Bennet has a ‘track record of showing up’ for Gunnison County

Folks in Gunnison County and across Colorado should begin receiving their primary ballots this week and they are due back by 7 p.m. on June 30. Although there are no local primaries on the ballot, the race for Colorado Governor should be of concern for all of us here in Gunnison County. As a four-term Gunnison County Commissioner and former City of Gunnison Mayor and council member I clearly know that having our issues well understood and connected to the governor and their staff makes a huge difference in how we can work collaboratively to solve problems and make people’s lives better right here at home. 

I believe Michael Bennet is by far the best candidate for the interest of the people of Gunnison County. He has a track record of showing up for us as our United States Senator and if elected governor he will continue to show up not only for Gunnison County, but for all rural areas like ours that he knows very well from years of connectivity with our communities.

Sadly, the urban-rural divide has grown over the last eight years, and we need a governor that will rebuild relationships and truly address West Slope issues like agriculture, cost of living, water, public lands, wildfire, roads, access to healthcare, community utility infrastructure, education, drought, and transportation. 

Bennet has been our partner in addressing many of these issues over the years by shaping policy, securing funding and aligning programs to support our desired outcomes. Since 2021, Bennet has been instrumental in securing over $115 million dollars for our most pressing needs. A snapshot of where some of that funding has gone would include the City of Gunnison sewer expansion ($1.7 million) and improved water infrastructure ($1.2 million), The Town of Crested Butte wastewater treatment plant ($11 million), RTA for new buses ($3 million), Mountain Express maintenance, storage and operations facility in CB ($14.4 million), WCU for a rural nursing program ($1.9 million), RMBL for research on watershed and forest health research ($975,000), GCEA ($5 million) and the Colorado West Land Trust ($13.6 million) for the Middle Gunnison Partnership for working ag lands. Most recently, working with Gunnison County Bennet secured $15 million for road improvements on Highway 135 to support the Whetstone Workforce Housing project for safety and multimodal improvements, as well as safety improvements at Highway 50 and Main Street in Gunnison and the entrance to Crested Butte at Red Lady Avenue.

Beyond funding, Bennet worked directly with Gunnison County and our ranchers supporting our local efforts to avoid having the Gunnison Sage Grouse listed as an endangered species and bolstering the work done locally to sustain the bird’s survival. He was the driving force supporting our local efforts for the administrative mineral withdrawal for both Thompson Divide and Mt. Emmons and then the subsequent land exchange that formalized the conservation agreements that ended the possibility of mining on Red Lady. Finally, Bennet supported over 10 years of community dialogue on our desired outcomes for Gunnison County public lands. We brought together ranchers, water managers, conservationists, hunters and anglers, recreationalists-including mountain bikers, summer and winter motorized, hikers and boaters, as well as local governments to develop through the Gunnison Public Lands Initiative (GPLI) what has become the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act. The GORP Act was introduced by Senator Bennet and has a companion bill in the House of Representatives being sponsored by Congressman Jeff Hurd. Having bi-partisan federal legislation introduced shows that Bennet knows how to build coalitions around community centered and driven initiatives built on trust and elevating local voices and desires in decision making. 

Seeing this list of funding and policy accomplishments that have had a direct benefit for Gunnison County might have you asking, like Bennet’s primary challenger Phil Weiser often does, don’t we need to keep Bennet in the senate? Bennet has addressed these questions many times and consistently answers that he feels at this time when dysfunction in DC has even made its way into the senate, traditionally referred to as “the world’s greatest deliberative body”,  he can best serve Colorado as governor by bringing his experience, leadership and deep connectivity to the whole state home in a time when Colorado is facing significant challenges. Like Bennet, I believe that states will be the place where creativity and collaboration can be applied to uphold our values and deliver results for the people. Colorado is well suited to doing that and needs the vision and experience that Bennet brings to the table.

Bennet has actual plans to begin implementing policies that will address the key issues facing us here in Gunnison County and across the state. His plans for housing, healthcare, clean air, education, childcare, water, economy, kid safety, standing up to Trump, transportation, forest & wildfire, energy, public safety and immigration are laid out on his website. You will easily see that many of his priorities and proposals line up with the vision and values we have here in Gunnison County.

I have worked with Bennet since my time as mayor and for the last 14 years as your county commissioner. I have always appreciated that he talks with us, not at us. He is deeply curious to understand our issues and what outcomes we want to see before offering solutions. As we have seen in issues like Gunnison Sage Grouse or Mt. Emmons, he will settle in for the long haul and stay in the fight with us-something quite refreshing in modern day politics. There is a reason Gunnison Mayor Diego Plata, Crested Butte Mayor Ian Billick and Mount Crested Butte Mayor Nicolas Kempin and I are all supporting Bennet in his bid to be our next governor- we know he is the best candidate to deliver for us here in Gunnison County. Bennet knows us, he gets us and he will continue to stand up for us. I urge all democratic and unaffiliated voters to return your democratic primary ballot and cast your vote for Bennet.