Estes Park Trail-Gazette: Over the past year, the Board of Directors for Visit Estes Park (VEP), the local marketing district that handles promotion of Estes Park, has struggled with in-fighting and has resisted calls for increased transparency.

Last week the Larimer County Commissioners and Estes Park Board of Trustees stepped in and took decisive action removing two board members. Three other members have resigned over the last few months and their seats have yet to be filled. That leaves five vacant seats for the town and county to fill.

This will drastically change the make up and character of the board and we expect the town and county to appoint people who will make a difference at VEP. There are five areas that this new board can take steps to make VEP a model of good governance and transparency.

Transparency is of the utmost importance in government. These entities are expending tax dollars and you should be able to easily find out information about them and their activities without having to file a CORA request.

We were disheartened to see the former VEP board vote 4-1 against posting their emails to the VEP website, as the town and county boards do and as the Park Hospital District Board of Directors recently voted to do. We believe this should be the standard practice for all boards going forward. Board member emails are public documents and not posting them online purposefully puts a barrier between the public and information that they have a right to see.

Visit Estes Park Trail-Gazette for more.