Open Doors opens up

SUPERIOR – Representatives from an organization that had previously released little information about themselves and their plans to help revitalize one town in Mineral County was on hand last week to throw open the veil and reveal who they were and why they want to invest in the town of Superior.

Members of an organization known as Open Doors, who have local representation and had been mentioned in previous county commissioner meetings, attended one last week in order to outline their basic ideas to the public and the county commissioners for the first time. Representatives came prepared with a Power Point presentation and were also prepared to answer many questions from community members about their motives for investing in Superior.

Ryan Krueger, Logistics and Development Director for Open Doors, said the reason he wanted to visit with the commissioners and members of the public was to start providing information about the group thinks they can do to revitalize the sagging economy in the town of Superior.

The group had faced some amount of skepticism about their motives in the past and Krueger made a point of saying to members of the community who were on hand that the group wanted to work with the community to find out what they want and how the group might be able to help. The plans include rehabilitating some local structures and turning them into places businesses might want to call home. Krueger said while he understood the community’s healthy skepticism, he hoped people would keep an open mind.

“My responsibilities at this point are to look at how we can bring this together in a financially feasible way,” Krueger said. “I am getting a land use planning degree with a specialization in economic development. This is a feasibility analysis. Today we wanted to present a broad stroke of what Open Doors can do in Superior. There has been a lot of questions about what we want to do so we wanted people to be more in the know about that.”

Krueger said the group wants to create jobs, especially for veterans, through economic development. He said some of the proposed sites the group was interested in were the old schoolhouse and a motel. Krueger said the group was excited about the possibilities offered by a community such as Superior.

“Long term, we want to see job development especially for veterans,” Krueger said. “There is sense that you could have a mix of commercial and residential.”

When asked why he and Open Doors thought that business could thrive in an already economically depressed area with a dwindling population, he said the organization was considering applying a comprehensive strategy for the project.

“We want to offer job training,” Krueger said. “We want to see affordable housing and recruit a population base that is more resilient to change. We want to use a more holistic approach. That’s why we want to see community involvement in this redevelopment. No project is without risk but we are trying to take the pre-planning steps to minimize that risk.”

Mineral County Commissioner Laurie Johnston said, while remaining somewhat skeptical, the community needed to do something to stimulate the economy and there was really no harm in hearing what Open Doors has to say.

“It does sound to good to be true,” Johnston said. “But. We have to look at it. We can’t just not do anything. We want to at least make an effort.”

Krueger said the next steps for he and the Open Doors organization would be to engage the community over the next 6 months to a year in a series of community meetings to determine what, if anything, the residents of Superior would like to see from Open Doors.

“The next big step will be a community engagement meeting,” Krueger said. “We want to know what the community wants to see and then see if we can actually develop these ideas.”