The Green Party of Colorado is proud to announce the election of Art Goodtimes as co-chair of the state party. Goodtimes was elected on May 10 to fill a co-chair vacancy, left by former co-chair Adam Taylor who moved to Australia. Goodtimes holds the office alongside co-chair Tanya Ishikawa until the June 25-26 Annual State Meeting when the annual state officer elections take place.
Recently named Poet Laureate of the Western Slope 1 and op-ed columnist for various Telluride newspapers for the past 30 years 2 , Art Goodtimes is serving his fourth term as a San Miguel County Commissioner in southwestern Colorado 3 — the only Green Party county commissioner in the inner basin West and the only partisan elected Green official in Colorado.
He is involved in a number of community collaborative processes, including the Public Land Partnership 4 and the Burn Canyon Monitoring Task Force 5 , for which he has received several national awards from the U.S. Dept. of Interior and the U.S. Forest Service. In 2010 he was named a Fellow for the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University and is working on a Payment for Ecosystem Services Pilot Project in San Miguel County 6 .
He currently serves as chair of the National Association of Counties Gateway Communities Subcommittee 7 and Colorado Counties, Inc. representative on NACo’s Public Lands Steering Committee 8 . He was twice appointed to the BLM’s Southwestern Colorado Resource Advisory Council and has won several regional awards for his work at bridge-building among diverse constituencies.
Goodtimes switched to the Green Party in 1998 when it achieved party status in Colorado as a minor party, and founded the San Miguel Greens. He has been re-elected for three terms as a Green in San Miguel County, and has served as on-line Council founder and first facilitator as well as chair of the Accreditation Committee of the National Green party.
In terms of putting the Ten Key Values into effect locally, he is proudest of having established San Miguel County’s Environmental Health Department and adopted a High County Zone District that protects the alpine lands surrounding Telluride from future trophy home development.
You can read Goodtimes’ co-chair nomination statement on the Proposal 09-11 page of the state website.
Sincere thanks and appreciation go out to other co-chair nominees and candidates Victor Forsythe and Ryan Jones for stepping up to volunteer for this critical party role. All candidates were highly qualified and offered great ideas and passion.
Delegates from local chapters and unaffiliated representatives of registered Greens around the state will elect two co-chairs as well as state secretary, treasurer and council facilitator at the state meeting in Prospect on June 25. Past co-chairs and candidates are eligible and welcome to run, as are new nominees. Interested parties can send inquiries to State Secretary Eric Fried at eric@pvgreens.org.
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