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There are two candidates for mayor and six for three council seats. The election is April 5. The candidates all answered a series of questions posed by Aspen Public Radio. Here are their responses.If you would like to ask any of the candidates a question, please email it to us by clicking here.

Auden Schendler

Courtesy photo

Name and age? Auden Schendler, 45

What brought you to Basalt and what keeps you here? I came here because I wanted to be in the mountains. I stay here because of the community, the beauty, the small town-ness, my work and because my family loves it here.

For the full list of questions and answers, clickhere.

Have you ever been arrested? If so, why? No

Who is your personal hero and why? Bill Moyers is brilliant, combining a dogged pursuit of the truth with basic ethics. The climate scientist Jim Hansen has been banging away on the need for climate action since the 1980s. Rachel Maddow brings deep insight and sharp wit to politics and policy, and makes it funny and interesting without giving up at the stupidity of it all. Barry Lopez has unique and astounding insight into our relationship with the natural world. So I have a lot of heroes, because I find admirable traits in almost anyone I spend time with. People are crazy and odd, but most also have a bit of the divine in them. I have been blown away by the thoughtfulness, selflessness, compassion or outright skill of fellow baseball coaches and other community volunteers; the insight of work colleagues; the raw ability of some writers; my daughter’s grit and enthusiasm; my son’s appreciation for nature; my wife’s common sense.

Why should you be elected to Basalt Town Council? I’m running in large part to provide a new voice and a new perspective to the community. We’ve had council members and mayors who have been around for a long time and we owe them our gratitude for their hard work at a generally thankless job that, I’d point out, nobody else wanted to do. But I think it’s healthy for a democracy to have choices and I’m thrilled that there’s a good selection of candidates now. I’ve made an effort to present a vision of what the town can be, based in sound principles like smart growth, sustainability and sprawl prevention. I also think you’ll find that unless a person violates basic rules of respect and dignity, I’m open to talking to anyone with any opinion. Importantly, I will not “agree to disagree.” I will put myself in your shoes and understand your position before making decisions.

If you could accomplish only one thing as a Basalt Town Council member, what would it be? The Pan and Fork parcel is going to get dealt with, one way or another. But the bigger challenge is the town core, and the Clark’s and Phillips 66 parcel. I think towns exist to be centers of commerce, population and community. The place for that is right smack in the middle of downtown. Right now, the uses there don’t meet that need. Fortunately, we have a longtime respected developer and community member, Tim Belinski, tasked by the property owner, Frank Taverna, to help figure that out. This is a perfect chance for the town to say: “We have common goals. How can we work together to make this easier for you, and help us get the town we want?” I have no illusions about the challenges with this property. But if you’ll notice, one of the common traits of my heroes is grit and perseverance.

What about the current Basalt Town Council that needs to change? We need to see regular and enthusiastic turnover of the council and mayorship: these positions have been relatively static over the years, and we need to stay fresh, to revive democracy and reduce divisiveness. We also need to stop speaking in code. The first debate was a festival of vagueness. What does it mean, exactly, to care about the town’s fiscal well-being and providing housing for our grandkids? Because one defensible solution is to sprawl out like Phoenix or Vail. If that’s not the fix, how are you going to provide housing and keep the town solvent? My answer is density and height in the town core, which is going to be a compromise to some, but I’m OK saying it. Last, we ought to engage the community more. When I was in Carbondale I worked with a team to write the lighting code to protect the night sky. Let’s task citizens with similar work.

Basalt is grappling with several issues. A big one is how to go about the Pan and Fork property. As a Basalt Town Council member, what would you advocate for? There are five affordable housing proposals that are on the table. We can and should try to build all of those. We need to build the underpass —the cost is huge but we’d all pay it in a second if it could avoid one death. Both of those issues address walkability and foot traffic in Basalt, which will help broaden the retail mix. We need work to finalize Pan and Fork and Clark’s as I’ve described elsewhere and we need a comprehensive vision for what the whole town wants to look like in 10 years: the strip from 7-11 out of town, all the parcels in question and how they relate to each other, the river, Southside and Willits.  

Some people say Basalt is split over how to manage the Pan and Fork. Others say most people want the same thing, it’s just some of the details are different. What do you think? The town and community has triangulated to what seems to be a generally acceptable position. Keep most of the property park, make that park usable and attractive and when you develop, ensure you don’t block access to the river like we have done elsewhere in town. That development should be on the order of 50,000 square feet, with a focus, if possible, on uses that support the park: a bar/restaurant, a fishing shop, an office, which has been proposed and which would increase park activity. Even a small hotel could be appropriate. Sometimes to finance development you have to include a few housing units; I’m not opposed to that as a way to make a property work, though it’s not a place to put a bunch of condos or affordable housing.

Old Town Basalt is still struggling to fill storefronts. How much does town government play a role in changing that? What if Basalt had redeveloped the Clark’s parcel several years ago, while also addressing parking, affordable housing and core density to create foot traffic? Would we have lost the bookstore, the bike shop, Bristlecone? At the very least, we’d have a vibrant downtown with more of the types of businesses we want to represent the town, like Taylor Creek Fly Shop, a day-care, maybe a local custom ski maker and more offices that add lunch traffic. Instead we have some empty spaces and in other cases, we have uses that don’t necessarily fit: can we reasonably expect there to be hourly, in-and-out traffic in the gun shop, or the Habitat Restore, or the massage parlor? These businesses are fine, but I’m not sure they are in the right place. This didn’t happen overnight — and it didn’t happen arbitrarily. We have had more or less the same leadership for many years. To me, this is a case for change.