John Scarffe, Nederland.  Outgoing Nederland Mayor Joe Gierlach counts himself in the company of two other term-limited mayors who served three terms, Gierlach said during a March 22, 2016 interview at the Train Cars in Nederland. The other two mayors were Paul H. Ludke and John Workman, who also served during times of economic prosperity in Nederland.

Gierlach first served as mayor when he was appointed in 2011, after Mayor Sumaya Abu-Haidar resigned, according to the Nederland website. He then won the 2012 election with 237 votes over Chris Perret and Jim Stevens. He ran unopposed in 2014.

Nederland’s first mayor was Doc Gillispie in 1908. Mayor Ludke served from 1964 to 1966 and ran unopposed in 1968. In 1970 he won over the Gabor Cseh “Citizens Committee for Progress” candidate and served until 1972.

Mayor Workman served from 1978, when he defeated Jim Miller, and then was re-elected in 1980 and 1982, serving until 1984, according to the website. During that time businesses were built, and it was a time of cooperation. “He did it on the back end of the U.S. housing crisis, and my house on the hill was built then. Ned has never seen better numbers,” Gierlach said. “It was the only time we created jobs.”

Ludke was the first term-limited mayor, and at that time most of the houses in Old Town were built. Ludke was a big advocate of the Nederland jamboree with a parade and queen, Gierlach said. People from all over the Front Range would come, and residents complained about crowds and traffic back then as well. Ludke fixed the water and infrastructure, and businesses were flourishing

During those times in the 1960s, Nederland had no sewer system, Gierlach said. Ludke was facing threats to shut down the town from the predecessor of the Environmental Protection Agency. That was the first year Boulder County joined the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), and Ludke got a grant for planning to replace the sewer system and appeased the former EPA, Gierlach said. Nederland got to stay a town.

Gierlach sees a comparison between that time and when he became mayor. At that time, auditors were saying Nederland was not going to be a town, so the Town built a new waste water plant.  “It was very contentious,” Gierlach said. To satisfy the auditors, they had to clean up the water and sewer funds, which were being offset from general funds, rather than paying for police and public works. The general funds were paying for low water and sewer rates. “We were on a moratorium for building permits unless we came up with plan to build a new waste water plant,” Gierlach said.

After building the new plant, the Town was projected to pay $150,000 in electricity just to pay for the pumps. “That alone would have made water rates astronomically high.”

When Abu-Haidar became mayor the Board changed town administrators and fired the engineers working on that plan. Kevin Mueller was named mayor pro-tem because he was instrumental in redesigning the plant and getting another set of engineers, Gierlach said.

The previous engineers said the Town wouldn’t be able to design anything efficient because of its climate and altitude. As a result, they separated the plant into two buildings, Gierlach said. The tiny building in front needs 16 air changes per hour. Pipes underneath are preheated because they were brought in from under the earth. Those include tons of coils of pipe, so it preheats the air before it goes into building and only needs to be 40 degrees. “It costs extremely little to heat that building,” Gierlach said. The Town reduced electrical costs and received zero percent financing, so it saved the rate payer $8.9 million.

“Because of that I began giving speeches across the country, and the engineers won awards. I think everybody takes it for granted when you run your faucet in Ned.”The Town gets clean water from the Arapahoe glacier, and Nederland won a contest for the best tasting water. “People don’t realize how much went into getting water off the glacier and saving money, because we did things in a sustainable way,” Gierlach said.

Gierlach was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. As an adult he helped build skyscrapers and renovated a house from the year 1865 across from the Cuyahoga River. He was also a member of the Cleveland Water Front Coalition.

In the 1970s the Cuyahoga River had burned from pollution, and by the 1980’s, the city was undergoing a revitalization period. “Urban lifestyle can be really rough,” Gierlach said. He got into finance and worked for corporate banking. After working in the corporate world for a while he decided to get out and move away. If he was going to move 1,500 miles away from Cleveland, Gierlach didn’t want to move to Longmont or Louisville with all the chain stores.

“I had lived in a neighborhood where you didn’t talk to neighbors. Cars had been robbed and there was a fair amount of crime. It was yuppie and fancy bank living in an urban lifestyle.”

“Coming here, one of the things I was impressed with was the Ned Post Office, which was in the Business Connection building then,” Gierlach said. When he first moved to Nederland in 1999, having to go to the Post Office and saying hi to neighbors was such a profound change.

Gierlach had been involved in public school finance, and the legislature had just passed a resolution at the state level allowing rebates for solar panels. Nederland Trustee Scott Franklin had just started a solar panel business and was doing houses off grid in the middle of nowhere, so Gierlach was working out finances with him.

He was doing the math to determine the money saved by solar panels, and had been working with the Boulder Valley School District to figure out ways of investing in panels in order to save money on electrical costs. Franklin mentioned to him that the Town was in serious financial trouble and needed someone with that experience. He convinced Gierlach to run for Trustee, and he ran on the three-prong issues of sustainable finances, economy, and environment. “The day I was sworn in, the auditors said they were dropping the going concern assumption, an accounting term.”

Around that time, in 2008, the St. Vrain School District had made a $13 million mistake on its finances, and the State treasurer had to take over the school district, Gierlach explained. “No one in Ned realized what the auditor had said. We can no longer assume you will be a town in 20 years.” The state could take over, and our interest rates would go up, Gierlach said. “Unless we cleaned up our finances, we were in serious trouble. I’m the only person who had a finance background and said, ‘Do you realize how serious that is?’”

In Board meetings he brought up sustainability issues, and the Board didn’t agree, because it did not have sustainability as one of its goals. “I was really disappointed, because it should be part of our goals.” Gierlach thought sustainability runs through everything and should be on the table with fixing roads and the water plant. “We should do everything with sustainability.”

Two years later, with Abu-Haidar as mayor, he was elected mayor pro-tem.

When Abu-Haidar was mayor, she was brilliant, Gierlach said. She had a Ph.D. in governmental process and was very much about process. She undertook Vision 2020 and bringing the community together with vision for the next 20 years.

“The Board argued about it, and it was contentious. A lot of people didn’t agree with it. It was a topic of conversation in the community for year and half,” Gierlach said. Abu-Haidar ended up getting bullied and resigning. A lot of people didn’t want to pass 2020. “That was the first thing I did as mayor, approve 2020 in July 2011,” Gierlach said. He was carrying on her vision, and it was filled with sustainability as a goal, which is what he had run on two years earlier.

In the next six years while mayor, the Board spent a quarter of a million dollars redoing the master comprehensive plan and NedZero, including elements for parks and recreation, solar, the Community Center and noxious weeds. “This time the community did come together.

“When I looked at sales tax figures five years before becoming mayor, they were declining and businesses were declining,” Gierlach said. Bredo Morstol and friends were trying to start cryogenics in Big Springs, and the entrepreneurial spirit of people such as musicians, artists, and restaurant owners was rising as they tried to start businesses. “That’s what makes Ned what it is,” Gierlach said. His first action of passing Vision 2020 defines his time as mayor. Now, infrastructure is being repaired, and they recently took the last wooden pipe out of ground.

The new library has been built, Katmandu came to town and a building next to Black Forest will contain the first manufacturing jobs in Ned. Even the train cars flourish, Gierlach said, explaining that he first came to the cars in 1997 when he rented snow shoes for the first time and hiked to Lost Lake. Since then he has come here in this room to get interviewed by media including CNN, CBS News International, Al-Jazeera, and The Mountain-Ear.

Gierlach’s final decision to move here was made at the Acoustic Coffee House run by Tom Plant, and now a new pizza place, Cross Cut Pizzeria and Tap House, he just opened. “It’s ironic that I made the decision to move here at their place. It shut down, and then, during my mayorship, it started back.”

The third biggest piece of Vision 2020 remains a relentless commitment to the environment, Gierlach said. The economy and even the way of life here relies on the environment. Since he was elected, everyone is talking about the threat of climate change. Residents have lived through a 1,000-year flood and the pine beetle epidemic.

Before he was mayor, folks couldn’t agree on climate change, and protecting the environment was not something the community could talk about. “It’s a big part of the economy and way of life and the reason people move here -- protecting, honoring and balancing the environment with the economy. It’s funny, but you could look back at the original three things that define what I have done as mayor for the past six years.”

“That’s the story. There’s these themes. It’s not been easy, not by any means. It’s been hard to be mayor,” Gierlach said. “My personal style, which has been criticized, is that I allow people that I may disagree with, to speak their minds and I honor their ability to speak. “I’ve been liberal in allowing people to go past three minutes. Allowing voices to be heard is how we think things through. When the Board of Trustees becomes a bunch of people who have the same voice or thoughts it’s not good for the Town.

“I have said that I think everybody should take turns. More people should get involved. I compare this to the time when I moved here and was intrigued with going to the Post Office and seeing neighbors and experiencing living in a small town.

“Whether your road gets plowed in Ned or doesn’t, the plow guy is your neighbor and you might know who the guy is. You have to rely on neighbors. Everybody should play roles in government.

“More people need to get in involved in the Planning Commission, Sustainability Advisory Board and the other boards. I never planned on being a politician and didn’t mean to dominate the landscape. Other people need to step up and be a part of our government.”

As Mayor, Gierlach has been threatened and assaulted. His family has been threatened, and Abu-Haidar resigned because she was threatened. “To some degree it’s not easy being a neighbor. She had the Ph.D. and was passionate about the democratic process and the community, and she ultimately resigned because of harassment. I’ve had to endure the same, and to some degree, it’s part of Ned.”

The other big thing was communication. The first thing Abu-Haidar did was to update the website. She made a point of getting more information to the public and started the Mayor’s Corner in The Mountain-Ear.

As mayor Gierlach has written a blog and has 150 blog posts. “It’s a big piece of communicating with the public.” His first one was when the Board approved the backyard hen ordinance.

“It’s funny to go back in time and see what I was worried about. The process of plowing roads was a topic. Finances were a big topic, and approving all those documents and master plans. A lot of it is climate change, forest health and Saws and Slaws.” Gierlach said he made a very, very concerted effort to reach out to the County. He faced a grueling schedule going to meetings such as the Boulder County Consortium of Cities, DRCOG, the Executive Board of the Colorado Municipal League and the Colorado Association of Ski Towns.

“I brought the eco-pass to Ned and a lot of things people don’t notice like a low water bill,” Gierlach concluded. “I even brought the governor here for a tour, and was introduced as mayor of the Frozen Dead Guy. Overall, I think we dodged a few catastrophes. We’re far better off economically, and we are much better prepared than we were when I started.”