Looking Ahead
Looking Ahead
Interview: Cloudcroft Mayor Craig Turner, Part Three
In the Third and Final Installment of our April 5th interview with Cloudcroft Mayor Craig Turner, we turn to the future and what the recently-elected mayor hopes to leave behind.
The village’s homepage links to the 2014 comprehensive study, which recommended developing a master plan to guide the Village. Are you interested in that idea?
I do want to address that very much, even to the point of starting over from scratch.
The reason I say that is I can't speak for the previous administrations, Mayor Venable, or Mayor Denny, or anyone, but as an outsider now, I'm not speaking to you as mayor right now; I'm speaking to you simply as just Craig, a resident of the village—it appears to me a lot of work was put into it, and a lot of like, I'd love to do this.
I'd like to take what they have. I've already looked at it, and there's a lot, like building. One of the things in the master plan is to build a boardwalk from the village office all the way to the Burro Street Exchange, just like they have across the street.
I think that's a great idea. It keeps people out of the road, off ice, and stuff like that.
It's a brilliant idea, but it was a suggestion that came up, and they added it. That's how it went.
Whether I ever run again or just spend four years, one of my goals is to leave the village better than I found it. Part of that is taking the initiative to do some of these things that have been talked about and talked about but really—just talked about.
I want to take some of these ideas that have been brought up for years in the village and actually do something with them.
A crosswalk across Highway 82 connecting the OSHA to the Trestle Trail is a brilliant idea for safety.
If somebody wants to cross the street to go over to 82, they’re crossing moving cars and stuff. I think it'd be a great addition to the village.
It would enhance the beauty of the village by having a crosswalk across the street.
When you say crosswalk, do you mean like an over-the-highway bridge?
Yes, over-the-highway bridge, actually, and make it attractive. That's another thing, too. I don't want to do anything halfway. If we're going to do anything in the village while I'm here, I want to do it right. If that means we have to wait six months so we have the grant money to do it, then let's wait six months, but let's do the job right.
I want to build something attractive, like the bridge across Switchback down the highway about six miles. Something like that is attractive. So my point is, back to your general question, the master plan that was created back in early 2014, I want to review that again. I want to go over that with the council and say, hey, let's just not put this on paper and say something like this is what we'd like to do. Let's get the grant money, and let's do it.
What do you want out of the Parks and Recreation Committee? They have no authority and no budget.
I have promised our committees that I am going to listen to them.
Why have a committee if they will give you suggestions and you ignore them? If that's the case, let's eliminate the committees and not waste these people's time.
I've already demonstrated that I will listen to our committees and act on what they say. For example, with Parks and Recreation and Matt, we were trying to finalize where we're going to put the new bathroom for the ice skating rink, and I said, great.
I said, I want Matt to be a part of this, and Parks and Recreation, and so we went up there as a group and had a workshop up there, and we put the bathroom and voted and put the bathroom where they want it.
Matt and his team would love to proceed and do something with the baseball field.
Let's quit talking about it and do something.
In fact, I asked Matt "how much of the reason why this baseball field isn't complete or we haven't done something with it is because people just can't agree?” He said, “100%." Well, let's stop that, that's nonsense. let's quit talking about it and let's do it.
There are many good plans for our ice skating rink with Parks and Recreation. Same thing, let's quit talking about it, and let's try to have something completed by next year for Christmas. We're the Christmas capital, and that ice skating rink should be beautiful and look like Christmas.
So what I expect from them is to continue to come to me with their ideas and not be apprehensive about coming to me with ideas. I think in the past, they've been very apprehensive because they felt like no matter what they brought to the trustees and to the mayor, it was going to get ignored.
I am not gonna ignore them.
Now, I'm not gonna promise that everything they bring to me I can get passed because again, as you mentioned a moment ago, I don't have a vote, but they are not going to be ignored with me.
If they have something to say to me and they have an idea, I will write it down and bring it before the trustees and say, What's wrong with doing this?
Don't tell me why we can't do it. Tell me how we can do it."
Will the council adopt your forward-thinking approach rather than try to save money?
I think they can, and they're capable of that. They're more than willing to work with me to advance the village. I do.
I think you get in a rut. And when you get in a rut, the best thing, get; I used to tell my teams this all the time: the best way to get out of a rut is to do something different, which is common sense, right?
I'm not afraid to tackle some of these things that have been ignored.
They're meant to run a village or run a town, run a city. As efficiently as you can.
My point is I'm not gonna blow money to blow it, but I'm not afraid to do and spend and allocate what we need to ensure that this village is a better place for all of us to live and a better place for all of our people to visit us.
How does the village handle the Lodger's tax? Does the tax revenue go into the village's general fund or is it segregated for specific purposes?
I would challenge the readers to look at the lodger’s tax almost like a grant. It is untouchable. That's not our money, okay? That's not the village's money.
So whether that be through advertising or marketing or whatever, the funds indirectly help our village and indirectly is a byproduct of people coming here, but that is a separate entity in the sense to say, we're gonna take 20,000 of that and we're gonna remodel the village office.
The [committee is] looking at subscribing to one of these [software] services. He's walked us through it, which is going to be a much better way of identifying everybody who should be paying, looking at their inventory of what they actually rented out, and then sending letters and automating that.
That could free up some of the time that your folks have to deal with, I would think. He said they could even allocate money to help pay you for some of the administrative expenses you have just to support their collection of money. They can, and you're absolutely right.
The beautiful thing, and I want to commend Karl and his group, is that they have done a super job of cleaning up a mess.
We were out of state compliance and state statutes by not having a lodgers committee, so that was a no-no to begin with.
But now that we have it, and Karl and his team have been working diligently, I've been helping a little bit. I will add that I've met with Karl a couple of times, but they're doing a super job of cleaning up something that was a mess.
So short order, yes.
This new program, I believe it's gonna cost $2,700, I believe is the cost, but it's gonna mainstream all of it, clean it up.
It'll allow Karl and his team to know what beds are being taken up, who has paid and who has not paid, et cetera.
What are your plans for the balance of the year?
So my plan for the next six months is to continue to get everything in order and get policies and procedures finished.
I want to make sure that everything that we're doing in the village, whether it be from an HR perspective, whether it be from a payroll perspective, whether it be from an evaluation perspective, or a job description, my goal is before the end of this year, I have all of that in place.
An employee is not wondering when her subsequent evaluation is.
She knows. She also knows what meeting expectations means.
She also knows what exceeds expectations means.
And she can be prepared to come in and share why she believes she's exceeding expectations.
And then I go to the trustees and say, ‘I'm asking for a 6% increase in this employee’s salary. She exceeded expectations, and here are the things that she did, and this is her evaluation. '
We don't have anything like that now.
It's very hard for me to go to ask the trustees to do anything in the village if I don't have something to support it.
So my goal in the next six months is to get all of these things, general policies and procedures, administration procedures for the village, in place so that by the end of this year, we're functioning going into next year.
And next year, there's no ambiguity about what your expectations are. There's no ambiguity about what your job description is. There's no ambiguity about when your evaluation will be, so make sure all of that's clear.
That way, we're being the most efficient we can be for the village.
Lastly, merit increases are based on merit, not on the cost of living.
And then again, as I said, if I choose not to run again or if I decide to do four years, whoever I hand this over to, I want clear procedures and policies for this village.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Part One: Getting the House in Order