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The facts from Roy

Aspen Times writer

Dear Editor:Thank you for your endorsement of my candidacy, but you might wish to change your mind if you had had your facts straight. So, to give your readers the real skinny on me so they can make up their own minds next week:I have never run as a Republican. I promised the many Democrats who worked to get me elected (when I ran unaffiliated) that I would never run partisan. As you might be noticing – as I am in a runoff between a Republican and a Democrat – my commitment to base all my decisions on what is best for Pitkin County and not what is best for any party platform has made my political life a challenge.Instead of appreciating how hard it is to listen carefully, balancing the facts and the code and neighbors’ concerns, I find myself always taking potshots from one political side or the other because I am not pure to either platform, but prefer to blend the best of the two.As to your condemnation that I am the friend of ranchers and farmers, it is true, but you forgot to mention I am a gardener and a good one if you judge by my 4-foot tall shasta daisies. I have lots of friends who own homes (in Pitkin County building a home is defined as development, making them developers), and would be honored if a real developer like John McBride considered me a friend.I am still working on what was meant in your editorial about stifling development restrictions. Did you mean stifling development? I think I am the only sitting commissioner who actually worked (hard too!) on the campaign to renew the open space tax that has enabled us to buy down development on or preserve more than 9,000 acres of rural lands. I have voted to establish an urban growth boundary, and to create a new low-density subdivision incentive at 80 acres. My voting record on 95 percent of “development” applications demonstrates I vote with the majority usually 5-0.As to your last bit of support, I can only conclude it is the newspaper staff who is slowing down this election in their confusion while they try to sort through the information as to who is who. I am the intelligent, articulate and incredibly knowledgeable candidate. But see for yourself. Watch the GrassRoots TV debate and see everyone defer to me when the questions got too technical or ask anybody who was at the Friday Men’s Luncheon debate which candidate really does do good for Pitkin County.Oh, and once last error in your editorial: Ireland was not present. It was Commissioners Shellie Roy and Jack Hatfield who sat across from Mohrman at the state Senate hearings. In fact, you got so little right in your editorial, people really shouldn’t give your endorsement any weight.Shellie RoyPitkin County commissioner

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