{"id":2442528,"date":"2019-04-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=303037"},"modified":"2019-04-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T06:00:00","slug":"2019-aspen-election-analysis-incumbents-loss-a-message-for-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/2019-aspen-election-analysis-incumbents-loss-a-message-for-change\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 Aspen election analysis: Incumbents\u2019 loss a message for change?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Aspen City Councilwoman Ann Mullins and mayor-elect Torre.<\/strong>
Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If there was any sea change to note from the results of the past two months of city of Aspen elections,<\/a> it is that the three incumbents were unable to clinch their desired offices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis election very much defined a shift in what the populace wants in its representative government,\u201d said Aspen mayor-elect Torre on Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a call for change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torre won by 343 votes in Tuesday\u2019s runoff election against sitting councilwoman Ann Mullins. He beat her by 341 votes in the March election, but they both failed to get a majority vote, which forced them into a runoff per the city\u2019s home rule charter.<\/p>\n

Mullins, who has two years left on her second term, initially also went up against sitting councilman Adam Frisch and political newcomer Cale Mitchell for the mayor\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

Frisch, who is term-limited after serving eight years on council, came in third. Mitchell came in last place.<\/p>\n

And councilman Bert Myrin, who is finishing his first four-year term, came in third for the bid to fill one of two vacant seats.<\/p>\n

Instead, Skippy Mesirow, a newcomer to elected office, and Rachel Richards, a veteran politician who has served on council, has been mayor and recently a county commissioner, were picked by the majority of voters.<\/p>\n

Councilman Ward Hauenstein, the only elected official who didn\u2019t run for office that will be continuing to serve for the next two years, said Wednesday it\u2019s difficult to really know why people voted the way they did; exit polling may provide a glimpse.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that some ways of doing things \u2014 mostly how the city communicates and engages with the public \u2014 should change.<\/p>\n

But whether that fundamental problem<\/a> is why the incumbents didn\u2019t make it through the election is unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was running for office, I would probably get kicked out too,\u201d Hauenstein joked. \u201cI can\u2019t look into people\u2019s minds and have a crystal ball to know why they voted how they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s just how the planets and stars are going through the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

When conducting an unscientific poll leading up to the March election, The Aspen Times asked various residents their thoughts on how they were voting.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us old-timers want a change so we are going rogue,\u201d said one longtime local who is in their 70s. \u201cI just want things to go a little smoother and have things get done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torre, who has spent the past three and a half months campaigning on the current council\u2019s failures, said it\u2019s time to move on and look to the future.<\/p>\n

Hauenstein, who beat Torre in a 2017 runoff for a council seat, agreed.<\/p>\n

He said he looks forward to working with a new council.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go with what you got,\u201d Hauenstein said.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s focus should center on getting the public engaged in a positive manner rather than fighting City Hall, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201c(But) I don\u2019t know how,\u201d he said, noting that he tried by eliminating part of the problem and subsequently asked former city manager Steve Barwick to resign in December.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be more positive than negative,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need the citizens to be proactive and less negative.\u201d<\/p>\n

csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspen City Councilwoman Ann Mullins and mayor-elect Torre.Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times If there was any sea change to note from the results of the past two months of city of Aspen elections, it is that the three incumbents were unable to clinch their desired offices. \u201cThis election very much defined a shift in what the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2442528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 05:40:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}