Four candidates vie for three City Council seats

With election day looming on the horizon this November, four people have announced their candidacy for Gunnison’s City Council.

This December, the terms of current councilors Jim Gelwicks and Scott Frazier are set to expire. Gelwicks has reached the end of his allowable term limit after serving on the council for eight years, while Frazier chose not to seek re-election. The four-year terms of Mayor Diego Plata and Mayor Pro Tem Marisela Ballesteros-Celestino do not expire until 2027.

With three seats up for grabs, four candidates are set to compete in a town-wide game of musical chairs this election day. Candidates Audrey Zahradka, Loren Ahonen, Tristen Coleman and returning councilor Matt Schwartz spoke with the Times to discuss their candidacies.

(Editor’s note: The following conversations have been edited for length and clarity.)

Audrey Zahradka

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background.

I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota and have been involved in politics my whole life because my parents and my grandparents were involved in politics. So, local politics have always been really important to me. I went to the University of Minnesota for forestry and urban forestry and then worked as an arborist refinishing hardwood floors back in Minnesota. After my husband and I got married, we moved to Colorado. We lived in Fort Collins for three years, and now we've lived in Gunnison for just over five years. I now work at Fullmer's Ace Hardware. I started there in the paint department in 2021 and then worked my way up. I worked as a supervisor for a couple years and now I am the corporate buyer. So anything we sell at Ace that doesn't come from the Ace warehouse all goes through me.

What motivated you to run for council?

I am a big believer in democracy and that democracy is only as good as the people who participate. With the way national politics has been going for the last 10 years or so, I think if you really want to make a difference, local politics is where that can actually happen. I've always been involved in local politics. I went to basically every caucus or rally that I could go to when I lived in Fort Collins. I was involved a little bit more on a grassroots level and since moving [to Gunnison], I've been doing a lot of volunteer work. I think this is the next step in being as involved as I can be.

Gunnison is a really special place. There's really cool restaurants and shops and the access to outdoor recreation is amazing. More than anything, I think the people of Gunnison are really unique, because it's a blend: an old school cowboy town with a vibrant art scene. I love the idea of being able to represent and foster all of that diversity.

If elected, what particular challenges do you see facing the city that you would like to address?

I've had a lot of discussions with heads of different city departments about this, which has been really helpful for steering how I think about these issues. Obviously Gunnison has aging infrastructure. I think capital improvements, [such as] the firehouse, building the new water treatment plant and updating businesses on Main Street. It's a bummer to go out on Main Street and see so many closed down businesses. I want to get involved in making owning a business on Main Street more attractive and more accessible as well. I think we're working on that with the park’s master plan that's going to get hammered out in the next few months. But with my background being in urban forestry, I really want to see some improvements on some of our less used parks. I've talked to a lot of people who don't even know about the West Side River Park — and these are people who have lived in Gunnison forever. Everyone knows about Jorgensen and Legion Park, because that's where everything happens. But making some of our smaller parks a little more, not even accessible — they're right there. But just letting people know that they're there would be huge.

What message do you have for voters?

I represent a little bit of a different demographic than a lot of our current city council members. I'm newer to town, which can be good and bad. I have a really strong background in local politics. I'm a renter, not a homeowner — so I know how hard it is to find affordable, accessible rentals in Gunnison and that's something that I also want to work on, whether it’s changing land use codes to make renting a little more easy — I'm not sure — but it is something that is important to me. I'm just a little younger, I’m progressive and I really want to represent that demographic.

Tristen Coleman

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background.

I was born and raised here in Gunnison and am a fourth-generation local. My parents are Steve and Jennifer Coleman, who own Custom Home Accents. I graduated from Gunnison High School in 2019, studied history at Western and sat on the historic board of preservation for the county for a year. I am a born and bred local. I love our history, the community and the valley and have been involved with a lot of local events for some time now. For the last few years, I have been working at the Gunnison Bank and Trust, as of now I am their new account specialist.

What motivated you to run for council?

I've seen how hard it is being in the younger generation and trying to stay here in the valley as the city is growing — and there has been a call for having that perspective on council. A lot of the [current council members] are all great people, but they've had the fortune of being able to choose to live in Gunnison. I'm one of the individuals that's having to find out how on earth am I going to stay.

I was raised by a great family, but I've definitely been raised by this community as well. My inspiration comes directly from my family. My great grandfather set the standard for this family back when he first came to Gunnison in the 40s. He helped out by bringing the Christmas tree to the Night of Lights. Him and his brother Jim helped build the Pioneer Museum. My father served as a fireman, and then he was in the police force for over a decade. My grandmother served at the jail for decades. My Grandpa worked for the county and did tons of work for infrastructure in the valley — and my great grandmother was an editor at the Gunnison Country Times back in the 70s. So having that generational knowledge here, it feels more like I'm helping neighbors and family out more than anything.

If elected, what particular challenges do you see facing the city that you would like to address?

Particular challenges I see right now is that this city is definitely going to grow. Growth is good, but I think the challenge is not losing sight of why people want to live here and not losing sight of who we are. I want to make sure that we give opportunities so that those who have been born and raised here are able to stay here.

I'm very local-business-forward as multiple members of my family own local businesses here in town. Beyond that, I think a lot of what I may be taking on would be these new developments coming in. This water treatment plant is definitely going to be a very interesting task. I only just recently saw that they accepted the grant for it. I'm very excited to learn more on how that's going to affect the valley and how it might open up more infrastructure for growth. But in general, I think it's going to be [issues] like this West Thorn development, Gunnison Rising and even talks about what might be going on at the Dunbar ranch region — and just making sure that whatever development happens we don't lose the sight of our locals and our community members. I want to make sure those developments benefit not just people wanting to move here, but the people that are already living here.

What message do you have for voters?

This is my home. This is where my family is and this is where I want to live. I want to treat this community as the community that raised me. I want to give back to it, make this town proud and the voters and my family proud.

Matt Schwartz

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background.

My wife and I moved to Gunnison in 2001 to purchase the Family Vision Center. We bought the business and worked together for the first 15 years. We have two daughters, both of whom have graduated from high school and are off at college, but were born and raised here. I have spent a lot of time since I've been in Gunnison volunteering my time with the chamber of commerce, with the youth hockey organization and with the county planning and zoning commission. I've been on council in the past and I've really tried to be involved with this community because we love it here.

My experience [on City Council] has been very good. I really love the work. It's interesting to have the opportunity to learn about what goes on from the city side to take care of our most basic needs — things like water, sewer, electricity, streets, police and fire. But also what kind of planning can help us to do some of the things I would classify more as “wants” rather than “needs” such as trail planning, parks and rec and some of those things.

What motivated you to run for council?

First of all, I really enjoyed the work the first time around. I didn't feel like there were any glaring problems or issues with the city, but I did want to be available to contribute my time. I may have run earlier, but with both of my children leaving home and now being an empty nester, I feel like I have the time to be able to put the effort in that it takes — so I decided to get involved again.

If elected, what particular challenges do you see facing the city that you would like to address?

We've had challenges, even when I was on council the last time, with updating our infrastructure. I feel like we've made leaps and bounds in terms of progress, making sure that our infrastructure is as good as it can be. The biggest challenge that I see in this next term is that we're seeing flat revenue and increasing costs. I want to work on figuring out how we can increase revenues — whether that's through economic development [or other strategies] — and we'll do the best we can with costs, even though a lot of that is out of our control. The biggest concern that I have moving forward is that if we have flat revenue next year and our costs go up 3%, we can only do less as the City. We have to look at where our resources are best spent and make those tough decisions, or work on economic development and find a way to increase the amount of money coming in so that we can continue to provide the same level of service that we currently are. My hope is that we'll be able to improve and do more down the road.

What message do you have for voters?

I'm a long time Gunnison resident. I'm very invested in this community. I want to see us be successful and I have the experience from both a business standpoint and from a service standpoint to hopefully help move us in the right direction towards that success.

Loren Ahonen

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background.

I'm a Midwesterner by birth, I moved to Gunnison in 2007 to go to Western. I'm a guy who has a story that many people have around here — go to Western, get stuck (in a good way) and then leave for a little bit until the valley vortex pulls you back. I came out here for Western, left for a couple of years for work, came back to continue my education and got a master's degree at Western. I'm here for a lot of the same reasons as others. I recreate a lot. I ride my bike a lot. I play bike polo with my friends, I hike, I do all those things. But it's not like the animating force in my life, like it is for some people in our community. So I get a nice balance of being able to walk to the grocery store, ride my bike to the grocery store, I rarely have to get into my car and I've got a community that means a lot to me with public access.

I've done a variety of things in the valley, everything from working as a custodian at Western, to working at the housing authority, for the County and then at Western as an adjunct lecturer. I currently work for the Colorado Energy Office, which is a part of the state government. I work remotely and travel back and forth to Denver fairly often for that work. We work on greenhouse gas mitigation across different sectors and my team works on buildings and energy.

What motivated you to run for council?

It's actually funny, this is not the first time I ran for council. I first ran when I was a 21-year old college student and so it's always sort of been on my mind. I just got to a stage right now in my personal and professional life where I felt like I had the ability to step back in. I've been on the board at the Gunnison County Metropolitan Recreation District before for quite some time. So I'm used to public service and [currently] work for the state. So to me, it's a chance to do things that I'm familiar with, but in my own town, in a place that matters to me. In my job, I spend a lot of time on the computer and being on council offers me an opportunity to be in my community, talking to people face-to-face. I think we're at a kind of a crossroads in our community — lots of things have changed in the 15-ish years that I've been here and things will continue to change. So I think having some perspective about that and also being able to jump in and listen and share the values of the people around me.

If elected, what particular challenges do you see facing the city that you would like to address?

We have a lot of infrastructure needs in our community that are currently being considered, or need to be considered in the future. We're also not a very large community, which means that the tax base is also not very large either. Anytime cities or other folks are looking at revenue that has an impact on residents, it has an impact on businesses. I think executing the wastewater treatment plant is going to be a task and an undertaking. One of the other things is just figuring out what the city can do as a municipal entity to catalyze the local economy. Everybody has noticed increasingly empty storefronts. There are challenges with the costs of rent we see in our community and our other communities for commercial spaces. The current council has done a fair bit of thinking about this — whether to work on that with an economic development corporation or other options. But are there creative solutions to helping our downtown Main Street corridor thrive? When they thrive, lots of our households thrive. So I think that those are two of the bigger things — executing these very large infrastructure projects and maintaining the infrastructure we have. Roads are always a basic necessity that people want to not think about, but you need to have money to manage your roads and your alleys. We've seen that on the ballot in the last three to five years and so I think that those are all the linchpins of making sure that people have a quality of life that they want.

What message do you have for voters?

My message is that I am like many of you. I participate in recreating in our community, but I also go to arts events. I have a tendency to meet people where they're at. I know a lot of folks in town. Some of them may like me, some of them may not like me and that's the nature of being in a small community. You're not always going to agree with everybody, but I think most everybody who knows me knows that I'm willing to listen, I'm willing to hear ideas that are counter to mine and to think about what that means for building our community in a way that's supportive of everybody. We need people to be able to live in places they can afford, to work at the grocery store or to attend Western or do whatever it is they do in our community. Those things have all been challenges in the last few years and probably the last decade. By no means am I a guru on any of those topics, but I am here to listen and learn and I think that that's one of my greatest qualities, is being a quick learner.

(Alex McCrindle can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or alex@gunnisontimes.com.)