Listening to What My Dad Taught Me: Yes on 1A

Editor:

Listening to What My Dad Taught Me: Yes on 1A

My dad taught me more than a few things in his short life, two lessons that stick with me are; 1) take care of your stuff, and 2) don’t go into debt. 

First, my dad’s parents were children of immigrants, who grew up with very little. They taught him to take good care of the belongings he had. I remember him fixing our Volvo station wagon and Nissan Sentra (if you’re not familiar, it’s a tin can on wheels) on weekend mornings, happily walking into the kitchen to grab a cookie to keep him fueled. His hard work protected our family assets, and made it so we could safely get to school and get to the mountains on weekends for a little R&R. 

Second, he warned me against the dangers of debt. In this case, credit card debt. He knew that if we ever got into debt as young adults, it would be increasingly difficult to get out. The more we spent, the more expensive the bills would be. 

I get that life is expensive right now. I manage our family finances, and when I pay the bills each month, I wish we had more to set aside for savings, but, we don’t. Raising two kids is expensive in this valley. While I know it will hurt a bit, I believe that we need to make tough choices and protect what we have, rather than wait to pay it off in the future. 

Ballot Measure 1A takes care of a $38 million maintenance backlog. Folks, we haven’t been taking care of our things. And worse, we’re building up a form of debt by continuing to use roads without fixing them. If we don’t address it now, we face having to rebuild roads if they deteriorate too much. Rebuilding a single mile of road can cost $3 million, while preventive maintenance costs far less.

Measure 1A is a 0.50% countywide sales tax, 50 cents on every $100 purchased, dedicated to roads and bridges. For a household spending about $2,000 a month on taxable goods, that's roughly $10 a month. It isn't a property tax, visitors who drive our roads help pay for them, and the revenue could not be redirected to other county purposes. It would also give the county the local match many state and federal grants require.

It’s time to address this growing gap in the county budget, and make sure we can still get our kids to school and get to the mountains for a little R&R on the weekend. Join me this November (or earlier!) in voting for Measure 1A. 

Thank you,

Katya Schloesser

Gunnison