People You Need to Know: Gary Tintle

Gary Tintle

Gary Tintle is a businessman, a builder and a volunteer. He owns a construction company, is one of seven Citizens Bank board members, sits on the city’s Calanan Park Committee and is a new board member for the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce. The Nevada City native also owns several downtown buildings and has volunteered his services and construction equipment for a number of projects, including the popular Robinson Plaza.

The Nevada City Chamber of Commerce has several new board members, including you. What do you want to accomplish on the board? How will you try to get it done?

 I want to help the Chamber Board to reach consensus on our mission and what we need to accomplish as a team to improve the business environment and to help provide a more meaningful and welcoming experience for our local residents and visitors. The key is we all need to work as a team to create some synergy. I also believe that we need to narrow our focus to our city and work hard to promote shopping local. We need to be patient – many of these goals will take years to reach some measurable result and then we will need to work hard to sustain that progress.

Calanan Park has been a bit of thorn in the city’s side for sometime now. Some people call it a major problem; others don’t really understand the fuss. What do think needs to be done to address the concerns? Does the park need a total remake or just some fine-tuning?

Calanan Park is considered by many to be the gateway to the downtown. It would be hard to present the past conditions at the park as an asset to the community. I served on the committee that worked on the possible renovation of the park. We took public input and the recommendations of design professionals and arrived at a plan that we presented to the City Council as a possible direction to take after more community input. My personal belief is that the park is too dark, some of the trees are not the best choice for that small area, it is currently not welcoming or non-threatening to people of all ages, and that it could be improved. The artifacts displayed in the park could possibly be presented in a better manner in the context of our history. Some of the items could be removed and relocated. Accessibility to the park by disabled people needs to be improved. But we need to be fiscally responsible, use community resources and donations to make these improvements that the community reaches consensus on.

Despite the shaky economy, Nevada City continues to attract visitors and tourists and events like the California Preservation Foundation Conference and the start of the 2010 Amgen Tour of California bicycle race. What is the secret to our success?

 Obviously, we have a unique community that attracts visitors. Last year’s success of the Nevada City Classic bike race put our city on display worldwide and demonstrated our community spirit. But these upcoming events, which will be putting our city on display again, are the result of hard work behind the scenes by a handful of individuals who really take our community’s best interests to heart. In the end, everything comes down to unselfish hard working people. Now that we have the opportunity to showcase our city again we really need to do all we can to continue our past successes and make our city shine.

There have been a number of conversations recently about what Nevada City needs to do to have future success. You’ve sat in on many of these discussions. Where do you think Nevada City needs to go? Do we need to make big changes here?

The short answer is yes and no. We are very fortunate that our predecessors had the foresight to honor and preserve our historical downtown and architecture. We need to continue to do that. We need to work hard to make our city and its businesses prosper. But we also are beginning to get some significant notoriety as a leader in sustainability, as a center for alternative medicine and healing, and a destination for outdoor recreation. We need to be open to these new avenues as an expression of who we are. Adding and focusing on additional areas of interest for our visitors and residents will improve the attraction and desirability of our community.

You are well-known for your generosity in the community. You helped build Robinson Plaza and along with your partner have made the Alpha Building available for community events like SYRCL’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival. You’re also a chamber board member, sit on a city committee and run a business. What motivates you to invest so much of yourself into this community?

 I guess that I just recently began to realize what a stakeholder in the community is and that I am one. I have always enjoyed building stuff and I now have expanded my definition of building to beyond bricks and mortar and to include community, groups, policy, simple projects like flower baskets and sidewalk cleaning, and consensus. I also believe that our downtown property owners need to become more involved in making Nevada City prosper. These current economic times have really pointed out that property owners are at some level partners with the business owners. It is great to be in a position to be able to help out community groups, but I really enjoy the people that I meet and work with. Plus our city government has our backs – they are all working for our community with the best of intentions. I enjoy being on the Teams.

People You Need to Know is a regular feature of the Nevada City Advocate. To see previous features, visit the People section.