Mt. CB will cancel April election and welcome new council member

Three nomination petitions turned in for three open seats

[  By Kendra Walker  ]

The Mt. Crested Butte town council will not be holding an election for council members this April, as exactly three citizens turned in nomination petitions to fill in the three open council seats. Incumbents Roman Kolodziej and Steve Morris, along with council newcomer Alec Lindeman will be sworn in on April 19. 

Council member Lauren Koelliker’s term expires in April, however, she did not turn in a petition. 

Lindeman, who moved to Crested Butte in 2010 and has lived on the mountain for four years, is the membership and outreach director at KBUT. Being on the town council is something he’s considered on and off for a while. 

“I wanted to make sure I really had time to get it right,” he said. “The pieces fell into place and I realized I had the time to devote to it.”

One of Lindeman’s biggest motivations is housing and advocating for the local demographic in need of more housing options. 

“There’s a pull for me to want to affect those outcomes in a way that helps locals who are working here and trying to make it work. There are a lot of people who are really trying to put in the effort, and bend over backwards to live, work and stay here. We should try to make that possible for them.”

Lindeman noted that the North Village is another interest, and he is looking forward to getting plugged in and learning as much as he can about his new role these next couple months before he’s officially sworn in. “I’m really excited and cautiously optimistic.”

If the town council wants to include anything else on a ballot this year, they will have to wait until the November election. During the January 18 town council meeting, Koelliker brought up several ideas for the ballot. Ideas included decreasing the number of town council members from seven to five members, moving future council elections to November, and changing council members’ term limits.

Mt. Crested Butte’s “no term limits” ballot question, which was intended to help open up the pool of qualified candidates, failed during the November 2021 election. “I know we just did that, but we didn’t really do any communication as to why,” said Koelliker. “People usually see removing term limits as a bad thing, and we didn’t really as a council engage with the community as to the reasons behind that.”

“I would support all three [ideas],” said council member Dwayne Lehnertz.