Kristopher Larsen, Nederland. Welcome to a new, to me, experiment. Communication is one of the most difficult things to get right, and increasingly one of the most important. I am humbled to have been elected to serve a third term as the Mayor and one of my pledges is to do a better job of communicating, both during the current COVID-19 crisis as well as during what promises to be a long recovery. This column will be part of that, an effort on my part to keep a conversation going between myself and everyone in Nederland.

As of when I’m writing this, we still have no confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nederland, an accomplishment we should all be proud of and which is directly due to how seriously everyone has taken the threat. It seems hard to believe that it was just a month ago that we were debating the cancelation of Frozen Dead Guy Days. Since then, our world has been turned upside down as we adjust to social distancing, mask construction, and an increased awareness of how closely we rely on one another. 

It is this last bit that has made all the difference here in Nederland. Because our residents took it seriously from the beginning, we held the virus at bay. Because our businesses acted quickly and led the way on shifting their operations, rolling out protections for their workers and customers, or closing entirely, we held the virus at bay. Because of our incredible network of volunteers, we’ve been able to support one another and particularly keep the vulnerable among us safely at home so we’ve held the virus at bay. 

I don’t know if we’ll have any cases here in Nederland. I don’t know how long it will be until we can see each other again at a restaurant or go to a Friday night movie at the community center. I don’t know when we’ll be able to give each other a hug hello at a coffeeshop in the morning as we head to work or at one of our breweries at the end of a day. Nobody knows at this point.

But I do know that we’re going to keep working together to find creative ways to take care of each other. I know we’re going to keep supporting our local restaurants by ordering our meals to go and help them help their employees, both now and when they can open their doors again. I know we’re going to come through this as a town and be stronger for it, because that’s what mountain people do. We come together in the hard times so we can celebrate together in the good. And I promise, when we do get past this we are going to celebrate as a town to a degree we never have before! 

In so many ways, this is just the beginning. I hope to hear from all of you with your questions and ideas. It’s going to take all of us working together and I for one, can’t wait to get to work.

Nederland Mayor Kristopher Larsen can be reached at kristopherl@nederlandco.org.

(Originally published in the April 16, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)