Zele Community Table
Election Night
November 7, 2006
Zele’s Café

Paul Menter, City of Aspen Director of Finance and Administrative Services

Michael Conniff, Philip Popkin, and Lisa Zimet, Zele director of marketing
Michael Conniff: On the ballot today is a sales tax increase in the City of Aspen [from .25 to .45 percent, an initiative that failed]. That seems like a lot. What would that money go for?

Paul Menter: One is the parking garage. Revenues do not cover all operating and maintenance costs. It was built in 1989 and it was supposed to have an additional floor with 100 spaces—except that an underground river goes through there that feeds into the Roaring Fork River.

MC: So it leaks from above and below?

PM: That’s right. So it’s never hit the pro forma projections. It’s been living off the sales tax for debt service. That’s one piece of the sales tax increase—about $250,000 to
$300,000. The second piece is capital improvements to the garage. The same underground river is affecting the infrastructure.

MC: Do you have a name for this river?

PM: We call it the Rio Grande Parking Garage River. [Laughs] Environmental Axiom #39 is that everything leaks.

MC: From the top and bottom. Is anyone using the garage now?

PM: It’s very close to capacity in winter and summer, but there’s usually a few spaces left when you look around. It’s about a $2 million fix.

MC: I can park my boat down there.

Lisa Zimet: It could be part of the Aspen Yacht Club.

PM: The third piece [of the sales tax increase] is transportation services. Bus service is one of the most expensive, because it’s labor- and capital-intensive. And there was an increase in fuel prices and we’ve moved to hybrid buses versus low-emission diesel.

MC: Are the hybrids more expensive?

PM: Twice as expensive. $600,000 each. It’s not even close. There’s a 2 percent payback if we keep it going 50 years, versus a 9 percent rate of return for the boiler at the ARC [Aspen Recreation Center]. But it’s a policy and a political decision.

Philip Popkin: What kind of hybrids are they?

PM: Electric-diesel hybrids.

PP: Emission-wise, how does that compare with diesel?

PM: It’s a little better. But it’s a policy and political leadership decision. The other benefit is they’re quieter. Hybrids are somewhat more efficient, but the rate of return isn’t great, and we don’t know how long they will last. So we need help to pay for bus replacements over time. There will be more buses and more routes like Truscott and Burlingame Ranch. They will require at least three new busses and the drivers to drive them. We pay RFTA [Roaring Fork Transportation Authority] to do that.

MC: What if the ballot measure fails [which it did]?

PM: We continue to operate a leaking garage and continue to operate a bus services.

MC: What about the Wheeler Opera House? They get money from the Real Estate Transfer Tax.

PM: They get one-half of one percent of the real estate tax.

MC: How much do they have in the kitty now?

PM: In the neighborhood of $17.5 million. When I came here in September 2002 the Wheeler had $6 million total in net assets. By 2019, we expect there to be $45-$70 million. That endowment stays with the city and we’re prudent—we don’t play in the market, we’re limited to an average maturity of five years. For an endowment with 13 years left, we need a higher return. We’ve got a financial analyst with an MBA who looks over everything.

MC: What’s his name?

PM: Scott Newman. The Wheeler’s a very old building and they tend to be problematic…. There’s no capital reserve for the Wheeler. Once it’s in an endowment, it can’t be used for capital improvements.

MC: What’s the budget for 2007?

PM: It’s $69 million proposed.

MC: That’s way down.
PM: It was $116 million, but $35 million was to buy BurlingameRanch, and $15 million for the open-space acquisition of Smuggler Mountain. There’s a $44 million operating budget.

MC: How many employees work for the city of Aspen?

PM: 262 full-time employees for a city of 6,000, for a community of 30,000.

MC: How many people in Aspen during high season?

PM: The bed count for Christmas and the Fourth of July weeks is 40,000.

LZ: The X Games is up there, too.

PM: There’s a real sense that it’s a small town—you know the Mayor, City Council, Police Chief.

LZ: It will stay that was as long as second-home owners don’t get to vote.

MC: Where were you working before Aspen?

PM: It’s a case of be careful what you wish for. I was working in Ocean Shores, Washington, a resort town of 4,000 on the coast of Washington—Seattle’s working-class beach resort. We used an accounting firm from Denver. I saw in one of their newsletters that Aspen was looking for a finance director.

MC: Are you a skier?

PM Yeah. I saw the ad and said: “That’s ingriguing.” I saw it in February and then again in May. I called these folks in Denver and they said: “You’d be great there.” I thought that was a compliment, so I applied on a Friday and on Monday [Aspen Assistant City Manager] Randy Reid called and asked if I’d could be here next week. It was a very quick turnaround. I came in early June when there were all the fires—the whole valley was immersed in smoke. Nobody was in town post-9/11. People were not willing to travel. I brought my family out—my wife and twin 13-year-old girls. So we looked it over, and decided it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up—because of the culture, the education, and it was safe. If you have an opportunity to have kids here, you should.

MC: Was it hard to leave Ocean Shores?

PM: They still have a breakfast out there named for our daughters: the Monster Twins Special with two of everything. Our girls were premies when they born—one pound and a half, one pound and a quarter. We were very lucky. And we went to this breakfast place every Saturday for fifteen years. We joke about it. I went from the least successful resort community to the most successful.

MC: What’s the biggest difference?

PM: Location, location, location.

LZ: Marketing must be tough there.

PP: But everyone has a good complexion.

MC: It sounds a lot like Maine.

PM: It’s on the same latitude as Maine and Nova Scotia.

MC: What’s a typical day like for you in Aspen?

PM: It’s more like a typical week. The agency heads meet on Monday morning with the City Manager. We talk about everything, whether there’s a City Council meeting that night. There are 33 department heads and 12 agency heads, and special events, police.

MC: What’s the biggest difference with working in Aspen?

PM: Everything in Aspen is more acute than everywhere I’ve worked. People are more passionate and more caring. People care more because this is a place that attracts independent people and independent thought.

PP: People feel that they have an investment here. They feel like they’re stewards.

PM: Absolutely. And there’s no question that makes it harder. The issues are more complex and complicated. People scream at each other, but in the end, they don’t hate each other. They’re able to understand they’re all in it together, and that’s different than other places.