This feature is part of a series by Barb Boyer Buck that the Estes Valley Voice is publishing on the individuals who serve as Estes Park Town Trustees. Other trustees featured in this series include Mark Igel, Frank Lacaster, Kirby Hazelton, and Bill Brown.
“This is not new, trying to keep our town a unique little place,” said Estes Park Trustee Cindy Younglund about resistance to workforce housing developments in the Estes Valley.
She cited examples such as the Ranch Meadow Condominiums along Highway 34, built in 1999, and the construction of the Riverwalk, which was completed in the mid-1980s.
Both developments caused uproars in Estes Park when they were built. “We’ve had those challenges as long as I can remember, with different developments.”
Younglund is a “true native,” born and raised in Estes Park, and an Estes Park High School graduate.
Her family moved to the area in the 1950s, and her father was a general contractor who built custom homes in the Estes Valley. The family also worked in the hotel industry, purchasing MacGregor Mountain Lodge and building the Wildwood Inn.
Younglund kept her maiden name in honor of her family’s history in town and because her parents didn’t have any sons. She has eight children and 11 grandchildren.
Family, travel, and her community are Younglund’s priorities these days. She recently retired from her career as a nurse and is currently serving her last term as a Town Trustee.
There wasn’t any particular issue that prompted her to run for Town Board. “I felt that I had good knowledge from all perspectives, from a young child’s perspective to a school-aged child to a parent and a business owner, and the struggles that all those phases face,” said Younglund.
Younglund serves as a voting member on the Larimer County Regional Opioid Abatement Council and reports back as the Town Board liaison for that organization. She is very proud of this work, which awards money collected from opioid lawsuit settlements to nonprofit organizations fighting opioid addictions and accidental overdoses in Larimer County.
She is also a liaison to the Estes Park Sister Cities Association. Estes Park is a “sister city” to Monteverde, Costa Rica, and the association helps to sponsor exchange programs for youth and adults. It offers various educational programs about this Costa Rican city that has many parallels to Estes Park.
It has a tourism-based economy as well, Younglund said, and faces many of the same challenges, such as housing, medical facilities, and more. Students from Estes Park High School recently traveled to Monteverde over Spring Break.
The most important job facing the Town Board right now is the rewrite of the Estes Park Development Code, she said. “I think it’s going to be a positive thing, and I just hope the community has input and starts being more involved,” she said.
“Quite frankly, that’s the biggest thing I was surprised about being a Trustee is that nobody comes to our meetings unless they’re upset. And that’s not how it should be.”
Community engagement helps to shape the policies that the Town Board adopts, she says, and is an important part of the local governmental process. She would like to see senior housing needs addressed as well as workforce housing, she expressed at the Town’s first strategic planning meeting on March 13.
When asked about her abstaining from the vote to adopt a reaffirmation of a 2018 immigration resolution, she said that the Town Board should be focused on policy and governance.
“I didn’t then and don’t currently feel that it was an appropriate place” to adopt a resolution for immigration reform. “It has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree on any of the issues, but I just don’t think it’s a place for (town) to be in.”
When Younglund was a girl, on Sundays in the winter, she wore ski clothes to church at the Presbyterian Church downtown. That was in the location where The Stanley Chocolate Factory is being built now and where The Old Church Shops were.
After church, she would hop on the ski bus and head out to Hidden Valley, the former ski resort in Rocky Mountain National Park. None of these things exist in Estes Park or RMNP today, although Hidden Valley is maintained as a snow play area and an avalanche beacon training site.
“I’ve seen tons of change,” she said. “Some I don’t like, some I like, and that’s life. Our town is no different than anywhere else. Everywhere is changing. Everywhere is growing.
“I think a healthy community needs to stay on top of policies, procedures, and codes,” said Younglund. “That’s just part of change. So, to be a healthy, vibrant community, we need to have guidance from the public that we understand and that is current.”