When the town of Mountain Village above Telluride incorporated in 1995, emerging from a special district, the town charter allowed nonresident property owners to vote. Mountain Village is still the only town in Colorado that allows nonresidents to vote in local elections for council members, mayors and new regulations.
Now the town board is considering amending Mountain Village’s charter to expand voting to owners of LLCs and trusts that own property in the tony resort municipality.
“This is something that no other community has done,” Mountain Village Mayor Marti Prohaska said at the beginning of the work session on Wednesday. “So we are sort of charting new territory here and we want to be conscientious of all the questions that may arise and all the concerns that may arise.”
It’s a timeworn issue for mountain town second-home owners: You have to choose a residence to vote. If a homeowner in Aspen wants to vote in the local election, they need to be a resident of Aspen. It’s part of the long-accepted trade-off for second-home owners in mountain communities. Their property taxes, real estate transfer taxes and spending most certainly buoy resort economies, but they do not get a chance to weigh in on local politics unless they claim residence. Except in Mountain Village.
Only two states allow nonresident voting in municipal elections: Connecticut and Delaware, where there are more registered businesses than residents. Delaware lawmakers last year considered — but did not pass — legislation that would have allowed municipalities to include corporate entities and trusts on voter rolls. Six years ago the 1,400 residents in the seaside town of Rehoboth Beach in Delaware rejected a plan to allow to LLCs to vote.
Mountain Village has about 1,100 full-time residents and 562 registered voters. There are 1,160 properties in Mountain Village owned by people using their own names. That includes 862 homes and 172 empty homesites. (The rest are commercial and town-owned properties that will not qualify for voting under the proposed amendments.)
There are 1,264 properties owned by LLCs in Mountain Village, including 730 homes and 259 vacant parcels. There are 199 properties owned by trusts, including 167 homes and 25 undeveloped parcels.
Many of the trusts and LLCs own multiple parcels in Mountain Village and the proposed amendment would add about 153 trusts and 566 LLCs to the voter rolls. LLCs that are evenly split between owners — like, say, a husband and a wife — could qualify as two voters. Owners of LLCs who are not U.S. citizens would be allowed to vote. Owners of corporations or commercial properties would not be allowed to vote under the proposed amendments.
The average price for a home in Mountain Village is $2.2 million and the median listing price for about 41 homes on the market at the end of May was $3.5 million, according to Zillow.
Council members on Wednesday discussed the role of LLCs that own more than 170 homes that are rented to vacationers as short-term rentals. They probed the historic influence of nonresident voters in the town, noting that in the June 2023 council election, there were 398 ballots cast, of which 74 were from nonresident property owners.
The council members also discussed changing the date of the election from June to July or November to encourage voting without overlapping with summer vacations when school lets out in early June. The council also considered a change to publish public notices on the town’s website instead of the local printed newspaper, which does not publish daily.
A long line of Mountain Village residents and homeowners attended the meeting to offer input. Many nonresidents applauded an opportunity for voting by LLC and trust owners.
“I see this issue as an issue of voter disenfranchisement,” said Peter Mitchell, who said the number of people putting their homes under LLC ownership has expanded in recent years.
“Our society has become much more litigious in the last 40 years and for that reason most people put their homes in LLCs to help keep their homes from being seized by creditors. I’m not sure I understand why those protections that are allowed under the law should limit a person’s right to vote.”
A few residents bemoaned taxation without representation. Others warned the council to consider unintended consequences that may stem from a decision to allow profit-motivated LLCs that own short-term rentals a chance to weigh in on local elections.
Mountain Village resident Paul Savage told the council that “residents are the people who care most about this community.”
“We could be ruled by absent owners and tourists who will decide how we all will live,” Savage said. “If nonresidents want to vote in municipal elections, they should move here and understand this community first before trying to change it.”
The work session was not a voting meeting. The council held the session to gather public input on the proposed amendments and will consider a first and second reading of the proposals at regular meetings in June and July. Then the proposed charter amendments would be considered by voters in a special election.
Mountain Village councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Scott Pearson said the comments from residents and property owners revolved around “the meaning of democracy.”
“I wish more people were voting,” said Pearson, who is planning a voter registration drive to get more residents involved in town elections. “I’m also concerned about the weight of voting shifting. The goal here is to raise participation from everybody and my personal goal is to not see the balance change materially.”