Keystone voters elected their first-ever representatives in an all-mail ballot election that ended at 7 p.m. on Jan. 30.

A mayor and six council members were chosen in what was the third election Keystone has held since voting to incorporate last spring. As of Jan. 30, 298 votes were recorded.

Ken Riley, a longtime Keystone homeowner who became a full-time resident in 2021, was elected mayor after running unopposed. Riley was an integral proponent of the incorporation effort and led successful campaigns to incorporate in March and to pass a charter that secured home-rule status for the town in September.

“It’s been a long road, but frankly this was the easy part,” Riley said. “What we’re about to embark on is the hard part.”

As mayor, Riley will hold the same voting power as the six other council members — one vote per person. He will serve a four-year term.

Gretchen Davis, Dan Sullivan and Aaron J. Parmet all won four-year seats on the town council while Valerie Thisted, Sarah Keel and Carol Kerr were elected to two-year terms. All are full-time Keystone residents.

Davis, Sullivan, Thisted and Keel all served on the charter commission that collected input from residents and eventually produced a draft charter that was approved by voters. Davis and Sullivan were also members of the election commission, which coordinated voting, though neither was involved with vote counting in this election.

Parmet currently works at a local hospital, leads avalanche faculty at Colorado Mountain College, serves with the Summit County Rescue Group and is the vice president of his homeowners association board.

Kerr is a retired U.S. Army officer who also served 20 years as a faculty and staff member for the U.S. Army War College.

While Kerr said she was initially skeptical of the new government, she came to embrace the incorporation efforts after attending charter work sessions and later volunteering to sit on a budget committee for the town.

“One of the reasons I wanted to be on the council is to be a guardian of the public’s money,” Kerr said. “It’s very easy to get distracted and intrigued and inspired by many, many good things that we may spend money on. But we’ve sort of made a deal with the town of Keystone that we’re going to commit to a very lean, efficient government that serves the people.”

A swearing-in ceremony will be held on Feb. 8 from 4-6 p.m. at the Keystone Center, located at 1628 Saints John Road. Riley said he expects around 100 people in attendance, with representatives from the state, county and neighboring towns as well as Keystone citizens.

Once seated, council members are expected to immediately begin working on starting up the town’s operations and beginning what is likely to be a yearlong transition away from the Summit County government.

That includes entering an intergovernmental agreement with the county government to maintain core services — such as snow removal, law enforcement, planning and zoning — for at least the first 90 days. The town will also need to hire staff, a duty that will be carried out by a town manager.

Riley said one of the town council’s first actions on Feb. 8 will be to hire Gary Martinez as Keystone’s interim town manager. Martinez is a former manager for the county and town of Breckenridge.

“It’s like a venture capital startup. You’re walking into an organization with no real structure in place,” Riley said. “It’s daunting for a lot. But also for some people, and I happen to be one of them, it’s an exciting challenge.”

As Colorado’s newest municipality in 15 years, Riley said Keystone has the potential to be a “model town.”

“Every day we’re turning over a new rock and we’re finding something new,” Riley added. “(But) it’s coming together, and it’s all done by a lot of hard work from the volunteers in this community.”

Published on SummitDaily.com.