Leslie Anne Klusmire, ICMA-CM
Leslie is a city manager, land use planner, and development project manager with leadership as a community development/planning director, major infrastructure and ski resort development project manager, public financing and grant manager, and city/county manager. Her particular interest is in how communities can build positive, forward-thinking relationships and work together through difficult controversies and change.
Leslie moved to Colorado from California in 1985, where she started her land use career and was a developer’s representative in the land development entitlement process in North San Diego County.
As Glenwood Spring’s Community Development Director during a time residents refer to as the “golden years,” with the City Council and City Manager, she accomplished the redevelopment of downtown Glenwood Springs including multi-million-dollar streetscape and riverfront/railroad improvements; retail, and business enhancement program, storefront rehabilitation, and revolving loan program planning; initiated valley-wide commuter bus service/public transit; designed, financed and built a river trail system to join the newly-developed Glenwood Canyon trail system, identified the corridor for an alternate route/bypass and created an implementation plan & environmental assessment, and initiated and completed construction of the city’s first low-income housing project.
Her transportation work includes project management of the development of a proposal for a $46 million transit system between Aspen area resort towns and ski bases focused on PM10 mitigation requirements with an innovative community input and information program (continuous attitude surveys & public opinion monitoring) and coordination with FHWA, FTA, and CDOT as well as private investors including the Aspen Skiing Company. As part of a bi-state (Oregon and Washington), eight-agency cooperative project, she served as the on-site representative of CTRAN managing the Washington-side public decision-making process and planning the development of the extension of MAX from Portland into downtown Vancouver, Washington.
She is the founder of the Community Trust Institute, a Roaring Fork Valley Colorado non-profit, formed and funded by communities experiencing rapid change. CTI held a dialogue among small-town leaders nationwide and created 12 principles for successful community change.
Leslie has worked with several not-for-profits, including the Heartland Center for Leadership, to develop new approaches to thriving through community change and with its national think tank focused on sharing transferable solutions between rural and urban leaders.
She worked with the transitional government of Kazakhstan at the request of the National Civic League, training them in group decision-making process.
