"I've loved being on council," says Andrea Benda. "I'm a curious person and like to absorb things. Being on council has satisfied that and at the same time I get to give to my community and help sustain my home"

Benda was elected to council two years ago, and is currently completing the two years of a term that became vacant when Dawn Ibis resigned her seat.

"It takes awhile to get a grasp of what it takes to do this job," Benda explains. "The issues are very complex, and they range from affordable housing to xeriscaping – and skateboard parks and the square footage in basements." Benda says that her reelection to a full four-year term would enable her to apply all she's learned in her first two years in office.

"I feel like I'm part of the team," Benda says. "Not that we always agree, but we have the same intensity of purpose, to do well by our community.

Benda says she would give the current town council an A for effort and a B for results, "because there is so much to do and I think we're doing the best we can."

Benda says that one of the major accomplishments of the current council has been to "mend fences" after the controversies of the previous few years.

"It took about a year to get the other regional stakeholders to sit down and hear our earnestness about making things work for us all," she says.

Benda also cites overseeing the rejuvenation of the regional marketing effort – with the dissolution of the Telluride and Mountain Village Convention and Visitors Bureau and the creation of Marketing Telluride, Inc. – as an achievement of the current government "that will pay off in big ways."

"And though it's not very glamorous, this council has done a lot with town infrastructure," Benda says. "Streetscapes work has been completed. We've begun making large repairs to the Spur with the roundabout. And we've moved forward with water treatment," she adds, referring to the plans for a new municipal water system in the Bridal Veil Basin that council forwarded to the November ballot.

"Under the umbrella of sustainability, this council started the ball rolling toward creating a sustainability inventory," Benda says. "We've been proactive, even aggressive, by rewarding alternative-fuel vehicles, on river restoration, and by enacting the green building code. In terms of social sustainability, I think our support of the skateboard park is an example of the best of Telluride: A group of people of all ages had this idea, they worked toward it, they needed government help and we offered that help. It was a grassroots effort that speaks to real people living in town with real needs."

Other achievements of the current council, Benda says, include making progress on revising the Telluride Master Plan and meeting the goal of bringing new units of affordable housing online every year.

"There's really been a lot of good stuff," she concludes.

The biggest challenge on the horizon, Benda believes, will be to address the fact that Telluride sales tax revenues have been flat for years.

"I would like to explore what we can do in the way of providing support for retail business and services," she says. Benda has attended conferences on downtown revitalization and is confident that "there are concrete ways government can get involved, without our reinventing the wheel or throwing money at it."

A 25-year Telluride resident, Benda, 55, has owned a couple of businesses in town, including a travel agency. She served as president of the Wilkinson Library Board of Trustees and as president of the Telluride Choral Society. She recently left a job as director of the Telluride Historical Museum. She is launching a new business, Explore Telluride, offering "tours and talks to inform and inspire."

"I've always had to work here," she says.

Her interest in local history, Benda believes, serves her well on council.

"A lot of people who move to Telluride think that our history began the day they arrived," she explains. "I have a different perspective. I've been here a long time and I know a lot about the time before I came. There were 25 different ethnic groups here more than a hundred years ago, and before that there were the Utes. In some ways, Telluride has changed enormously just since I've been here, but in other ways we're not all that different. We talk about problems with kids and drugs, for example, but imagine what it must have been like raising kids here a hundred years ago when the town was full of opium dens."

Benda sees a possible risk from the stability of the town council in the last two years.

"There's a lot of good news and I just hope voters don't get passive and take it for granted," she explains. "It's easier to fight against something you don't like. I hope people aren't bored by the good governance that's going on. It could be that people are happy or not paying attention, and they may not vote."

Benda favors votes not only for the incumbents running for reelection to town council, but also to authorize bonding for the Bridal Veil water system, and for the two questions on the state ballot, referenda C and D, to loosen TABOR restrictions.

"We will feel it here if C and D fail," she says. "Not only in less state funding for schools and roads, but for things like state support of marketing for heritage tourism. That's something we benefit from directly."