{"id":2445914,"date":"2019-07-01T21:44:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T03:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspens-electeds-rank-their-top-10-for-new-affordable-housing-board\/"},"modified":"2019-07-01T21:44:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T03:44:00","slug":"aspens-electeds-rank-their-top-10-for-new-affordable-housing-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspens-electeds-rank-their-top-10-for-new-affordable-housing-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen\u2019s electeds rank their top 10 for new affordable housing board"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Kathie Novak, a facilitator based on the Front Range, facilitates the first day of a two-day retreat for Aspen City Council on Monday.<\/strong>
Carolyn Sackariason\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Aspen City Council on Monday culled a list of 32 applicants<\/a> who want to serve on the local housing board down to 10 using a ranking system.<\/p>\n

The whittled-down list includes three current Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority board members (Carson Schmitz, John Ward and Rick Head) and two former elected officials from the city and Pitkin County (Adam Frisch and Rob Ittner, respectively).<\/p>\n

The remaining applicants are Peter Louras, Michael Miracle, Elizabeth Stewart, David Laughren and Scott Russell.<\/p>\n

Council members individually ranked all of the applicants by choosing a maximum of five for the first tier, which included highly interested and qualified candidates.<\/p>\n

A maximum of five candidates were placed in a second and third tier, with the remaining going to a fourth tier.<\/p>\n

Those rankings were aggregated prior to council\u2019s work session Monday evening. But the rankings had to be recalibrated after it was discovered Councilwoman Ann Mullins put eight candidates in the first tier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were so many qualified candidates,\u201d Mullins said.<\/p>\n

Mayor Torre said it didn\u2019t matter \u2014 the rules are the rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, that\u2019s against the process,\u201d he told Mullins, after making an earlier comment about how difficult it was to whittle down the list. \u201cThey aren\u2019t obviously my top 10 but the process here is well done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recalibrating the ranked choices did not change the outcome.<\/p>\n

The Pitkin Board of County Commissioners are expected to complete their own ranking process during their meeting today.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s list will be compared with the commissioners\u2019 to find between six and 10 candidates that both governing bodies agree to interview next week, Interim City Manager Sara Ott said.<\/p>\n

If there isn\u2019t sufficient alignment, Ott will work with County Manager Jon Peacock, along with Torre and Greg Poschman, the chair of the BOCC, to finalize the interview list.<\/p>\n

The interviews are scheduled as part of a joint meeting between council and the commissioners July 9.<\/p>\n

Whomever is chosen will join a reconstituted board that will seat three non-elected citizens, along with an alternate, and two elected officials, each representing the city and county.<\/p>\n

Councilman Skippy Mesirow will serve as the city representative on the APCHA board, with Councilwoman Rachel Richards as the alternate.<\/p>\n

While the county has not made an official decision, it\u2019s likely commissioner George Newman will serve on the APCHA board, with Kelly McNicholas Kury as the alternate.<\/p>\n

Council members and commissioners voted earlier this spring to change the makeup of the board to expedite decisions on major issues like how to fund deficits among homeowners associations with aging buildings.<\/p>\n

As it is currently, the all-citizen board makes recommendations to the commissioners and council for approval.<\/p>\n

The current board has one more meeting scheduled before it disbands and a new one meets, which is expected in August.<\/p>\n

Affordable housing has been a hot topic in the community in the past year<\/a>, both in terms of issues that have arisen in the 40-year program<\/a> and the shortage of inventory to serve the community workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m optimistic about this board,\u201d Mullins said, adding she gravitated toward applicants who have experience on volunteer boards and have been in the community for a long period of time.<\/p>\n

Richards agreed experience is necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis may not be the best \u2018starter\u2019 board,\u201d she joked.<\/p>\n

Councilman Ward Hauenstein said he picked candidates based on wanting someone older with experience; one current member and a younger person who is living in workforce housing currently.<\/p>\n

Ott said it was a \u201cphenomenal turnout of applicants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Normally, the average number of people that apply for a citizen board is between three and six, according to county and city officials.<\/p>\n

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

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

Kathie Novak, a facilitator based on the Front Range, facilitates the first day of a two-day retreat for Aspen City Council on Monday.Carolyn Sackariason\/The Aspen Times Aspen City Council on Monday culled a list of 32 applicants who want to serve on the local housing board down to 10 using a ranking system. The whittled-down […]<\/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-2445914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 15:47:58","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\/2445914","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=2445914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}