Fw: Estes Park LMD

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Deborah Gibson

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Nov 12, 2025, 6:00:06 PM (yesterday) Nov 12
to trus...@estes.org, town...@estes.org
To the Honorable Mayor Hall and the Estes Park Trustees:

Given the magnitude of the decisions you will be making tonight, I want to share with you an email I received as co-chair of VEP in 2018
as we were working together with the Visit Estes Park, Town and County Officials and many local stakeholders. .  Months of work went into
this study gathering stakeholder input and building consensus moving forward.

This deliberation, with so much of our community welfare at stake, deserves equal time, care and consensus.

In her email below, Ms. Hall, who was hired to complete the VEP study, shares very pertinent expert guidance.  Those are highlighted in gray.

Thank you for your consideration of this and my prior communication.

I urge you to delay changing the structure of the VEP board until more needed research, deliberation and stakeholder consensus can be built.

In the end, I believe we all want what best serves and benefits our shared community.  I hope we do the work necessary to achieve this.

Deborah Gibson

Sent: Friday, September 7, 2018 3:18 PM
To: Deborah Gibson <dgi...@rhvresort.com>
Subject: Re: Estes Park LMD

Hi Deborah,


Wow, this seems like quite a drastic step for the town and county to take.  Have you spent any time with Frank Lancaster to get his perspective?  He might be able to help you maneuver through this political web.  What I have experienced is that a separate, trustee appointed citizen board is more agile and nimble, can better represent the true stakeholders' interests, can provide a deeper level of expertise, and is able to buffer the jurisdictions from any constituent agendas, and allows the jurisdictions to focus on what they are responsible for - public safety and welfare.  Lack of confidence and trust appear to be the primary barriers to a more effective (in my opinion) governance.  

I don’t know if you have time to put together a very specific plan (perhaps you already have one) which lays out the next 60 - 90 days and what the board and staff will be doing to regain the confidence and trust of the elected officials.  Here are some of the items that I would include in such a plan:

- Hire permanent CEO
- Identify VEP primary objectives
- Develop Organization Plan
- Create citizen advisory committee
- Frequent verbal and written communication plan with County and Town
- Community outreach with key stakeholders - lodging, restaurants, hospitality industry - build your army of supporters
- Proposed detailed marketing budget
- Proposed marketing campaigns for winter

Identify any costs and time needed to accomplish each task.  Do the elected leaders have that time?  Can decisions be made quickly to make the most efficient use of funds?  What happens when stakeholders and citizens complain directly to these jurisdictions - can they remain focused on the mission of promoting the region?  I would start by getting this information to those that may be opposed to or questioning such a drastic change so that they have the ammunition they need to slow or stop this.

I’ve provided a proposal for developing the VEP organization plan based on key objectives.  I did not include the marketing plan, because I do believe that the marketing tactics need to be driven by staff with their agencies.  I would be happy to help with editing and layout of that marketing plan.  I also did not include a proposal for the development of the citizen advisory marketing committee.  Let’s see where the IGA and governance moves and I can assist with particulars such as recommended committee size, experience, application, terms of office, specific role, etc if still desired. 

Please let me know if there is anything else that I might be able to help with! 

Sandy


On Sep 6, 2018, at 9:08 PM, Deborah Gibson <dgi...@rhvresort.com> wrote:

Hi Sandy, 

I hope that you had a great holiday weekend.  I look forward to receiving the proposals we discussed that I hope to make a part of our September 12th meeting.  

Recent proposals by the Mayor and County Commissioner make the situation more urgent.  You requested an update on how the Town Trustee Study Session went.  Although the VEP Board President and I both attended, as is usually the case we weren't allowed to speak. The mayor and two county commissioners are proposing to the Town Board that the VEP Board be populated only with elected officials (from the Town Board and County Commissioners).  I believed you said that in your experience, this is least recommended structure for an LMD.   

To the best of my knowledge, none of these elected officials have marketing experience or are required to.  None that I am aware of are employed in tourism in Estes Park.  Using your report to Frank Lancaster from a year ago, they propose a committee of stakeholders to review and make recommendations to staff on various marketing proposals.  

The mayor and county commissioner are united in taking quick action to this end.  Other Town Board members want to take change more slowly with careful consideration and public input.  In the past, I understand that the Town government preferred not to be involved in VEP governance. This mayor and two of the county commissioners apparently feel differently.  Interestingly, even though they acknowledged that VEP is very successful in what it does, the county commissioner and the mayor say we have governance issues which negate that success.  While we haven't been perfect, when we have made errors with this new Board, we have consulted legal help and learned from minor missteps made. Policy was reviewed and revised moving forward. 

Here is a link to the Trail Gazette Article covering the study session:  
At Tuesday's Town Board of Trustees study session, the future of governance for Visit Estes Park (VEP) was discussed.
I believe that any significant change to the governing structure of this organization should be carefully studied.  I believe that a significant number of Town Board members are asking for more information before supporting such a change.  All stakeholders need to know that significant changes are being considered and have more information on how other successful LMDs are structured. 

When this LMD was established lodging was told they would have a strong voice on this Board. This is how we were all convinced to support the special taxing district and collect 2 % from our customers.  My concern is that support for the LMD may slip away if lodging and other tourism stakeholders have a significantly reduced voice on the Board.  VEP has exceeded all expectations we had in 2009 when we started the LMD. I believe we are one if not the most successful LMDs in the state. I am really concerned that could change without lodging having a strong voice on the Board.   With that kind of success, changing the structure we have had since 2009, without careful study, and consideration with public input would seem to be shortsighted and potentially very costly. 

Any thoughts?

Deborah


Deborah Gibson,
Community Association Manager
Rams Horn Village Owners' Association

General Manager
Rams Horn Village Resort
1565 State Highway 66
Estes Park, Colorado  80517



 








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