Mayor Helen Klanderud
Zele Community Table
April 2007

Aspen Mayor Helen Klanderud with Olive Siegesmund; Zele director of marketing Lisa Zimet; Steve; Judge Bob Nix; Michael Conniff.

Michael Conniff: Did you vote for the Mayor?

Olive Siegesmund: Yes, I voted for the Mayor.

MC: When’s your last day as Mayor?

Mayor Helen Klanderud: June 11 is my last day.
 
MC: How long have you been Mayor?

HK: Six years.

MC: When can you run again?

HK: In two years.

MC: Will you run again?

HK: I have no idea. But I have never gone back and repeated myself.

MC: How long have you been Mayor?

HK: Since June 2001.When my second term was up as Pitkin County Commissioner, I could have run for a third term. Instead I ran for State Senate. I lost by just slightly over 1 percent. I’ve never forgotten this—I lost by 551 votes out of 37,000. When that was finished, my kids were away from home. I said: “I can do what I want.” My mother went to a nursing home in Nebraska, and I wanted to be close to her. I asked myself: “What will I do in Lincoln?” So I went to law school, clerked for a judge, then came back here. I practiced for a very brief period of time, and then I ran for Mayor. I realized whether I’m in politics or not, I want to be in an arena where policy is made. The law shows on television look glamorous, but it’s not quite like that. It’s tedious work that has to be done. I want to work with a broader brush making policy decisions.

MC: What’s been different about doing that in Aspen?

HK: I think the people. Aspen is a very special place, and the people are very special, well-educated, bright, risk-takers, opinionated, articulate, willing to speak out, and it’s very challenging to speak out. It would be very boring to be some place where the same people are elected for years.

MC: What’s the hardest part of being Mayor of Aspen?

HK: This probably has to do with one’s personal makeup, one’s vulnerable points, the Achilles heel, if you will. I have the most difficulty with people who aren’t informed and who tend to react and take positions without any of the facts or in spite of the facts. Here and there it’s not difficult to deal with, but when it’s happening all the time….

MC: Any examples?

HK: Recently regarding the Jerome and the Red Onion. People were very nervous about  both of those and are reacting with no information at all but think they have. Not that I have the information, but they don’t either. I don’t know what happened at the Jerome. I had the opportunity to meet them [the Gaylord interests] on more than one occasion. I think I’m a good judge of character, at getting a feel of what people are about. I was a psychotherapist, I know about being sensitive, relating to other people, regardless of what they’re saying. I was impressed with them, impressed with the expertise of their development team when it came to renovating historic hotels. I am sorry that they did not continue.

Lisa Zimet: Did you practice psychotherapy here?

HK: I can say: “Yeah.” This is a small town. I first came here at the Touchstone Mental Health Clinic in 1969. It was a group of local citizens. People who lived here were concerned about their own kids. Physicians had no idea how to treat whatever drugs these kids were taking. A minister had a soup kitchen to feed them. Ann Sanders, now Ann Owsley, brought some of them home. They formed this nonprofit mental health clinic. I’ll tell you a story. A psychiatrist came from Chicago. But it was too small a town to do psychoanalysis. They wanted to provide services to transient kids, but that was not the clinic’s clientele. It became the local citizens who made it happen. This was the Early Seventies. Freudian philosophy alive and well. The psychiatrist sat here with the patient on a couch and no personal connection.

MC: Were you a Freudian?

HK: I was a Freudian. That was the training. The pshycho-dynamic construct came from the Freudian school.

LZ: What was it like being a psychotherapist in Aspen?

HK: You respect other people. I could go to parties, and I was running into clients all the time. They would say: “There’s my therapist.” It’s Aspen.

MC: “It’s Chinatown, Jake.”

HK: I don’t know if I can define it.

MC: Like pornography. You know it when you see it.

HK: Some X factor. I think if you go back in the history of Aspen, it certainly wasn’t easy for the Utes to live here. They got run out of town, followed by the miners, coming from the East—look what they risked to come here over Independence Pass, the harsh living conditions. People who came West, and to rugged country, they’re risk-takers. They eschewed the life they had. For whatever reason, coming for silver or to get out of Dodge, but they came here. That’s true of Aspen’s history today. When I came here, that generation was the Sixties and Seventies, and before that the Tenth Mountain pioneers. Read the stories about Elizabeth Paepcke. There’s something magical here. People come here and are embraced by it, and it becomes part of their life.

MC: Why?

HK: Risk-takers come here. People who think beyond conventional ways. Everyone’s chosen to be here. That’s unique.

LZ: Very wealthy people are coming here. Do you see a different spirit in more recent years?

HK: There were wealthy people who came here. Go back to the miners, the Wheelers. Even in those days, people could afford to come here.

Olive: Risk-takers.

HK: Particularly the young people coming here now. The ski bum today is a little different. They’re snowboards and freeskiers, but I’d say they’re risk-takers. Certain parts of that population are the same as when I first came here. Among my clients, there were  twentysomethings working two-three jobs and living with six people, but it was part of the thing. There is a change in young people, not just in Aspen. Young people are less willing to live and work than in the conditions of the Seventies. This is not a place to come for a career job.

MC: Now you tell me.

HK: You make sacrifices to be here. The very wealthy, fulltime or seasonal, they have different kinds of choices.

Judge Bob Nix: The meaning of “That’s Aspen” has changed. It usually means some obscene development is being built.

HK: I said “That’s Aspen” and that’s not what I meant.

LZ: Risk-takers who came here were able to stay. Now they don’t stay.

HK: There’s a difference in attitude. A lot of people who came here also left. There may have been more who stayed short-term. The affordable housing has made a big difference. It’s taken the risk out of it. The risk-takers still come here. The demographic has changed in the United States in general. There are different attitudes today. You didn’t come here for security in 1971

MC: Maybe it’s a nostalgic Sixties thing.

HK: My theory on that is it goes back to Sixties and Seventies. The ones who support the agenda you’re talking about are Baby Boomers and they’re aging. You can’t stop the aging process. The years continue on. Everybody talks about the good old days. That’s part of it. Because that boomer generation is so large, the voice is bigger than it might be. What I thought is, I remember those days with great fondness, but it’s not 1971. Are there things I miss? Yes. But there are also things I have now I didn’t have then. They want to freeze the town. I don’t even though those years are something that represents the best years of my life.

LZ: It’s personal, not for the good of the community.

MC: What do you remember?

HK: Most people who worked in town, lived in town. I had four children in the schools. You knew all the families, and the parents very involved. It was hard for a kid to get out of line without your knowing about it very quickly. It was safe then, and it’s safe now, but you don’t feel the same close-knittedness. Between my oldest son and my two youngest, there was already an exodus starting of people moving downvalley. It was in the Eighties when you began to see a pattern of people moving downvalley. That concerns me that you could reach a point where you have the poorest seasonal economy, but everybody lives in subsidized housing. We have 2,900 units of affordable housing. I think that contributes to the character of the community. There was stratification then but it was less obvious. Everyone remembers those days, everyone was mixed up. There were no private clubs. Andre’s was the original restaurant, a great breakfast place, a restaurant and bar. He buys the Eagle’s building and it was Andre’s second floor you could eat, and a disco on the top. The ceiling would open up. At some point, he decided to make it a private club but it was a failure. Most of the time I refused  to pay.

MC: You belong to the Elks Club.

HK: I am concerned about it but it’s up to us not to perpetuate that division. Read the letters to the editor. Some people love to tout that. Am I naïve? No. But it behooves us to keep in mind we were all in it together. But it’s not going to be like it was. You have got to focus on balance. You keep trying to balance things. Open space and affordable housing are in conflict. I may not make the same decision the same way the next time.

MC: You’ve been criticized for changing your mind.

HK: I was on the committee to save Bass Park. Now we have infill. The current issue is the entrance to Aspen.

MC: There’s political gridlock.

HK: I agree. We have a meeting at 5 PM at the P&Z, a public hearing on some of the land-use code amendments coming out of this moratorium. It’s interesting—lodging, multifamily, commercial, and I’m surprised how few changes there actually are. Revisions are rather minor. I have maintained that was going to happen all along. The problem, and the Council agreed, was the pacing of construction. That’s on our agenda here. My opposition on the moratorium is we needed to address the problems. I would have preferred neurosurgery and to make those changes a year ago. This has been open- heart surgery. What frustrates me is the reaction without analyzing to see if what you’re reacting is the source of the problem.

Steve: When you took office, everything was languishing, and now it’s exactly the opposite. You were here during a major shift.

HK: There was a lot of languishing in the economy. And Aspen’s status had slipped for a whole variety of reasons. I am proud of the fact the community came together—ACRA, nonprofits, Skico, the County, the City. You could say 9/11 was a big shot in the arm for collaboration. The distress between government and the business community disappeared. Now it’s crept back in. The moratoria and attitude that exists on Council that is “we-they”— it’s come back. There’s a certain level of anger but that’s unfortunate. I feel I should be able to do something about it but I can’t seem to do it. There are two ways to put the brakes on: you can slam it on or be doing it more slowly. I think we could have done it.

MC: As a psychotherapist, what’s the diagnosis for Aspen?

HK: I think you have to do what I did when I came into office. I would reach out, whether agree-disagree, rich-poor, affordable housing versus a mansion in Starwood— how do we work together to preserve what we all care about? A lot of our seasonal residents seem to care more about this community than some people who live here. Some of the people are the most critical in a negative way. If there’s a problem, invest yourself in solving it. It’s not just about complaining. Write a letter to the editor. Do something about it. Take responsibility and do something about it and engage other people. There are people who do nothing but complain.