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How did we get where we are with the community center? As a new City Council member, this is the question that most intrigues me. Did expediency overwhelm good governmental process and decision making?

The Stock Bridge site was purchased in the late 1990s for a multi-modal transportation center. It was envisioned to serve the downtown and mountain employment centers. At the time, the decision was ridiculed as pure folly, but more than one councilor commented that "it won't be smart for 10 years."

Between then and now, the library was approached about expanding on its present site, the Stock Bridge site was offered as a place to relocate the community center, and the principal users of the community center were persuaded that Stock Bridge would be perfect for them. City staff contacted the state and federal granting agencies to notify them that a community center was being planned for the site for which those agencies had contributed funds for transportation-related purposes. Never were the downtown merchants and other beneficiaries of the original purpose of the site approached for their input. In fact, it also appears that those who raised concerns were cut out of the loop. The approach seemed to be to "sell" the merits of the community center rather than ascertain the community's interest in changing the intended use of the site.

None of us probably remember that the groundwork for successfully funding the Stock Bridge Transit Center was a $250,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Transportation to the Yampa Valley Economic Development Council for a Yampa Valley Multimodal Transportation Plan and a Yampa Valley Multimodal Financial Plan. I doubt that the sitting council at the time the change was proposed was reminded of this, and I doubt that the proposed change in use was brought before the YVEDC.

I was an appointed official in state government for three years, so I know how grant monies can be redirected -- usually at the behest of a senior official. If one is good at his or her job, the desired result can be achieved. More often than not, this indiscretion goes unnoticed, but there is always the chance that a community group may protest, in which case the local officials and the granting agency officials are stuck with egg on their faces, and someone will have to take the fall (the ribbon cutting included local elected officials as well as Rep. Al White and Sen. Jack Taylor). After all, it is the public's money.

So one City Council purchased the Stock Bridge site for a multimodal center; a subsequent City Council agreed at least informally to change the use to a community center, probably without being reminded of all the facts regarding the site's intended purpose and the city's ethical obligations to the partners involved in achieving that intended purpose; user groups were promised a site that was already spoken for; and this City Council is now put in the position of endorsing, however reluctantly, a whole series of mistakes and omissions -- both in process and decision making.

Thus, the issue was not whether this City Council should override the decision of the immediate past City Council, but rather whether it should uphold the purpose for which the land was originally purchased, thereby preserving the credibility of the city in the eyes of our partners and demonstrating our accountability to them. The underlying issue that caused the current predicament is process and ethical government. Who are the decision-makers? Who is accountable to whom? How do we develop a healthy organizational culture that ensures that all voices are heard and all the information is gathered and presented to the decision-makers in a way that ensures that past actions and plans are not forgotten, dismissed or compromised? I believe we can successfully address these questions while we move forward together to locate, plan and build a community center that will be the pride of our community for generations to come.