Foley, Newbury, Saalfeld elected to Vail Rec District board

VAIL — The Vail Recreation District held its special election Tuesday night, with Kevin Foley, Kim Newbury and Tom Saalfeld named by voters to be on the district’s board of directors.

The new members will serve four-year terms and join Jeff Wiles and Billy Suarez, who will continue until the 2016 election.

Swearing-in ceremonies for the newly elected members will take place at 5 p.m. on Thursday at the Vail Town Council Chambers during the VRD’s regularly scheduled board meeting. At that time, a chairperson and secretary treasurer will be elected from among the board of directors and each will serve in the post for two years.

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The VRD is a special district and is separate from the town of Vail. It operates programs at the Vail Golf Club, Imagination Station, Vail Tennis Center, Community Programming, Dobson Ice Arena, Vail Gymnastics Center, Vail Nature Center, Vail Nordic Center, intramural sports and children’s camps.

All of the new board members come with previous town government experience. Foley, who is resident manager at the Lifthouse Condominiums in Vail, was a Vail Town Council member for 14 years (1995-2001, 2005-2013). Newbury, the general manager at the Inn & Suites at Riverwalk, was on the Vail Town Council from 2003-2011. Saalfeld, owner of Ptarmigan Management, is a former member of the VRD board from 2000-2004.

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The candidates named will be tackling a $1.8 million shortfall that the district faces for capital expenditures as one of the top tasks.

“We’re going to have to sit down and talk to the town in terms of maintenance issues and we have some capital projects and upgrades that will be coming up. We’ll look at a variety of ways to fund that. Is it mill levy increase? An increase in user fees? We’ll have to look at everything and see what is most palatable to the users and taxpayers,” Foley said.

Newbury added that she looks forward to helping create a closer relationship between the VRD and the town.

“Hopefully it’s a great partnership with Kevin and I both on the board,” she said.

She said she hopes the controversy between the residents living at the golf course and a VRD project to build a new clubhouse can be laid to rest with a new operations plan that is in place.

Assistant Managing Editor Melanie Wong can be reached at 970-748-2927 or at mwong@vaildaily.com.