Sharon Cate, Gilpin County . Gilpin County was named a Government Experience Award winner by the Center for Digital Government for its innovative leadership and smart use of technology.

Gilpin County has recently gained much-deserved attention at home and nationally for its virtual comprehensive planning process, which has propelled County leadership’s efforts on adopting and deploying digital experiences for residents. These efforts in tandem with a commitment to transparency have provided our residents with new methods to access to Gilpin County performance measures and public meetings through OpenGov and Zoom than ever before.

Gilpin County launched a multi-stage, virtual comprehensive planning process to gather and analyze the community’s ideas and preferences about the ideal future state of the County to inform a new comprehensive plan and economic development strategy. At present 789 County residents have provided their ideas for our County vision, which is a degree of participation we are incredibly proud of. All through a completely new form of digital engagements between residents and County staff.

In addition to the comprehensive plan, the County developed various methods to conduct business in a safe manner during COVID while maximizing participation. The County launched ViewPoint earlier this year, which is a cloud based permitting software that allows residents to do business with no contact or need to leave their homes. The County also provides self-scheduling portals for Treasurer, Assessor, Motor Vehicle and Recording needs. These efforts place resident safety at the forefront of all County business interactions with the public. Our residents boast a total of 3942 digital engagements with County services and surveys since March 2020. These numbers reflect 65% of Gilpin County population.

The County began a year-long digital transformation journey just before the pandemic hit.  “Rather than retrench, we decided to capitalize on heightened resident engagement to gather the insights and opinions of nearly 20% of our population to rewrite the County’s comprehensive plan and chart an economic path through the crisis and into the future,” describes County Manager Abel Montoya. The 20% is made up of 13% unique survey responses and 7% of residents who have enjoyed informational content on the comprehensive plan.

Gilpin County commissioners, elected officials, leadership, and staff have moved forward with a digital transformation effort even while being confronted by a global pandemic. The push has enabled a streamlining of services, widening access to services for the general public, and developing a comprehensive plan that invites all residents to the conversation. The County is greatly appreciative of the residents, as they have motivated our drive to succeed and increase our digital efforts in 2020. The comprehensive plan is to be completed by end 2020.

To learn more, go to gilpincounty.org and visit our Community Development page.

(Originally published in the October 1, 2020, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)