Gail Garey, the current City Council President representing District 1 in Steamboat Springs, is officially seeking reelection for a second four-year term. 

In an interview with the Steamboat Pilot & Today, Garey, who will face Kelly Phillips in the Nov. 4 election, highlighted housing, transportation and environmental stewardship as key focus areas of her platform, emphasizing a holistic approach to address the city’s central challenges for both current and future generations.

Garey said she and her husband moved to Steamboat around 25 years ago to raise their family.

---

---

“We love the outdoors, and we wanted to raise our kids in a small town where we know our neighbors, where they can ride their bikes to school and where we didn’t have to get in a car to go outdoors,” she said. 

A Yampa Valley Sustainability Council board member, Garey explained how her extensive volunteer work over the years reflects her strong community ties, from volunteering at her kids’ schools to tree plantings to the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club.

---

---

More recently, Garey said she led a group of “dedicated community members” to facilitate creation of See Me Compost (formerly Cowgirl Compost), a community-wide composting program that aims to avoid greenhouse gas emissions by utilizing drop-off locations instead of curbside pickup. 

Lessons from her first term

With four years of council experience, including two years as president, Garey said one of her main takeaways from her first term has been the importance of diving deep into the array of issues affecting the community. 

“There’s a steep learning curve,” she said. “It’s about taking the time to learn the issues. It’s taking the time to ask the questions, to develop relationships with community experts, and to create a strong foundation for decision-making.”

She also highlighted the challenge of balancing robust public input and discussion with efficient council meetings, a key part of her role as council president. 

Reflecting on the council’s work, Garey expressed pride in a “well-functioning” body marked by diversity in both background and lived experience, citing council’s decision to use short-term rental tax funds to save Casey’s Pond as one of the best achievements during her tenure. 

“We work hard to make council a welcoming environment so that anybody who comes in feels like they have been heard,” she stated. “We agree to disagree in a respectful manner.”

Priorities for a second term

“It’s been an honor and it’s been a privilege to serve on council these last four years,” said Garey of her first and current term. “I’m running for reelection because Steamboat is at a crossroads. I think it’s all about how we continue to thrive as a community.”

She underscored the urgent priorities that inspired her first campaign and still drive her efforts: Housing, protecting the environment and “building a robust transportation system.”

“It’s also about prioritizing transit and bike lanes and bike connectivity and getting cars out of the road, relieving the congestion,” she said, “and really, most importantly, it’s about preserving our small town.”

“Those are similar issues to what I ran on four years ago,” she added. “I think we have, during my time on council, made progress on those issues, but we have more work to do and we need to do it at an accelerated pace.”

Garey emphasized that Steamboat’s natural gems — the Yampa River, Howelsen Hill, Emerald Mountain and the nearby Mt. Zirkel Wilderness, to name a few — are core to the community’s identity and worth protecting. 

“All of these issues are intertwined in terms of creating a vibrant economy that benefits everyone who lives in this community,” she said. 

Having spent the majority of her career in public policy, Garey frames her approach to council heavily through her professional experience, where she worked on state-level policy and customer service policy alignment for a global telecommunications company.

“I worked with a customer service team to identify issues that were impacting our customers and determining, ‘OK, are those systematic issues, or are those policy issues?'” Garey explained. “And if they were policy issues, then I worked with the customer service organization to look at those policies and say, ‘OK, how do we need to change those policies in order to resolve issues that the customers are facing?'”

She now runs a consulting business focused on helping companies become certified B Corporations, guiding them to improve their social and environmental responsibility. 

“One of the key components is making sure that you have those policies in place so the company is actually following through on what they’re saying they’re going to do,” she said. 

Her experience in both the corporate and community realms, said Garey, provides a “strong foundation” for effective governance in a second term on City Council.

Tackling housing: an “all of the above” approach

Regarding Steamboat’s notorious housing crisis, Garey, whose campaign slogan is “Your Voice to Keep Our Community Livable for All,” stressed the necessity of providing homes for anyone who works in the city and the various ways city leaders can work to make that happen.

“The market conditions have changed. There’s a growing gap between local wages and home prices, and that is driven by our remote workers, second and third homeowners, and short-term rental units,” said Garey. 

“We all know families that are leaving town because they can no longer afford to live here, or want to start a family and can’t find housing here, or … are seeing their rents increase, or the homes they’re in being sold,” she continued. “So there’s no housing mobility in our community.”

Garey advocates an all-encompassing approach, such as using STR tax funds to secure workforce units, partnering with private developers, adopting inclusive housing policies and exploring infill development. 

She praised the Brown Ranch land donation as “an amazing gift” designated for future growth, calling for collaborative community efforts through the ongoing Community Builders and Deliberation and Stewardship Team process to find the best path forward for that potential housing development.

“The Yampa Valley Housing Authority has successfully brought hundreds of workforce units to the market,” she said, pointing to the 86 for-sale, deed-restricted condominiums at The Cottonwoods scheduled to be ready for move-in by early next year. “We need to stay laser-focused on delivering workforce housing and continue partnering with public and private entities.”

Beyond housing

Garey emphasized that while housing is critical, addressing other community issues is equally important for Steamboat’s future. Child care access, for instance, is a key enabler for workforce participation. 

“If you don’t have somewhere to take your kids during the day that you’re comfortable with, that impacts your ability to show up to work,” she said, highlighting the need for partnerships to develop solutions in this area.

She also mentioned community concerns about e-bikes and suggested that the Parks and Recreation Commission should review policy options to ensure public safety. 

Locally focused projects like improving postal service cluster boxes in Old Town also make her list, as she aims to ease daily challenges for residents.

“That would also help from the traffic perspective,” she said of the cluster boxes. “If you can walk to your cluster box, then you don’t have to drive down to the post office every other day to pick up your mail.”

Garey acknowledged that Steamboat’s sales tax-driven economy is closely tied to Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. — but she stressed the need for balance. 

“Ski Corp. is dependent on the city and our local workforce,” she said. “We are a small town with a Western and agricultural heritage first and foremost, and that’s a fact that Ski Corp. markets.”

“We as a community need to find a way to balance the cost and the impacts that Ski Corp. has in our community,” she added.

At the close of the interview, Garey highlighted the “multi-faceted” perspective she brings to council.

 “I look at the issues through the lens of a mother who raised her family in this community, as a business person, and as someone who’s committed to protecting our natural environment.”

Garey encourages community members with questions about her campaign to visit her website at GailForSteamboat.com or to reach out to her at GailForSteamboat@gmail.com.