Mayor Mick Ireland has been in office for about a year now. You might remember he was voted into office by an overwhelming majority in a runoff election against Tim Semrau.
The election gave voters a clear choice between two candidates with upfront and divergent views. Basically, Ireland is liberal and Semrau is conservative and both are pretty smart. Aspen’s a liberal city that likes to think it’s smart, so Ireland won.
Anyway, whenever a new person is voted into office, newspaper columnists with nothing better to do sometimes resort to the old “First Year in Office” report-card trick. These columns don’t require much time or effort on the columnist’s part and sometimes end up telling as much about the columnist as they do the intended victim.
So, with that said, here’s Mayor Mick’s first year in office report card.
Starting off, Mayor Mick receives an “A” for being the key elected official involved in getting a master plan process under way for the Lift 1A neighborhood at the base of Aspen Mountain.
The second category is math. Ireland receives only a “C” for this one. That’s because he failed to grasp the fact that a $60 million-$70 million city subsidy for the Burlingame Ranch affordable housing project is a lot more than the $14 million the city originally told Aspen residents it would cost. Even though most of the increase in subsidies did not occur on Mayor Mick’s watch, he was strangely quiet as word began to leak out that the project’s costs were soaring. Some speculate that Mayor Mick doesn’t care what Burlingame costs, he just wants it built. Or, his silence might be because he just doesn’t understand that $60 million-$70 million is a bunch or money. Or maybe he understands $60 million-$70 million is a bunch of money, but he doesn’t care because it’s taxpayer money, and that huge overruns are just a cost of doing government business.
Next up is “Leadership.” Mayor Mick receives a solid “D” in this category. Burlingame provides an excellent example here because Mayor Mick failed to do what a good mayor would do in a similar situation. Rather than going to the people and telling them the city screwed up and an outside audit is in order to determine what went wrong, Mayor Mick pretty much chalked up the problem to inflation and the high cost of construction in Aspen. It was City Councilmen Dwayne Romero and Steve Skadron who suggested an audit, which is now under way. The only thing that prevents Mayor Mick from receiving an “F” in leadership is because he’s still got plenty of followers, so he must be leading someone, some way.
The next category is everyone’s favorite: “Plays well with others.” Alas, Mayor Mick receives an “F” in this category. This deficiency was demonstrated when Mayor Mick went crazy on Marilyn Marks a few meetings ago when she showed up at a City Council work session with GrassRoots cameras in tow. But this wasn’t the first time we have seen this side of Mayor Mick. Early in his tenure as mayor, Mick launched into an angry five-minute tirade against a group of respectful citizens who showed up to speak out on the ill-conceived Ordinance 30.
Next, “Ability to keep your word.” Mayor Mick gets a “D” on this one. For example, when he was first elected mayor he said he’d try to keep such outbursts as those mentioned above in check. Well, he’s apparently not trying too hard, because they keep happening.
That’s about it for Mayor Mick’s report card. Let’s see, he recorded one “A,” one “C,” two “D’s,” and one “F.” Average it all up and that comes out to a 1.5 GPA, or a D+. Is there room for improvement in the next year for Mayor Mick? Probably not in categories two through five, but if he hits homeruns in the affordable housing category, plus the Entrance to Aspen, global warming and all the other problems Aspen likes to concern itself with, he could very well end up with a C or B average report card before it’s all over.
For now, however, if Mayor Mick were in school and had just recorded a D+ report card, what might a school councilor advise? How about, “Have you thought about being a city councilman instead of mayor?” City councilmen can sometimes get away with behavior that is unacceptable for a mayor.
On a related note, Mayor Mick and Aspen City Manager Steve Barwick will appear on Michael Conniff’s radio show on KNFO tomorrow at 8 a.m. to discuss Burlingame and related matters.
Lynn Burton is night editor for the Aspen Daily News. He can be reached at lburton@aspendailynews.com.
