CEO Fosdick to resign from Longmont EDP

LONGMONT — After not quite two years on the job, Erin Fosdick is resigning in frustration as president and CEO of the Longmont Economic Development Partnership.

Her last day on the job will be March 13, according to a letter she wrote that was read to Longmont City Council members by LEDP board chair Cameron Grant late Friday during a public-comment period at a city council retreat.

“I love Longmont and have dedicated much of my professional career to the city. I’ve tried to make a positive impact on the community,” Fosdick wrote. “I had hoped that my deep knowledge of the community, my professional expertise (and) strong, authentic relationship to Longmont would allow me to drive progress. However I found that collaboration, teamwork, transparency and shared success are not values embraced by the city leadership.”

Because of what she called “the constant undermining, lack of respect and uncertainty” she has received from city officials, “I no longer see a path forward.

“Beyond these internal challenges, the business community is growing increasingly frustrated,” Fosdick wrote. “The perception that city leadership and the council are not business friendly is pervasive. In just the past six months I’ve had three separate conversations with investors who said their experience in Longmont was so negative that they would never consider doing business here again.”

After reading portions of Fosdick’s letter aloud, Grant told council members, “What I’m asking for is an opportunity to better understand where these kinds of comments come from and find ways to better align.”

Fosdick announced her decision Wednesday morning to Grant and former board chair Eric Wallace — just a day after the LEDP touted the city’s position and potential as a leader in the burgeoning quantum computing industry before a packed house at the Longmont Museum, and also just hours after the Longmont City Council had moved LEDP’s annual $400,000 budget request forward to a second reading at a future meeting as part of the board’s consent agenda during its regular Tuesday meeting.

Wallace, CEO of Left Hand Brewing Co., followed Grant in the public-comment session and told council members, “I feel nauseous right now.”

LEDP’s board of directors unanimously selected Fosdick as the organization’s president and CEO in spring 2023. She had worked for 17 years on the city’s planning team but then spent eight months as principal planner for the Town of Erie.

Referring to Advance Longmont 2.0, the “Envision Longmont” growth-management plan Fosdick helped craft, Wallace said “It’s really a shame that one of the experts that helped compile the best-of-class plan that we have is leaving Longmont EDP. I’m the one that went and asked her to come join us. I feel guilty and I’m a little bit bummed out. Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call. After several years of discussing alignment, we’re still working at cross purposes in many ways.”

Wallace said the city had recently cut LEDP’s funding, forcing it to trim its paid staff from 2.5 full-time equivalents to 1.5. LEDP is funded with both public and private dollars. Besides the city’s allocation, Fosdick told BizWest in 2023 that private-sector contributions over the next three years would probably be around $1.1 million.

Grant, a shareholder at the Lyons Gaddis law firm, hailed Fosdick’s “combination of sheer work ethic and passion for the city,” but said her decision followed a “collection of frustrations” and a “disconnect between what we’re charged with implementing and some on the council who don’t place value in that mission and have expressed that explicitly.”

He said the LEDP has also had “trouble integrating with some of the big activities in town. I think we’d be much more effective if we had a seat at the table.”

The LEDP is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization that was founded in 1981 as the Economic Development Association of Longmont and then became the Longmont Economic Development Council before assuming its current name.

Four years ago, the city council rejected a proposal to make the nonprofit LEDP part of the city government.

“We’ve been told to stay in our lane,” Wallace told city council members. “Our lane is crosscutting, just like Envision Longmont. And the things we bring as issues and opportunities are not unrelated to economic development and the vitality and economic sustainability of our city.”

Grant admonished Mayor Joan Peck and council members that “this is a situation I don’t think is OK, and I don’t think any of us do.”

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