Up through the economic ranks

Laura Puckett Daniels

Since she moved to the valley in 2009, Laura Puckett Daniels has worn a wide variety of hats — restaurant server, sunglasses vendor, teacher, development director and chairperson of the Gunnison County Planning Commission. This fall she hopes to add Gunnison County Commissioner to the list. Puckett Daniels is the Democratic candidate for the seat being vacated by retiring commissioner from Crested Butte, Roland Mason.

The following is an excerpt from a recent Think Radio conversation with Puckett Daniels about her background, her candidacy and her vision for the valley. It has been edited for length and clarity.

TR: Let’s start with the big question first: Why do you want to be county commissioner?

Puckett Daniels: There's a couple of reasons. The first is that I feel really driven to serve our community. I care a lot about this place. It's given me a lot, and I feel ready to give back to it in a bigger way. Then externally, I feel like we're at a tipping point. It seems like the rate of change is accelerating. We're feeling more and more pressure in the Gunnison Valley around development, tourism and the impacts on our lands and our economy. It doesn't seem like we have a ton of time to make some decisions about what the future is going to look like. I wanted to be part of helping make those decisions to protect the things that drew me here and have kept me here, which are similar to what have drawn and kept so many other people here. 

TR: What brought you to the valley to begin with?

Puckett Daniels: I graduated from college in 2004. When I left college, my goal was to have as many experiences as I could. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to learn new languages. I wanted to really just dive into the world. That's the time to do it. And so I did it for five years. And at the end of that, I was like, cool, I kind of want to have a home now. I had a friend who lived in Crested Butte, and I had visited her and it stuck in the back of my mind. I thought, I know I can work hard, so if I'm going to be making coffee or babysitting or cleaning toilets, or whatever it takes to get by and might as well do it in the most beautiful place on earth. I moved to Crested Butte and I started working at Shades selling sunglasses and teaching Nordic skiing at the Nordic Center. Then in February, I started coaching track. And by summer I was gardening and babysitting. 

TR: That’s a pretty typical story among people who come here.

Puckett Daniels: I know from firsthand experience what it's like to try to survive here and make things add up. I found that the better jobs I got and the more opportunities I had to work one job or to work a more sustainable job allowed me to give back to the community in different ways. It deepened my bonds with this community, having interactions with people on trail work days or on the planning commission, or coaching. These different things that I do now give me this connection to folks in different sectors of our community that has created the profound sense of belonging I have here and I want other people to get to feel that way. 

TR: What do you think can be done to relieve economic pressures and create that kind of opportunity for everyone?

Puckett Daniels: My approach is to recognize that I don't have all the answers, but there are a lot of experts in our community who are working on it. Whether that's working with health and human services, working with our behavioral health department at the hospital, working with the community foundation, working with our teachers in the school district — really trying to listen to people across the sectors who have more expertise than I do about how we make these changes to raise people up.

TR: Housing is at the very top of everyone’s list of concerns. 

Puckett Daniels: Everybody wants to talk about affordable housing right now. Our businesses can't hire people, our hospital and our schools are having trouble getting people to take jobs because they can't move here. Housing is on everybody's mind. If we decide that affordable housing is really important right now, where does it make the most sense to put it, and what kind of housing is there? What kind of infrastructure is there? Can kids get to school? Do they have a place to play? And at the same time that we're making that decision, let's look at, okay, then what do we want to protect? 

Click here to watch the video or listen to the rest of the conversation.

(Alan Wartes can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or publisher@gunnisontimes.com.).