Dear Editor,

I am writing this letter as both a resident of the Nederland community, and as the Mayor of Nederland. I want to give title credit to Christopher Kelley of The Mountain-Ear. Please read Chris’s two-part article in the last two preceding editions of The Mountain-Ear for much more specific information.

I appreciate the engagement of so many community members in response to the proposed logo. Both the logo and the fallout are not what we expected, and in an indirect way this process has brought some cohesion. To build upon.

The intention of the Nederland Board of Trustees with this branding is to educate and inform tourists about how Nederland needs these tourists to respect and protect our community. Yet much of the public perception is that this branding is about marketing for more tourism. We have not succeeded in making our intentions clear to the community. For that, I apologize.

Should we have chosen to pursue this branding identity? Should we have opened it up to people outside the community or only allowed people in the community to bid on this contract? Should we have specified how many logo options we wanted to choose from? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The identity or branding logo, or mark, has not landed for most. Though not for lack of engagement or involvement of many in the community. Godot met with over 100 folks during their focus groups and an open house. I believe they went to work to create a logo that would reflect what they had learned during their interactions with many of our community members.

There is plenty of agreement that people don’t like the logo. Whether we like the logo or not, let’s be civil. A few people took it too far and directly messaged the Godot team with more negative, and more hostile, and at least one comment that went way too far over the line. Is this who we are? No, we are better than that!

There is legitimate frustration and anger about the logo. It seems that a lot of the anger and the intensity is likely also about many other things that we are struggling with. Nederland seems on the brink of change. It seems rather out of our control. There are forces from inside and outside the Nederland community that want to change this Town. It’s somewhat amazing that it didn’t happen long ago. Maybe we can thank the wind for scaring people away and holding off dramatic change.

We have a lot of big issues in front of us: downtown development, potential residential development, potential annexation, infrastructure improvements, transportation, affordable housing, childcare, emergency egresses, and securing our water rights.

So, here we are. Now what?

We have the chance to come together, give input and choose a visual logo to represent our identity. In the big scheme of things, the logo and the branding are not that big of a deal. And yet, how we proceed through this may help guide how we will proceed through the many more important issues that we will meet and decide upon in the near future.

Please join us for the Nederland Brand & Creative Identity Campaign Open House on January 30, 2024, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Nederland Community Center. Godot has adapted the process to maximize individual community voices based on feedback received from community members since the controversial logo was presented over three weeks ago. Godot will present several options to us at this Open House. This will be an opportunity for many people to come together and choose a logo.

Thank you, Godot, for the logo. Thank you, James, for the infamous Facebook post. Thank you, Chris Kelley of The Mountain-Ear, for the two-part article that my title references. Ned has officially been rocked.

And just in time. Please continue to pay attention, stay engaged and be involved. Presently and in the near future, there are several much more impactful items coming before the Town of Nederland.

There may not be so much agreement in the many decisions that we face over the next year or two. And yet we all need to stay involved and keep speaking up, so we can learn what people in our community really want. Please don’t sit on the sidelines and watch things happen. Take part in making these decisions.

‘Mayor Billy’ Giblin

Nederland