastructure to serve that parcel has not been put in place and Rendezvous didn't want the property until they could utilize it. Gotcha.

So it is ultimately going to end up in rendezvous dance.

That is the agreement between that. That's my understanding of the agreement between rendezvous and Grand Park.

So doing this doesn't prohibit that from happening. Right.

No, I settled. And I spoke with the folks. I don't know what's happening to my computer right now. I spoke with the folks at rendezvous this morning just to make sure we were on the same page at a point certain in the future. That land will become theirs. Rendezvous at this point doesn't want the land, but they want to reserve their right to get the land at some point in the future. So they need a legal description for that land. Well, the FPDP doesn't, the boundaries in the FPDP don't align with the exemption plat. So we need to get rid of the exemption plat in order for you all to approve the FPDP. That said, we still need a legal description of the land so that it can one day be conveyed to rendezvous. And so to do that, we have asked, we are saying that we will not have Bryant sign the official vacation document until a plat is approved again by this body through to essentially create a officially plat, a 20W land, then we can vacate the exemption plat. We'll do those both at the same time, at which point then you can have an FPVP with the correct boundaries. You have a real subdivision, not this exemption plat stuff, which I still don't really understand. And then there's a legal description for the land that is owed to rendezvous at some point in the future.

Okay.

maybe maybe i'm making sense you can you can say i'm not no no it makes sense uh that's that's what we're looking at i'd like to make a motion to approval ordinance 538 vacating 20w exemption plan so um peggy before you make a motion though technically it's public hearing so you have to ask to see if the public wants to comment on it okay does anyone in the public want to make a comment on this anybody online nobody

One person on the line, maybe. Actually, that's Louis, probably.

Okay, I move to close the public hearing. Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay.

No, maybe.

Okay. I'd like to make a motion to approve Ordinance 538, vacating 20W exemption plan.

Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? okay question passes um that's all we need right that's all we need thank you perfect okay um now the words for the motion for executive section Oh, yeah, you could read it.

I've got it. I'd like to make a motion to move into executive session for a conference with the town attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions under CRS section 24-6-4024B for discussion of a personnel matter under CRS section 24-6-4024F i and not involving any specific employees who have requested discussion of the matter in open session regarding town manager selection and negotiation including that's it doesn't say including i know but we need to include so including um john stabney thank you ken whitmer perfect that's

Do we need anybody else in the discussion?

I don't think so.

Okay.

All right. For the discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Okay.

Who did the second? Okay. Thank you.

Kent, go ahead.

It's my opinion that what will be discussed in here is attorney-client privileged, and therefore the executive session does not need to be recorded. All right.

Perfect. And we will not be making any decisions coming out of executive session. We will just adjourn the meeting. So no need to come back or wait if you're online.