Alyssa Shenk sworn in as new Snowmass Village mayor

Amid applause from onlookers at Town Hall on Monday, former Snowmass Council Member Alyssa Shenk began her first term as mayor. 

“I just feel incredibly fortunate to have been elected to sit in this seat,” Shenk said after taking the oath for office “It’s been 10 years in the making of spending a lot of time and energy focusing on this community.”

She said she is excited to tackle important agenda items with Snowmass council members in the upcoming years. 

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“I have every confidence that we are going to do it well, and it’s going to mean great things for our community,” Shenk said. 

She also thanked former mayor Bill Madsen, who she said has been a wonderful colleague to her over the past 10 years, for his time as a public servant.

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The next two years will mark Shenk’s first term as Snowmass mayor and follows her 10-year service as a Snowmass council member.  

“I’ve always felt like giving back to your community, no matter which way you do it,” Shenk told The Aspen Times at the Daily Diner on Tuesday, in between talking to community members who congratulated her on her inauguration. “… It’s the ultimate way to not just talk the talk, but to actually walk the walk.”

She said that could mean volunteering for a nonprofit, participating in a community event, or sitting on a board or council. In her case, one of the reasons she chose to get into politics in 2014 was to be involved in the community, which she greatly valued. 

Shenk grew up in Columbus, Ohio, coming to Snowmass for the first time in her early teenage years to visit her uncle. 

After graduating from high school in Columbus, she attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied political science. Not long after college she finished law school at Ohio State University, passed the Ohio bar exam, and began working in a local law firm in 2003. 

At least, until her husband, who had previously worked as a ski patroller at Buttermilk, suggested they move “just for a couple years” to Aspen, she said. They packed their bags and moved from the heartland to the high country. 

After working as a builders’ assistant for a brief stint when she first arrived in the valley, Shenk welcomed her first child a year after the move. For the next nine years she focused full-time on raising her children. In 2007, she and her family settled in Snowmass.

“It was great to be involved in school. And I met so many people through school, like other parents and teachers and I really put all of my focus into that,” Shenk said, “because that’s where the kids were at the time.”

In 2013, her third and youngest child passed away. 

“He was 17 months old. He went to bed and never woke up,” Shenk said, adding, “That was a defining time in our life … all of a sudden you wake up and your life is totally different than it was the day before.”

In the wake of the loss Shenk and her husband reevaluated their priorities. Shenk turned to public service. 

“I had to find a way to stay sane and avoid going down the rabbit hole of grief, given that my life had been turned upside down,” Shenk said. “I knew it would help me to cope if I stayed busy, and that meant getting a job — one that allowed me to fill my time with something I enjoy most, being involved in the community.”

She was appointed to council in 2014 after sitting council member Markey Butler was elected as mayor and left an open council seat. Shenk said she competed at the time for the position with 12 to 15 other candidates, all of whom were men, and won. 

Over her 10 years on council, Shenk worked tirelessly to provide accessible and educational  public spaces for the local community. 

She suggested the town build an ice rink and The Collective Snowmass, a community space that hosts weekly events for the public, when revamping the Snowmass Village. 

“There isn’t a day where I go into the Base Village and don’t feel proud of that,” Shenk said. 

She said the public spaces bring the community to the village when many people wouldn’t otherwise have a reason to go.

For much of her time on council she was the only council member to advocate for the addition of flashing pedestrian lights in Snowmass. After she advocated for six years, the town agreed to implement them.

“It makes people have a little more peace of mind with their kids crossing and getting on buses,” Shenk said. 

With Madsen, she encouraged Snowmass tourism to further develop exhibits of the Snowmass Ice Age Discovery. 

In her upcoming time in office, she hopes to build on her achievements by creating more workforce housing and child care facilities for the town, and seeks community involvement while doing both.

“If they want to come talk to me, it’s an open door,” Shenk said of community involvement in projects. 

She strives to unite council on projects like the Draw Site, the workforce housing project for which the community approved funding in the Nov. 5 vote. 

Snowmass Council member Britta Gustafson said she is excited for Shenk to serve as mayor.

“I think we’re really ready for her kind of leadership,” Gustafson said. “I would say she has a unique leadership style that in some ways may come across as casual, but I think that’s what makes her approachable and fits so well with the style of Snowmass.”

Gustafson said she is also impressed by Shenk’s ability to unite public leaders. 

Snowmass Council Member Tom Fridstein said he looks forward to the collaborative environment Shenk will help facilitate. 

“She’s a collaborator and she wants to get everybody’s opinion,” Fridstein said, “and she evaluates, she takes the information … and I’m very excited about working with her.”

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.