Option A the best option

City Council has placed Question 2D on the November ballot. It asks for community preference for the future location of new city offices to supplement existing offices in the City Hall.

As co-chairs of Citizens for Option A we feel strongly that purchasing space directly across Hopkins Avenue from the current City Hall is the much superior location for additional office space for Aspen’s municipal government. Option A provides the most efficient configuration for the daily operations of city government. Both options retain the City Hall as the primary location of city government.

Please consider the following reasons to vote for Option A:

1. Option A provides a consolidated central location for city offices in our downtown core directly across Hopkins from the current City Hall just 50 feet away. The Option A Hopkins location will be far more efficient for both citizens and city staff by eliminating the two-block trek across Main Street to the Option B location.

2. Option A honors the two-story height limit City Council enacted for the downtown core and most of Main and North Mill streets resulting in the city playing by the same rules for mass and scale that it imposes on the private sector. Option B proposes a three-story building looming over Rio Grande Park on land the government exempted from the two-story height limits.

3. Option A preserves our opportunity to provide for other needed public benefiting facilities such as affordable housing on the Rio Grande site where Option B simply builds more new offices.

4. Option A cost is a firm, committed contract. The Option B cost is only an estimate with no commitment as to the actual final cost. And we all know the history of prior city cost estimates.

We hope you will join us in honoring the legacy of keeping Aspen’s government in the heart of our downtown.

Please vote and select Option A on Question 2D.

Bill Stirling and Howie Mallory

Co-chairs, Citizens for Option A