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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.

Herschel Ross

Name and age? Herschel Ross, 73

What brought you to Basalt and what keeps you here? I started a second dental practice here in ’93. I found that when I had built both it and the Snowmass Village practices up to where I could sell one that it was Basalt where I wanted to live and work.

For the full list of questions and answers, click here.

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

Who is your personal hero and why? JFK, FDR and John Wooden.

Why should you be elected to Basalt Town Council? Experience, reason and logic. My four years in office as Councilman in Snowmass Village, Pitkin County Commissioner and now on the Town Council in Basalt have given me the experience and ability to do some real good for my community in the next four years.

If you could accomplish only one thing as a Basalt Town Council member, what would it be? Bring order out of chaos and logic to the decisions being made.

What about the current Basalt Town Council needs to change? Divisiveness rather than building consensus to move forward with the progress the town needs to stop lagging behind the rest of the valley in recovering from the economic downturn.

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? I have been saying in meetings for almost four years now that it is not an either/or proposition. You could have, and the town needs, both a great park and enough development to make it an active park and an attraction both for locals and visitors.

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? I think all the emotion, misinformation and rhetoric has led to a minority insisting that the park must be done exactly as “I” want, without listening to their neighbors and our hard working committees. This attitude has only interfered with important progress for the town. A little logic, financial reality and respect for consensus would go a long way. Bickering over arbitrary numbers before there is even an application in the planning office is indeed ignoring the fact that most people agree on where we want to go and want to get going.

Old Town Basalt is still struggling to fill storefronts. How much does town government play a role in changing that? Old Town Basalt is the small town ambience everyone wants to perpetuate. The town can play a significant role by bringing more people to downtown to live, recreate and shop by encouraging proper development including residential and affordable housing.