Orient Land Trust and Valley View Hot Springs

We, the undersigned, ask the Board to allow us to have an open dialog with them on the matters noted below. We may not agree 100% with all of these points, but we do agree they all need to be heard and discussed with the Board.

We respectfully ask the Board to hold a special meeting, no later than June, 2010, so these matters can be addressed. Our goal is to renew the values that were in place at VVHS when the OLT was formed.
Noted below are some of the concerns many members have with the direction of OLT. These issues are becoming problematic to a large number of OLT members and VVHS visitors.

1) The current Board needs to be more in touch with OLT’s members. Many members are feeling isolated, the Visitors Experience Committee was eliminated by the Board, and members’ proposals have not been allowed to be presented to the Board.

The Board of Directors approved an across the board rate increase during challenging economic times, even though revenue, including donations from members, increased last year, and after OLT paid off the Everson Ranch a year early utilizing these donations. Other options for a rate increase were strongly suggested by OLT’s Recourse Development Committee, such as maintaining the current admission rate for members while charging a higher rate for non-members. But these suggestions were not implemented by the Board.

The main goal of this current Board seems to be increasing assets while dropping popular programs. Raising rates and looking for ways to increase revenue is not in line with the original mission statement intention.

2) The OLT mission statement was changed and promises made by OLT’s founders to its members have been taken out of the new statement or changed without members’ knowledge. Just three years ago thousands of dollars were spent to change the last statement. Then in 2009, the Board changed it again at additional costs when there appeared to be no need to do this once more.

3) The naturist lifestyle, which has been enjoyed for decades at VVHS, is now being altered. Some of the Board’s decisions have resulted in a decrease in naturism at VVHS, to where many of the members no longer feel comfortable practicing naturism. One of OLT’s main goals and reasons for forming was to help preserve naturism at VVHS forever.

The former members of VVHS were promised before OLT was formed, that the word “naturism” would be placed in the OLT’s mission statement – and that was done. Although partially covered in the deed restriction, the new mission statement omits the word “naturism” entirely and it is no longer one of the mission statement’s goals.

Clearly, saving nudism at the Hot Springs is not the case today. The new wording to the mission statement and the removal of the word “naturism” is a perfect example of how the original values of VVHS and OLT are being lost.

4) VVHS is no longer the main focus of OLT, yet OLT was started in the first place because of the Hot Springs and under the promise and condition that the Hot Springs would always be one of the main focuses of OLT.

5) The members of OLT were promised a new steam sauna years ago, after the old steam sauna was torn down. Members wanted and were promised a simple, small steam sauna similar to the old one. However, there now is a major push by the Board for a larger, fancier and more expensive steam room. Such a steam room is not what the majority of members want. We would like the Board to go back to the original plans of building a smaller, less expensive steam sauna, as was first promised to us; one that fits in with the “Village” at VVHS and its buildings, and what was called for in our original mission statement of keeping the buildings in the “Village” at VVHS all uniform. An alternative to this would be converting the existing dry sauna into a steam sauna (as originally intended) at a cost of a few thousand dollars, instead of erecting a new building and its infrastructure at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.

6) A real hot tub is needed at VVHS. Most members want this and one was promised to them years ago. A hot tub would be inexpensive to build or purchase, and there would be little or no impact on the land it would sit on, unlike a new building.

7) A Community Center has been promised for years, but now has been placed on the back burner in favor of other projects. A community center is greatly needed for: A) Board meetings; B) Additional kitchen space; C) A place to hang out in during inclement weather; D) To take pressure off of the Oak House, which is no longer the free communal house it once was; E) A place to play live music, without bothering guests staying at the Oak House (where this now takes place) who need to sleep at night; F) To provide an indoor room for massage therapy during inclement weather.

We ask the Board to please initiate plans in the next year for the Community Center.

8) The Board, after recommendation from OLT staff, decided to drop the two fireworks shows which OLT/VVHS has put on. This includes the very popular show at the Crestone Music Festival, and the 4th of July show put on at the Hot Springs which has been a community tradition for around 25 years. These shows were loved by both the hot spring members and the entire San Luis Valley community. The OLT needs to be involved in community outreach programs and the fireworks shows were significant outreach programs that OLT took part in. The decision to end the fireworks shows took place at a special meeting with no advance notice, so OLT members had no say in the matter.

9) As of now, less than 0.5% of OLT members, who make the land trust possible, have a say with the Board’s setup and who should be on the Board. The four members of the Board Development Committee are presently the only ones who decide who should be recommended to the Board, and then the current Board of Directors are the only ones who vote to approve new Board members. This does not allow for the OLT membership to have any input about who is on the Board. This needs to change in some way.

Long time members who are qualified to serve on the Board have been denied seats by the Board Development Committee - all this while the Board has had at least one or more open seats for over two years now.

The majority on the current Board has no pre OLT/VVHS experience; therefore they do not have a point of reference for how VVHS was before 2001, nor understand what was promised to former VVHS members.

We do believe that the current Board members, who are all volunteers, are working very hard for OLT, and we thank them for that. But they are overworked. Because of this, OLT’s staff has had to take over making major decisions that the Board used to make – decisions that should still be made by the Board, not by paid staff. Perhaps an increase in the number of Board members should be looked into so there would be more diversity on the Board and less responsibility for each Board member.

We all love OLT/VVHS. We just wish to see OLT maintain the essence of its originality as promised to us.