Aspen – In a city where politics run as extreme as the price of purses in the Prada store, the upcoming mayoral election is proving to be no exception.
Four candidates – divergent characters who would make a colorful cast on MTVs “Real World” – are tussling for a title that falls well beyond the traditional ribbon-cutting and gavel-banging duties of most municipal leaders.
Aspen mayors, as former office- holders attest, hobnob with world leaders and celebrities. They turn up on CNN and at parties hosted by The Donald as well as tackling pressing problems such as undoing Aspen’s worsening traffic congestion and helping struggling businesses.
“You meet someone, and they are very impressed you are the mayor of Aspen,” said Helen Klanderud, who will be vacating the post after three terms.
Running for mayor of Aspen has changed since Klanderud first sat down to write her own press releases in 1999. It now means hiring public-relations firms and raising tens of thousands of dollars. For some candidates, it means making a splashy announcement at the hip hangout Jimmy’s or posting photos of your naked back on your blog in a plea for campaign backing.
The cast of candidates willing to jump into this political cauldron includes a bicycle-riding, left-leaning environmentalist attorney who has survived three recall attempts as an outspoken and sometimes abrasive Pitkin County commissioner; a developer who favors sports cars and high-dollar cowboy boots and quotes Ayn Rand; a former tennis pro who goes by one name and is courting the young vote; and a platinum-blond former TV news anchor whose website features sexy portraits and an admission that she may resemble the late Anna Nicole Smith – but only in looks.
“It’s a matter of style and personality,” is how the one-name candidate, Torre, recently described the differences between the candidates at a pre-election Aspen tradition called “Squirm Night.”
Three of four candidates fielded serious questions about issues of traffic, growth and development, affordable housing and policing while being filmed by a local GrassRoots TV cameraman.
The former anchorwoman, Bonnie Behrend, 52, was a no-show. She wrote on her blog that the event would be a chance for “small-town newspaper reporters to take rude public shots at candidates.”
In that blog, she casts herself as a candidate who would improve day care, hold off the “rapist real-estate developers” and change City Council meetings to more of a TV-show format.
Developer candidate Tim Semrau, 53, in designer jeans with coiffed hair, set Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” on the table in front of him, along with a sheaf of position papers and cast himself as a developer, yes, but one who has done many affordable-housing projects.
Moderate candidate Torre, 37, buttoned down in a suit coat and white shirt, noted that he needed no notes or props as he sat comfortably at a table he has been at as a City Council member for the past four years.
Environmental candidate Mick Ireland, 57, who has vowed to walk, bike or take public transportation to every political event, plunked his bicycle helmet on the debate table and his full backpack under it next to his well-worn running shoes.
He had left his decrepit Subaru at home with its tattered Kerry and Salazar bumper stickers now framing a new red sticker that appeared on the streets of Aspen two weeks ago. In an early bit of campaign skullduggery, an unknown source put out bumper stickers with a hammer and sickle over an aspen leaf urging voters to mark their ballots for anyone but Ireland.
Ireland advocates making Aspen a world example in the fight against global warming. His plans range from reducing the Roaring Fork Valley’s carbon footprint by 5 million pounds a year to taking the symbolic step of turning off the community hearth where a natural-gas fire burns on a downtown corner.
That rock-and-iron hearth has become a flash point.
“When is a fire pit not a fire pit?” asked Semrau with a condescending glance at Ireland. “In an election season.”
Semrau, who touts cutting emissions by lessening the idling traffic at the entrance to Aspen, advocates keeping the fake logs in the hearth burning to make the downtown more attractive but mitigating the impact with carbon offsets.
Torre, who would like to ban plastic bags in Aspen grocery stores, also wants to keep the fire on.
“People meet at the hearth and talk to each other,” he said exuberantly. “We can spread the message of global warming at the fire hearth.”
Aspen City Clerk Kathryn Koch said this election appears to be the most expensive in Aspen’s history. During the period ending April 11, Ireland raised $18,339, Semrau $17,525, Torre $5,775 and Behrend $0.
The May 8 election is expected to be followed by a runoff election June 5. The new mayor needs 50 percent plus one of the votes from the town’s 5,100 registered voters. The eight candidates for two City Council seats need 45 percent plus one.
The ski mountains around Aspen have closed, and the airport has shut down for two months of repairs, starting an off-season that will be particularly off. Locals say it will result in even more attention to politics in a town where high education levels translate to an always-questioning populace.
Aspen’s political fire also is stoked by the many residents who don’t work 9-to-5 jobs and have time on their hands and by the polarity of the billionaires and the bus-riders.
“This is a fight for development versus serenity,” said Aspen money manager Todd Shaver. “If you elect a developer, he will do everything he can do to make sure everything is developed. If you elect a total environmentalist, he is going to shut down everything.”
Down the street at the Omnibus Gallery, owner George Sell was more outspoken.
“They are a bunch of losers,” he said of the mayoral candidates. “They are reactionaries, not visionaries.”
Au contraire, said Lauren Miller, a psychic with a storefront business.
“The personalities are very different,” Miller said. “But whoever wins, they all want to maintain the beauty of Aspen.”
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
