The field of candidates for three seats on the Pitkin Board of County Commissioners got more crowded this week as Dee Malone and Shellie Roy registered their candidacies with the county clerk.
They join incumbents Michael Owsley and Jack Hatfield and newcomer George Newman in seeking election to a four-year term on the county board.
Roy is challenging incumbent Michael Owsley in District 3. Four years ago, Roy, 56, lost her bid for a third term as a county commissioner to Owsley by a vote of 4,204- 3,868. She has since been working as a real estate broker with Frias Properties in Aspen.
Shortly after leaving office, Roy ran a promotional ad featuring her standing next to a stack of notebooks containing the county’s land-use code and various county master plans. The ad communicated the message that she could more effectively serve real estate clients because she had helped shape the local land-use code while in office.
Roy says she is running to be a commissioner again because she is concerned about the city of Aspen’s annexing properties such as the former BMC lumberyard into the city for employee housing.
“One of the things I would do as a commissioner is to help us block that annexation,” Roy said. “The city is taking their issues out into the county.”
Roy also said she thinks Owsley is too focused on Woody Creek. “Michael has not gotten his head out of Woody Creek and has ignored the rest of his district,” Roy said.
District 3 includes Red Mountain, the Castle and Maroon Creek valleys, Woody Creek, the Aspen Business Center across from the airport and the North Forty neighborhood.
Commissioners are elected on a county-wide vote but must live in the district they represent. Roy lives in North Forty and Owsley lives in Woody Creek.
Owsley, 59, said he welcomes Roy’s candidacy. “It is a good thing,” Owsley said. “It is good for people to be able to compare and contrast the candidates and discuss the issues.”
When asked his opinion about Roy’s decision to run again, Owsley thought for a moment and said, “Well, Richard Nixon came back.”
When he ran against Roy the first time, Owsley seized upon a remark by Roy as his campaign slogan. During the campaign, Roy said of Owsley that “he’d be good” as a county commissioner. “He’d be good” bumper stickers were seen shortly thereafter.
“People liked ‘He’d be good,’” Owsley said. “They still talk to me about it.”
In regard to Roy’s charge that he’s overly focused on Woody Creek, Owsley said he tries to represent the whole of his district and the county. But, he said, there is a lot going on in Woody Creek, such as a contentious cell phone tower issue, the Elam gravel pit, and, recently, issues arising out of the redevelopment of Aspen Valley Ranch.
“It may surprise Shellie that a lot of issues come from Woody Creek,” Owsley said.
District 5
There are also some contentious issues in District 5, which includes Emma, the Crystal River Valley and the upper Fryingpan River Valley.
George Newman, 56, has already turned in his signatures to the county clerk in his bid to win his first elected position. He’s the moderator of the Emma Caucus, a neighborhood group who advise the county commissioners on land-use issues.
The Caucus is also suing the county commissioners in district court in relation to the board’s settlement with Grace Church related to its land-use application, and subsequent lawsuit. The church has been seeking to build a new facility in Emma, which the Emma Caucus believes is out of scale with the rural area just downvalley from Basalt.
The Caucus is trying to force Pitkin County to walk away from the settlement with Grace Church and find a way to deny the church’s land-use application.
“Having been involved in the Emma Caucus for the last five years, I continue to see development pressure, and I feel we are in danger of losing the character of our community if we don’t address the impacts of development,” Newman said.
Newman, 56, is a sales agent at Ski.com, which books ski vacations around the country and the world. He was once membership director at the Aspen Chamber Resort Association; was the founding member and director of Leadership Aspen, a community-based leadership training program now called Roaring Fork Leadership; and has a graduate degree in public administration. “I feel I bring a very broad background to the table, and have a good understanding of both resort and community issues,” Newman said.
Newman will be competing for an open seat on the board against Delia “Dee” Malone, who ran two years ago for a seat on Aspen City Council and ultimately lost to Jack Johnson in a run-off election 662-324.
Malone, 53, is a biologist by training who has been studying the water quality in the Roaring Fork River watershed as a consultant for the past six years as part of a comprehensive watershed study being coordinated by the Roaring Fork Conservancy and funded by the Ruedi Water and Power Authority. “I believe that I have the skills and the passion that the county needs right now in order to protect and maintain our quality of life,” Malone said.
Malone has also been involved as a member of the Crystal River Caucus and is encouraging the county’s Open Space and Trails Board to adopt a management plan for the Filoha Meadows Open Space near Redstone that would allow only guided tours in the summer, as opposed to open public access during the summer.
“I think Filoha Meadows is one aspect of numerous open space issues that will be one of my major concerns,” Malone said. She is also concerned about protecting water quality, and quantity, in the valley.
“Everybody knows that water is a major issue in the West, and the problems have been exacerbated by global warming,” Malone said. “So that has gotten me intimately involved with water issues, and that takes you into agricultural issues, economic issues and Front Range issues.”
The District 5 seat is open because term limits are forcing Commissioner Dorothea Farris out of office after three successive four-year terms.
Jack Hatfield is so far running unopposed for a third term representing District 4, which includes Snowmass Village and the Snowmass and Capitol Creek valleys.
Election rules
To qualify for a spot on the ballot, candidates must turn in 100 valid signatures from registered voters by Monday, June 9, at 5 p.m. to the county clerk’s office.
Owsley and Newman have turned in their required 100 signatures, although the signatures have not yet been certified by the clerk’s office. Roy and Malone said they are still out gathering petitions, and both said they’re learning a lot from talking with people as part of that process.
Prior to taking out signature petitions, candidates are asked to schedule an appointment with the county clerk’s office to review the election process. As of Wednesday, no other prospective candidates had scheduled appointments for the balance of this week, according to Carole Twitchell, the elections manager in the county clerk’s office.
If another candidate does take the necessary steps to become a candidate by Monday, he or she could force a primary run-off election. If there are more than two candidates running in any one commissioner district, then a primary election is held to winnow the field down to two candidates. A primary election would be held August 12.
The general election is on Nov. 4.
bgs@aspendailynews.com