Mick for Mayor

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Mick for Mayor

Regional News

Mick Ireland, a Pitkin County, Colo., commissioner who helped create Aspen's successful affordable housing program, kicked off Community Housing Week on Monday with a presentation at the Roosevelt Tavern in Ketchum. Photo by Willy Cook

Without affordable housing, cities will go 'out of business'
Mick Ireland, a Pitkin County, Colo., commissioner who helped create Aspen's successful affordable housing program, kicked off Community Housing Week on Monday with a presentation at the Roosevelt Tavern in Ketchum. Read More>>
July 12, 2006 | By Steve Benson | Idaho Mountain Express

What made Western resorts so expensive?
A full house as Mick Ireland explains why resorts in the U.S. became so expensive

A full house as Mick Ireland explains why resorts in the U.S. became so expensive

A full house in Ketchum, Idaho last July, as Mick Ireland delivers a PowerPoint presentation on Pitkin County's experience with affordable housing and explains why resorts in the US became so expensive. Read More>>

It sometimes takes an outsider to help us see ourselves in perspective. It turns out this outsider felt right at home his first trip here.

Pitkin County, Colorado County Commissioner Mick Ireland arrived in Ketchum Monday morning, rode a rented road bike down Highway 75 to Elkhorn Road, into Elkhorn and over Dollar Summit into Trail Creek as farasTrail Creek Cabin, then returned for a visit to the Warm Springs Village and back into town in time to deliver a PowerPoint presentation on his county's experience with affordable housing.
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July 12, 2006 | By Gary Stivers | SunValleyOnline.com

Old West Politics on the Crystal River trail
Oneof the most fun things you can do on a bicycle in this valley is ridefrom Carbondale to the top of McClure Pass. If you do it early in themorning and come back after breakfast in Redstone, it feels liketailwind both ways. Read More>>
February 3, 2007 | By Mick Ireland | Aspen Times

Pitkin County Commissioner Mick Ireland recognizes the contributions of second-home owners, but also says their presence undermines the very thing they came here for in the first place.

A second home economy
The deep and lasting effects of vacation homes on resort-town finances
Eagle County leaders have just started to meet to discuss topics related to the second-home owner economy and other growth and sustainable community issues, Runyon said.

"Many of these problems are not just for the towns and the county but for the businesses, the large employers," he said. "Where are we going to put these people?"

For Ireland, the question of where to put people is the No. 1 concern for resort communities.

"We've created a pretty aggressive affordable housing program," Ireland said. "It really works - we've been able to hang onto teachers, fire people, newspaper reporters who would have been priced out."

Resort communities, Ireland said, can't stick their heads in the sand and hope these problems go away.

"Transportation won't get better, it'll get worse," he said. "There's no friggin' money, and the state isn't going to build you a six-lane highway to clear it up, so you're stuck with it."

Understanding the greater forces at work in the economy is key to arriving at real solutions, he said.

"Once you understand where the problem is coming from, we can can cope with it, and not just indulge in wishful thinking that the market's going to change," he said.
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May 1, 2006 | By Alex Miller | Photo by Shane Macomber | Vail Daily

Housing cost driving out young families
The populations of resort communities across the country and here in the Adirondacks are being hallowed out by rising property values and the growth of the second-home market. So says Mick Ireland, a commissioner in Pitkin County, Colorado, home to the resort town of Aspen. He delivered the keynote presentation at Wednesday's annual meeting of the Adirondack Economic Development Corporation. Read More>>
January 20, 2005 | WNBZ Saranac Lake, NY