News
The next Woody Creek Caucus meeting will take place on Thursday, January 26 at 6:30 pm at the Aspen Community School. We have many important issues to discuss at the meeting The agenda will include the following items:
Woody Creek Caucus
Position Paper
“Collaborative Decision-Making”
The Woody Creek Caucus understands that rigorous analysis of many land-use issues are quite complicated and require technical expertise; and that the county must adhere to certain legal requirements. However, these factors need not result in the caucuses and other stakeholders often being insufficiently involved in the direct design of land-use solutions.
We are pleased that, in the cases of several land-use issues, the county has engaged stakeholders in proposal design. The Pitkin County Airport Expansion outreach to the community is an example. But we don’t understand why the county has not approached design more collaboratively in other significant projects, such as a solar farm across from the Brush Creek Park & Ride, a trail up the Crystal Valley, and recently proposed Pitkin County Policy and Code Changes. It seems that the Policy and Code changes is the perfect sort of topic to bring to every caucus for input, comment, suggestions, etc. during the planning stage rather than at the end of the process.
The word “collaboration” here refers to direct stakeholder participation in design, along with proponents and technical experts. This approach sharply contrasts to many current county processes that allow citizens to only review and comment on proposals that have already been designed.
Yes, genuinely collaborative design requires more time on the front end of the process. However, when well conducted, it will result in better proposals and fewer delays on the back end. It may not be realistic to suggest that collaborative design will always result in mutually satisfactory results and a shorter process, but that situation is no worse than we have today with the standard review-and-comment approach, which often results in distrust, frustration, and even lawsuits.
One likely county response to our request is that county government will do better in the future. We would be happy to hear that response. But it would be insufficient. In contrast, we propose that the BOCC adopt an explicit policy that reads something like the following:
When any significant land-use change is proposed in Pitkin County, county government shall directly engage the affected neighborhood and its caucus in a genuinely collaborative process in which residents are engaged in the design process from its earliest stages.
The Woody Creek Caucus approved a letter to the Pitkin County Commissioners regarding a proposed bike route in the Redstone/Marble area. Below is their letter of support for the Crystal River Valley Caucus’ position on the trail (click here to download). For more information, contact the Crystal River Valley Caucus and visit https://www.pitkinostprojects.com/carbondale-to-crested-butte-trail-plan.html.
Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners
530 E. Main Street
Aspen, Colorado 81611
Re: Crystal River-to-Crested Butte Bike Trail
Dear County Commissioners,
On behalf of the Woody Creek Caucus, per a vote July 26, 2018, we would like to declare our support for the Crystal Valley Caucus Board position decision on the Crystal River-to-Crested Butte bike trail alignment.
We request that the BOCC respect the Crystal Valley Caucus Master Plan regarding development in the Crystal River Valley. The concerns for maintaining the rural nature of the area, wildlife issues, health of wildlands, and respect for private property should be the guiding principles for the final decision by the BOCC on the alignment for Crystal River-to-Crested Butte bike trail.
Respectfully submitted,
Woody Creek Caucus
Box 297
Woody Creek, CO 81656