Prognostications from 2019

In 2019, two years before I actually was elected to city council, I ran a VERY hard campaign for mayor, but lost to Laura Weinberg. My campaign blurb as published in the Golden Informer in October of that year is linked fully here. It was interesting to see, and sad in a way, that my hope for a more diverse housing stock has not come to fruition. In particular I wanted smaller townhomes and other options for people, to age in place, or as starter homes. And that still is the big missing piece (unless you just don’t accept that growth is going to happen, or can be stopped, which I don’t believe). I have always wanted, and wanted in my predictions of what I would do in 4 years as mayor, to get ahead of problems instead of just reacting. And, while my prediction of a shuttle bus paid for by lodging tax was spot on, not much else has come true. While we do have tourists using remote lots too and I think we have made some great improvements, we still have not hit the right balance between residents and visitors on busy weekends. Still, my desire to spread out events more has come true somewhat, and MoPar street party is no more, though my desire to see that go away didn’t make it into the final blurb. We have had better event discussions in some ways, though there has been some serious miscommunication as well. Buffalo Bill Days is NOT going away, just to be clear, but it has been made more welcoming to locals, in my estimation, so progress has been made.

I had wanted to make progress on Open Space acquisitions and protection, and we have not done so, but DeLong park did open (though I had little to do with it), and we have had better coordination between public works and parks and GFD on wildland fire education and mitigation. So, perhaps some progress there. And, in my own defense on my predictions, I didn’t win my race for mayor, and I’ve only been on council for two years.

A more interesting prediction from that Informer issue, was not made by me, but by outgoing city councilor Saoirse Charis-Graves. She wrote about “Wicked Problems”, and had this pithy line, “When we face tough questions, we need to avoid arguments that simplify the issues and exaggerate differences. We need to recognize some of our choices are hard and complex and rife with competing values. When we deliberate our challenges, let’s connect with others of conflicting interests and seek new possibilities for action that individuals alone did not see before.”

I state it as a prediction because as she correctly stated, we face these issues all the time on City Council. Outdoor seating versus parking. Visitors versus residents. Density versus housing. Walkability versus car culture. Visitor Center versus Community Center support for seniors, business (who can be very pro-visitor) versus city council (who only hear about residents concerns on being overrun), unhoused individuals versus maintaining civil rights. This is not an exhaustive list, but readily created, and just indicative of issues we face.

Communication and being understanding of others are recurring themes on my blog. We have differences, but we should be understanding too.

My predictions of what I would accomplish as mayor then, while not exact, were not bad, considering it took two more years for me to get on City Council. Luckily, I am not in a position to have to make promises now, or predictions as I will be on the City Council for two more years unless recalled. I’ll make this prediction though, I’ll continue to write my newsletter and share what I can to humanize just a little your/our government.