Rachel Richards is well known to longtime Aspen locals for her many accomplishments during her years on City Council and as Aspen mayor. Since these achievements have become such essential features of life as we know it in Aspen, it can be easy to take them for granted. Here’s a reminder of how they came to be.<\/p>\n
Rachel was the major creative force, the principal inter-agency negotiator and the lead grassroots organizer who brought us Burlingame affordable housing, the Aspen Recreation Center and The Yellow and Red Brick schools for early childhood education, arts, and recreation.<\/p>\n
Aspen Public Radio has had its studio in the Red Brick School for 25 years. As founder of Aspen Public Radio, I had the honor of working with Rachel during the hard-fought election that saved the Red Brick School from demolition, to become home to so much of Aspen’s cultural life.<\/p>\n
In addition to Rachel’s skillful management of the complex process of acquiring the property from the independent school board and arranging the required approval election by Aspen voters, she motivated us volunteers to “get out the vote” by knocking on doors to within minutes of the closing of the polls.<\/p>\n
Thanks to Rachel’s leadership and persistence, the Red Brick School was saved for the community by a margin of just three votes.<\/p>\n
We now face some major changes in Aspen city government, some arguably precipitated by ill-conceived or badly executed city initiatives. I believe that Rachel’s history of sound judgment and her track record of successful public endeavors will go a long way toward keeping the city government on the straight and narrow, whatever the outcomes of the other council races and the Lift 1A ballot question.<\/p>\n