John Scarffe, Gilpin County.  Two candidates for Gilpin County manager came to the Gilpin County Community Center on Wednesday, June 21, to meet with the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners, County staff and the public. The Commissioners met first with Leslie Klusmire and Todd Leopold, followed by a meet and greet with County staff and then from 6:30 to 8 p.m. with the general public.

Cards were available for employees and Gilpin County residents to share their candidate preference with the Board. Short biographies of the two candidates also were available. Klusmire and Leopold stood throughout the gathering while the public asked them questions.

Klusmire is experienced in local government management and has specialized in historic small town economic development, tourism, budgeting, utility rate management and enterprise zone financing, strategic planning, growth and quality of life preservation issues, according to her biography.

She has served as a manager for Colorado small towns and was a local government and project management and planning consultant for Telluride, Gunnison, Carbondale, Aspen, Craig, Castle Rock and other cities and counties in Colorado and Utah. She spent four years as a field manager for the redevelopment of Mammoth Lakes Ski Resort for a group of Canadian developers.

Klusmire started her Colorado career as Community Development Director in Glenwood Springs, where she completed the downtown redevelopment and two pedestrian bridges over the Colorado River, according to her biography. She started the first transit connections to Aspen as well as the first affordable housing project, assisted in rebuilding a failing water treatment plant and building the first phase of the river trail system that now connects to Glenwood Canyon.

She has knowledge of the day-to-day operations and administration of public works, building, finance, recreation, law enforcement, health and human services, human resources and utilities services, according to her biography. She can prepare a conservative budget working as a team with department staff to fund essential needs, monitor spending and execute projects in a timely manner.

In answer to questions from the public, Klusmire said that you don’t say yes to everything. Breckenridge decided to become a ski resort and didn’t pay attention to the future. Telluride wrote guidelines for town planning to keep its unique character.

“Glenwood Springs had no development, and then it just flipped,” Klusmire said. “We were in explosive growth.” Then they talked about getting a plan together.

She would definitely live in Gilpin County if she were the County manager and would like to bring her chickens here, she said. “I don’t want to commute.” She has lived in mountains higher than Gilpin County.

“You have big revenue issues unique to this county. You have restrictions other counties don’t have.”

Right now, she is living between Walsenburg and Glenwood Springs. She was city administrator at Walsenburg, but acting as city manager. She was in Glenwood Springs for 16 years. Bringing people together turned out to be her best skill.

Todd Leopold has more than 20 years of public sector experience, with more than 17 years in county government organizations in Colorado. Most recently he served as the County Manager for Adams County, Colorado. During that time he led a number of structural and organizational improvements, most notably transitioning the organization to a county manager governance structure, according to his biography.

Recognitions include a National Association of Counties Innovation Award, multiple Alliance for Innovation awards programs based on the development of an employee training and development program, and a Denver Regional Council of Governments Impact Award for a multi-jurisdictional agri-tourism development plan, according to his biography.

Before becoming county manager, he served as the deputy county manager overseeing the external service operations, including public works, planning and community and economic development. Previously he worked for Jefferson County, Colorado, for about 13 years in financial and administrative positions.

As an executive management team member, he served as the director of administrative services for seven years, overseeing the internal support operations of the County. Other positions included serving as the director of budget and management analysis and senior budget analyst for the county.

Leopold has worked in local government organizations throughout his professional career including city and council of government organizations in Colorado and New Mexico. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Eastern New Mexico University and a master’s in public administration degree from the University of Colorado at Denver.

In answer to questions from the public, Leopold said he lives in Thornton and has a wife who is a teacher as well as children in school so he wouldn’t be able to move to Gilpin County immediately but might in the long term. This is a partnership, and he would be involved in the community.

He is a native Coloradoan and knows the values of the community. He worked his way up in his career and understands the value of promoting from within. “Training and development are critical.” He would give employees opportunities to fill in vacant spots and believes in growing and training staff.

Leopold had a training program at Adams County providing computer training and growing a person on a holistic basis. Like Gilpin County, Adams County has a finite amount of resources and has rural communities like Strasburg and Bennett.

He will seek federal and state funds for better Broadband in Gilpin County, and he will take what he has learned and replicated in other parts of the state in the county. Each of the 64 counties in the state is unique, and Gilpin County is a wonderful county with a great history.

The emergency management deputy was under the county manager in Adams County and he handled emergency operations. He is familiar with wildfire mitigation and floods. On the flatlands, they mainly had grass fires and some floods.

“This is about being a good partner and getting state and federal reimbursements. If you don’t have a good process, you can lose out on a lot of money,” Leopold said.

Gilpin County has beautiful facilities. When he went to Adams County, each office had its own goals, but the beauty of Gilpin County is everybody wants to play together and they all have one goal to provide services to the residents.

(Originally published in the June 29, 2017 print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)