Rutledge attends character conference

Rutledge attends character conference

April 3, 2001

BILL RUTLEDGE of the Cortez City Council displays a plaque from the International Association of Character Cities commemorating Cortez’s participation in the program. Some persons have expressed concerns that the character program has religious overtones.

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer

Cortez City Council member Bill Rutledge flew to Flint, Mich., last weekend to learn how to build on Cortez’s "culture of character."

Rutledge was Cortez’s delegate to "Building Cities of Character," the annual conference of the International Association of Character Cities.

Nearly 400 people attended the conference, with representatives from 16 nations. The sessions covered four days and focused on fostering character traits such as punctuality, patience, justice, obedience, and honor within the communities represented by the delegates.

The Cortez City Council passed a resolution in July to become the first "Character City" in Colorado. Including the cost of Rutledge’s trip, staff training, and a monthly bulletin on each character trait, the city has since spent more than $3,400 on the program.

"Cortez has a character of its own, and we can develop on that," explained Rutledge. "I think what it costs is going to be returned many times over."

The program the council opted into was started in 1997 by the IBLP (Insitute in Basic Life Principles), an organization founded by Bill Gothard, a nationally known evangelical Christian.

Gothard also helped found the international radio program "Unshackled" dramatizing stories of Christian conversions. And on the institute’s web site its statement of faith asserts a belief in Jesus Christ and includes the statement, "We believe Satan is a person and that hell is a place of eternal conscious punishment for him, his hosts, and all unbelievers."

Rutledge said "his name (Gothard’s) came up many times," but cautioned that "religion never entered into any of the programs."

The conference was held at the Riverfront Character Inn, a hotel with an unusual atmosphere. The $37 million facility built by the International Association of Character Cities’ original parent organization, the Institute for Basic Life Principles, bans all alcohol, smoking, cable TV, and rock music.

"We teach how to motivate character," explained Gerald Coury, director of the IACC, who said that because of the "potential conflict between church and state" the organization left IBLP’s umbrella in February and is being sponsored by Character First!, a non-profit organization founded by businessman Tom Hill.

But members of the Hayden, Idaho, city council who attended the conference last year thought the conference had "religious undertones," and turned down the opportunity of becoming a character city, said Bob Crofott, Hayden’s town administrator.

"They felt there were some religious undertones and they just didn’t want to do it right now," explained Crofott, who said the council "thought our city should probably concentrate on infrastructure, such as building parks, because they create an opportunity for kids to participate and do stuff that also builds on character."

The Hayden council members also received a certificate signed by Gothard.

Coury insists that IACC is separate from the institute.

"We really weren’t funded by them (IBLP), but the IBLP used a lot of its principles in helping cities, and when there was the thoughts of the potential of conflict between church and state we thought it would be better to break out and just teach character," he said.

"We still do work with IBLP, there’s no question about that. We certainly counsel one another, and in any way they can help us or we can help them, then we work together, but we’re separate organizations."

Coury explained that Hill, not IBLP, developed the character training they currently use. It is centered on 49 positive characteristics which Hill originally tested within his own Oklahoma company.

The character training provided by Character First! is now used by nearly 700 businesses, 105 cities, and 1,500 schools in the United States and abroad.

Among the advice given within the IACC’s strategy handbook is a recommendation that public officials not use rock music as a background behind radio public-service announcements because "rock music is self-proclaimedly rebellious and contributes to the delinquency of minors."

City Manager Hal Shepherd recently extended an invitation to another of the programs under IBLP’s belt, the Air Land Emergency Resource Team, a military-style Christian vocational school that trains young men to respond to disaster/crisis situations internationally.

The city is not spending any money on the program, which will provide young men to work for low-income senior citizens this summer and help fix up their homes.

Louna Skarbo, the program support coordinator for ALERT, said the center currently trains young men, most of whom have been home-schooled through an IBLP program.

"They are given training in evangelism and they are encouraged to do that when appropriate," said Skarbo.

Cortez resident Shelly Hancock, who originally suggested both the IACC and ALERT programs to the council, explained, "This is just something that I thought would be a wonderful service to the community that would really help people that normally couldn’t go out and paint their houses."