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Basalt voters to choose mayor, council spots

Staff report
The Aspen Times
Aspen CO Colorado

BASALT – Basalt voters will select the majority of seats on the seven-member Town Council in an election Tuesday, and they will decide the fate of a proposed ban on plastic grocery bags.

The mayor’s seat and three council positions are up for grabs. The mayoral candidates are Glenn Rappaport and Jacque Whitsitt. The winner will serve a four-year term.

There are five candidates for the three council openings. The candidates are Lemuel Bolanos, Robert Leavitt, Bill Maron, Herschel Ross and Rick Stevens. The winners will serve four-year terms.



The departing incumbents are Mayor Leroy Duroux, who is facing term limits, and council members Pete McBride and Katie Schwoerer, who declined to seek second terms. Whitsitt’s term on the council also is expiring. She chose to run for mayor rather than re-election for a council seat.

The one ballot issue asks voters to settle a controversy over grocery bags. The council passed an ordinance – subject to voter approval – that proposes a ban on plastic grocery bags and a 20-cent fee on paper grocery bags.




The council initially approved an ordinance that established a fee for both plastic and paper grocery bags. A town resident collected signatures on a petition that demanded the ordinance be rescinded or the issue be placed before residents for a vote. The council rescinded the original ordinance, passed a new one proposing the ban on plastic and the fee on paper, then placed the question on the ballot.

The ballot question says the revenues raised by the fee on paper bags will be “used for recycling, waste reduction and environmental education by the town of Basalt” and to cover the grocers’ costs of administering the program.

A similar bag question also will go to Carbondale voters Tuesday.

In Basalt, the only polling place for the election will be at Town Hall from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters who received their ballot by mail or who picked up an absentee ballot must turn them into Town Hall no later than 7 p.m.

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