Topics:
Constituent/Candidate Priorities: :16
Wildfires: :50
Rural Healthcare: 3:35
Housing Solutions: 5:28
Latino Community Representation: 9:03
Community Safety: 11:25
Bipartisanship: 12:23
Personal Experience: 14:10
Livable Costs: 15:23
Education Priorities: 17:23
What do you wish more people knew about you? 19:12
Additional Concerns/Statement: 20:08
Events in National Politics: 22:08
Hattison Rensberry: This is a special candidate interview with KDNK News. I'm your host, Haddison Rensbury, and in the studio today we have
Representative Elizabeth Velasco: Representative Elizabeth Velasco
Rensberry: Thanks for making time to talk to us today.
Representative Velasco: Thank you.
Rensberry: Much appreciated. Let's just jump right into it. What is it that you believe are the highest priorities for your constituents?
Representative Velasco: Yeah, so for me, you know, I have three pillars that have guided everything that I've done. And the first one is supporting working families. The other one is being ready for a changing climate and adapting to a changing climate. And the last is really being responsive to our local needs and being accessible to our local municipalities.
Rensberry: Talking a little bit about an issue that is often in tandem with the conversations about a changing climate and has been a bit of a pretty big issue for you regarding legislation. Is the fact that Colorado has seen more intense wildfires and longer wildfire seasons in recent years?
What are some of your priorities that will assist communities in dealing with these natural disasters?
Representative Velasco: With my background as a wildland firefighter and a public information officer, we know that our community is vulnerable. We have been hit with major events, major fires, and we continue to see the implications of those, even years after. We're still working on reforestation projects in the Grizzly Creek Canyon and upgrades to water systems all the way to Silt that were damaged later on by those mudslides and the debris that came through the river.
My first year in session, I served as the chair of the Wildfire Matters Committee, where we passed multiple pieces of legislation and one of the big ones was a study to make emergency alerts more accessible with language access and to our disability community.
This year, I'm the Vice Chair of the Interim Committee, and we'll have more legislation. But even this year, we also passed grant programs for municipalities and local communities to apply for fire mitigation grants and also have technical assistance to access the resources. So, climate adaptation is really one of my top priorities and we'll continue to address those issues.
One that I'm looking at right now is having guidelines and guardrails whenever there's a power shut-off. You know, we continue to see that that's a tool being utilized and right now there are no guidelines that say: we must have communication with local emergency managers, we must have designated shelters for people who need to plug in their medical equipment, or communication protocols for different vulnerable communities. So that's something that I'm currently working on.
Rensberry: Another issue that is impactful for the people in your district is the fact that rural health care and its limits are a really big concern for a lot of residents. What are some policies or partnerships that, you believe, would be beneficial to the current situation?
Representative Velasco: At the state level, I have supported different policies, for example, capping the price of EpiPens. And I think it would take us many years if we're doing med by med or thing by thing.
But I know that access to health care has been a huge issue from mental health care to reproductive care and access to abortion. And that continues to be a priority for me to support.
I know that our hospitals are some of the most expensive in the nation. So, we continue to look for creative collaborations for regional solutions to bring those prices down and for more people to have access to health insurance. You know, because right now many times our insurance is tied to our employer and you know, it just gets harder and harder to have access.
We also invested in college program support for students to be able to stay here, to be able to go to school and be able to serve the community here as professionals. So, I know that there's much more to do. We continue to see that as a gap here.
Rensberry: Another thing that a lot of people would agree on is a gap in this area is the issue of housing. What are some solutions for that issue that you intend to encourage?
Representative Velasco: I have worked really hard on supporting our mobile home park residents. One of my first bills was starting to address the issues with water quality in mobile home parks. We know that that's our last affordable housing which is not subsidized for our communities where many working people live. I was also the prime sponsor of rent control. This is a measure that didn't pass this time, but we'll bring it in the future again just because we know that the median price of a home in Glenwood Springs right now is a million dollars, and that's not affordable to anyone. I mean, no one that lives here, no one that's a professional here.
Housing is a huge issue. We see collaborations now with our federal partners, with the Forest Service, looking at state-owned land for affordable housing projects, and supporting Habitat for Humanity in the work that they do. So it’s definitely all hands on deck, and we know that's a huge issue for us.
For Garfield County to have been identified as the hardest place to buy a home in the nation, you know, that tells us that what we've been doing has not been enough and that we need to continue to focus on affordable housing, dignified housing, and workforce housing.
Rensberry: Let's talk a little bit more about your moves towards rent control for people who are unfamiliar. What would that look like for you?
Representative Velasco: So right now there is a restriction. It says that no municipality or county can implement that tool. So what we want to do is lift that prohibition so that each community can come up with its own creative solutions and its own programs with the guardrails they need.
We know that all rural communities are not the same as urban communities. So having that in mind, local control is very important. So we also added some guardrails on our proposal to say that buildings and homes less than 15 years old wouldn't participate.
So we created a couple of guardrails to make sure that developers are still making money, but we are able to have that as a tool in the toolbox for communities. At this junction, my first year serving, that didn't pass but we did get it the farthest that it’s ever been.
And, you know, for community members who are unable to buy a home – we have a lot of people who rent – so when we think of our housing solutions, it's not only for ownership but also making sure that we support renters.
Rensberry: Our region here in your district, in Garfield County, in the western Slope of Colorado in general, is seeing a growing Latino community over the past couple of decades. How do you intend to represent them faithfully?
Representative Velasco: That's a great question. Our community is 30 percent Latino district. And many of our communities have more than 30 percent Latino population.
We see that our school districts are majority-minority. So it's, to me, as a new American, as a Latina myself, the first ever elected in the Western Slope and first Mexican-born legislator in the state, I do feel like I bring that representation that we haven't had.
And some of the things that I see is that we are working families. We are a part of the economy. We work in all types of industries. We have to make sure that we are addressing our language access gaps, that we're addressing the barriers of access to resources so that our immigration status is not an issue.
In all our state programs, we don't have any barriers of access or immigration status. So continuing to lift that. For example, this year we passed the law taking away that two-year residency requirement for undocumented folks to get their driver's license. And that just helps everyone in the community because it makes our rates lower because there's more people participating. And it helps our law enforcement because people have an ID and are able to identify themselves. And we had the support of law enforcement.
So, those are some of the types of things that I continue to support and address because I know that our Latino population is part of our strength in our community and the state.
Rensberry: What's one thing you believe can be done to make communities safer?
Representative Velasco: That's a hard one. I mean, I think the work that I have done on climate adaptation – I feel like that's public safety. For people to have access to clean air and clean water, for people to be able to have access to emergency information, to be able to make decisions for their families. All of that, to me, is public safety. To continue to work on that because we see a changing climate where workers need to have protections when they're working outside and there are 100-degree temperatures. So to me, climate adaptation and public safety are closely related and also our community resiliency.
Rensberry: As an incumbent, I know you've already done a term, but if given the opportunity to do a second term, how do you plan to promote more bipartisanship within the legislature?
Representative Velasco: That's an interesting question because since my first day, I have been working in a bipartisan way. I work with anyone interested in getting things done. And that's been local elected county commissioners, senators, representatives, and I have worked in a bipartisan way. So, I will continue to do that to work with anyone interested in getting the work done. And especially if they're from our district or the region.
I collaborated with Perry Will, the senator for the district, and with others, for example, the Wildfire Matters Committee, all of those bills that came from the committee were bipartisan with members in the committee.
So I would say that I would continue to do that work and know that whenever there are opportunities to work together, I will take them but also that there are clear differences, between Democrats and Republicans, and we see that at the legislature.
Rensberry: Interesting. On a more personal note, what's a personal experience or a part of your lifestyle that you believe can help you better serve this community?
Representative Velasco: I come with a background in community organizing. And I think that has served me well. You know, I make a point of being very inclusive. When I work on my policy, I talk to anyone who I think will be affected. I make a point of engaging with the opposition and hopefully coming to a compromise. But even if we don't – just being able to have those conversations – so I feel like that's served me really well especially because there's no manual, you know, there's not like ‘Oh, this is the job now.’ We make it our own. So I feel like that has been a strength. Also, I worked in the district so I know everyone and have really had a lot of the lived experiences from our working families.
Rensberry: You mentioned earlier some of the costs involved with living in this district and a lot of your constituents are concerned about the financial difficulties of living here. What are some solutions you believe would make costs more livable for people working in areas like this one?
Representative Velasco: One of the big bills that we passed this session is around increasing the oil and gas production fees to invest in transportation. So, we have very aggressive goals of decreasing our emissions in the state, but also knowing that people shouldn't be driving two hours a day to get to work. So transportation is a huge investment for people to be able to drive less and have less emissions in the community.
I also think that there's a ballot initiative around protecting abortion and access to reproductive rights. And right now, we don't have that access to elective abortions in the district. So, making sure that that's available after that ballot initiative passes.
So I think there are still many opportunities, you know, for collaboration to make sure that we all have access to dignified living. We want to keep talent here. We want our youth and our students to be able to come back and stay in the community. We want our seniors to be able to retire. There’s many opportunities, you know, but continuing to invest in education, continuing to invest in affordable housing projects, supporting our emergency responders. So there's a lot of work to be done.
Rensberry: When it comes to the issue of education in our district, there are issues around teacher retention. There are issues around teacher pay. There are issues from people on what they do or do not want kids to learn in school. What is a priority regarding education for you?
Representative Velasco: Definitely the number one is funding education. This year we got rid of the BS factor, which was a huge win. We also changed the funding formula for schools. So, RE1 and RE2 are going to see an increase in funding, which is needed. But we need an increase for all the districts, of course, and we want our teachers to get paid better.
I will continue to stand up against far-right extremism. For example, the American Birthright Curriculum that was proposed is not something that we want here. We want to support our kids and we don't want to discriminate against anyone, no matter their sexual orientation or if they're immigrants or their immigration status. So I'm supportive of public education and funding education and will continue to stand up against extremism.
Rensberry: On another personal level, what is something that you wish more people knew about you?
Representative Velasco: Something that I wish people knew, I guess, is that I work really hard for the district. I really care about the community. And I want their lives to be better, you know? I know that life is hard for us in rural communities. And that, you know, I am just a person, you know? To not feel intimidated, to reach out. I want to hear from people and from my constituents. It's been an honor to represent them and hopefully, I get to do that again.
Rensberry: Is there anything else that we haven't discussed at all that is really important for you to talk about today?
Representative Velasco: There are a couple of things, I mean, as we move on with the electrification of the state: the importance of having a fireproof and weatherproof grid continues to be a priority for me. To make sure that we all have energy, reliable and affordable energy in our homes. And we'll continue to work in that space.
And also environmental justice, to continue to address who's the most impacted by the way that we extract resources. We have, for example, in our communities, 60 percent of the district is public lands. We know that nature is so important, and protecting public lands is so important, but also we must mitigate the impacts of oil and gas.
When we fly over the district we can see the impact of oil and gas operations, the impact to our forest. You know, the deforestation and also the impact on the community. As we think of our community which is so close to nature, that for many of us, you know, access to clean air and clean water is not the reality.
We continue to see schools closed down because of broken gas lines and broken water lines. So I will continue to work on that path to move away from oil and gas and into the clean energy future.
Rensberry: Sure. Yeah. I've got a little bit more time. So if I can, I can ask you a couple more questions similar to sort of what I talked a little bit about with, you know, the other candidate, Caleb Waller. He mentioned that there were a couple of events in recent national politics that affected him personally, such as the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
Is there anything in recent events regarding politics that has affected you personally?
Representative Velasco: Yeah. I was very impressed with President Biden stepping aside for us to have a black woman running to be president. I mean, that's historic. Of course, I am endorsing her and supporting her. And we had the announcement of Tim Waltz running as the Vice President. What a great representation it is to have a woman of color running for office. For our highest office and then to have a rural person, you know, someone that grew up in a in a town off 400 people running us as the Vice President.
And I do think that the conversation is around unity, you know, the things that we care about. And that has been my platform: We want to support working families. We want to support rural communities. And that for community members – we have a lot more in common than not because we're all impacted by the issues.
So, yeah, I think that I've been really proud of the ticket that we have on the Democratic side.
Rensberry: If people want to get in touch with you or your team or learn more about your campaign, where can they go?
Representative Velasco: They can definitely email us. My email is Elizabeth.Velasco.legislator@gmail.com. And they can always reach our office as well. And I live here in Glenwood Springs so if you see me around please feel free to say hi.
This interim we’re also doing a district-wide tour where we're visiting each municipality and talking to council members about the projects that they're working on and have seen a lot of fruits from collaboration, you know, not only with the state but with the federal delegation.
From the south side bridge in Glenwood Springs to the solutions we have worked on I-70 to keep the roads open. So, that's been really cool. We have nine municipalities in the district. It’s a pretty large district and we're a diverse district, you know, so I think that's a strength that we have.
Rensberry: Thank you again so much for coming in today, Representative Velasco. I really appreciate it and have a great rest of your day.
Representative Velasco: Thank you.
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