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Candidate Chats: Skippy Mesirow

Running for: City Council

Candidate Statement: Dear Aspenites,

Over the past several years I have had the privilege to serve our community as a founder and two-term Chair of the Aspen Next Generation Advisory commission, current Chair of the Aspen Planning & Zoning commission, and helped launch critical community non-profits like the Aspen Mentorship Program, Aspen City of Wellbeing, and Aspen Entrepreneurs. These relevant experiences have shown me what is possible and motivated me to seek the opportunity to serve our community as your Council member.

While my personal experience has been wonderful, I have also born witness to the creeping effects of cynicism, an erosion of trust in our government, and increasing divisions within our community.

I am running to reverse these trends, to apply a younger, fresh perspective to the critical decisions that sit before us. My two main reasons for running are 1.To rebuild trust in government, modernizing its structure and process to reflect the needs of the modern age, and 2. To create a more livable Aspen.

Local government is more important now than ever. Effective government is necessary to allow our community to flourish. Though it need not do everything, or even much, it is the common forum with mutually agreed upon rules that are the precursor to all our priorities.

Government should no longer expect people to come to it, it most reach out to the people. It must communicate clearly, intently, and authentically. My goal as an elected official will be to activate our citizenry with authentic leadership, hard work, and the courage of conviction. We must use technology to make our government more responsive, remove arcane roadblocks to collective impact, and focus on more voting, not less. A representative government can only work when it’s actually representative.

The Aspen Idea lives in all of us. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to all those that came before us and made this town what it is. Now it is our turn to build on that tradition and step confidently into the future, thoroughly rooted in the values of our past.

Our challenge, the legacy we leave to those that come after us is creating a more livable Aspen. A more inclusive, approachable community that focuses on human interactions, the reduction of the automobile, modern housing solutions, and a diverse, vibrant core that leverages the sharing economy and tools of the modern age to reclaim character.

We can do these things, the last generation did, and now it’s our turn. Our turn to work together, to rise to the challenge - modernizing government, rebuilding trust in institutions and one another, and creating a more livable, unified, Aspen. Together we can achieve this and I believe, through my unique background, experience, and commitment to service and community building, can help lead us to a future just as good as our past, and even better, together.

Here now. For What’s Next.

Skippy Mesirow

For more information on Skippy Mesirow, click here.

To read and listen to more candidate profiles, click here.

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