Topics:
Constituent/Candidate Priorities: :12
Wildfires: 1:35
Rural Healthcare: 5:13
Housing Solutions: 9:10
Latino Community Representation: 13:32
Community Safety: 17:13
Bipartisanship: 20:56
Personal Experience: 23:42
Additional Concerns/Statement: 26:08
Hattison Rensberry: This is a special election candidate interview with KDNK. I'm your host, Hattison Rinsbury, and in the studio today, we have
Mike Samson: Mike Sampson, Garfield County Commissioner.
Rensberry: Thanks for joining us today, Mike.
Samson: Thank you.
Rensberry: All right, let's jump in. Let's talk a little bit about what you believe are the highest priorities for your constituents in Garfield County.
Samson: As I've always said, I think the highest thing that a commissioner can aspire to is paying attention to the health, welfare, and safety of his constituency in Garfield County. The quality of life and those things that are associated with the quality of life are all wrapped up in it: your welfare, and how are you making it.
You know, I see young families that are really struggling, and being an educator, I know that a lot of teachers, a lot of policemen, a lot of firefighters, healthcare work, whatever it may be throughout the journey of life, they're not making a ton of money and they're struggling. And the inflation rate within the United States right now is just staggering. It's tough. It's really tough.
And then of course you talk about safety. What is safety? We need to have, we want safe homes for ourselves, our children, our parents, whatever the situation may dictate. And your health. How is your health? You know, you talk to the old adage, it's very true, I believe, you might have a whole lot of money, but if you don't have good health your life isn't real good in a lot of ways, so, yeah.
Rensberry: No, that's very fair.
An issue that we've seen time and time again, especially in this region, is the fact that Colorado has seen more intense wildfires and wildfire seasons that last longer than previous years. What are some of your priorities that will help communities to deal with these kinds of natural disasters?
Samson: You bet. That's a good question. In my 16 years as being a county commissioner, we've had a couple bad years. The one year – years run together. We had the one in Glenwood [the Grizzly Creek Fire], and then we had the Pine Gulch Fire down west of … I mean, those happened the same year and they were bad. And what causes those? Well, there's a myriad of reasons. But I would say one thing and this is a plea: please, people, whenever you're out and about be careful.
So, humans being careless – that in itself. I think we need to educate and I see more organizations educating people. Because you get people coming to Western Colorado or the out of doors from all over and they're not used to it and they don't pay attention. And once you get a small fire started in the wrong way, you got a disaster. Trying to get that out quickly is sometimes I've seen it happen, but it's tough. So, educating people to be careful when they're out of doors because so many fires are started by human nature.
Lightning: nothing we can do about it. Dry conditions, it's just, that's the way it is, and that's the way of the West, I guess you might say, as you're dealing with it.
But the other thing is, I think, supporting those organizations that are trying their best to help people understand how to use the forest and so on.
And I'm a true believer that I think, I really think one of the main reasons that we see more fires is the mismanagement of the forest. We didn't used to have so many forest fires, it seems like – who knows, I don't know the statistics on it – but it appears to me that a lot of it is, I've talked to foresters, and the forests are our water purification. If we don't have good forests, we're not going to have good water. They're the one, the forest, the trees, the plant life, that's what takes care of our streams and the water that the West is so dependent upon. So it's all tied together.
But I've talked to a lot of forest people, forestry. And they say the mismanagement of where we used to have more logging and not clear-cutting – that would be ridiculous to do that – but selective cutting and getting that dead wood out of there. You know, when we had the pine beetle infestation and so much of that was just left where it could have been harvested and they didn't. And once the fire gets started and you've got a bunch of dead-standing trees. It's just devastating.
So that's a couple of things. And we have people come before us all the time, whether it's the forest or whether it's a river district or middle Colorado, whatever and they're talking about forestry because they understand the importance of those things and we support them. We as a commission have supported them and encouraged them, and financed them in ways.
Rensberry: Something that you mentioned earlier in this conversation is rural health care and how important your health is. The limits of rural health care are looming concerns for many residents of Garfield County.
What are some policies or partnerships that you believe would be beneficial to the current situation?
Samson: Well, health care, as you know, is dependent a lot upon the federal government. And you see more and more people who are dependent upon health care. And I think COVID had a startling realization to all of us.
I mean, I got the three shots. And people would come up to me and say, “Why did you do that?” And I'd say, well, let me tell you a story. When I was a little kid, I remember my grandfather and grandmother taking me, and I swallowed a little sugar cube for it was polio. And then the other one was the shot that you got for smallpox.
And I said, I never got polio, and I never got the smallpox. Now, did those prevent that? I don't know. But I know this: some of the people that I know did get those. I didn't. So I'm saying, vaccines, I think, are good. Okay? And a lot of people – but I always said, you should have your choice. If you want to take the vaccine, and I did, and my family did. And it was insurance, I guess you might say. And others said, no, we don't believe in it, we don't want to do it. I don't think you should be forced to do it. It's your choice. But in my way, in my example to others, I said, I know that I never got polio and I never got smallpox. And I think that's a good thing. Just a side note there, that just dealing with healthcare and so on.
But to answer your question, we, at the county level, and I'll kind of personalize it a little bit – very proud of this – I think we're about the only big employer in the county that doesn't charge a premium to its employees for health care. Now that's one big thing. We have over 500 employees, and that helps them in their pocketbook big time.
Now I've got to say: how long are we going to be able to do that? How long is that sustainable? I don't know, but since I've been a commissioner, and before that, okay, I'm not taking total – but for the past 16 years, I'll take some credit for it. We pay that premium. Now, if you want better insurance than what we're offering, and it's pretty good insurance, okay, you can pay a premium on top of that, and so on and so forth. I should make that clear.
But my point is, that's helping 500 of our employees to make it and so on. Healthcare costs are unreal. They're just unreal, and I know so many young families who don't have health care. And you know as well as I do, okay? One blip on the radar, and they're wiped out financially. That shouldn't be. So, I think we're doing, we're helping as much as we can there.
The other thing I'm very proud of is the two health centers, Marathon Health, that we have. One is in Glenwood, one is in Rifle. And what this basically is it really cuts the cost down. And we have school districts and other organizations that we've teamed up with to cut and bring those costs down.
And they really do. I mean – I use it. My, wife, our kids are gone and so on and so forth, but we use it. And I know the costs there, instead of going to other places, is so much lower. So what have we done doing as a county? Those are two big things.
Rensberry: Sure. You've also mentioned in our earlier part of the conversation about housing stability. When it comes to housing, in this county, what are some solutions that you think we should be encouraging?
Samson: Well, there's several, and housing is a stickler. And the one thing that I'll say that's causing – well, just look at this valley: it's expensive to live here. And I don't know how you get out of that, okay?
If you go down to a lot of the southern states, pick one, Arkansas, it's a lot less expensive to live. But that's life, and people have to realize, and it's sad because we've seen it in the county. I'm sure you and your business here, whatever the business is, someone really wants to move here. And they figure out how much they're gonna make in a salary, what the benefits are, and then they look at the housing and they go “My goodness, I can't do it. I can't accept unless you pay me more money.” And that happens across, I heard, I hear those horror stories all the time, “We'd really love to take that job, but we can't, because we're not gonna make it.” It's sad, it's really sad.
That being said, housing is one of those things, if you're going to have a decent quality of life, you want some nice housing. I guess if you're a single guy all by yourself, that's one thing. You got a wife, you got kids, you got a husband, you got kids, whatever it is. Yeah, you want to live in a nice home, okay? And that would be nice to be able to do that.
A couple of things that we've done, I don't know if you're familiar with the Wapiti's Commons area down in Rifle. We put forth money for two of those. I can't remember the exact number of money we put in for each one and so on to help that. We just had Habitat for Humanity come with us and I can't remember what the project is, but it's in West Glenwood – what it's called, and so on – but we got involved with a unit on that and so on and we've done that in the past and I would say we will continue to do that. And that helps to some small degree.
The other thing that we've done is, when I first came on board, we went through the Comprehensive Plan of Garfield County. And we totally revamped that. With housing in mind, and so on, and trying to make it easier for developers, private individuals, whoever it may be, make it easier for them. And we did.
And then – and I always love telling this story – when I first got my land use code book, it was, I'm going to say, 4 to 5 to 6 inches thick. And I kind of get a chuckle when people will call me and ask me a very technical question and say, “Well, you're the commissioner, you should know that.” And I go, no I don't know that. I don't know all those land codes. That's why I've got a planning commission, you know, these people working that's their job in knowing those things. I have to make the final decisions on it and so on, but, well, I'm proud to say we cut that down to about a third, and it took us a long time.
In other words, what I'm saying, we streamlined a lot of things in there and cut out, I'm going to call it red tape, developers probably would call it a pain in the butt, you know? And we cut that out to try and make it less expensive for people to build – less headaches for people. And I know to this day, they're still saying, well, we need to do this, we need to do that, and sometimes we can, and sometimes we can't.
One of the things that I always say to our defense is you do have some state guidelines and so on and so forth. Whether it's water regulations to electrical to plumbing, those kind of supersede you. You know, and so on and so forth, but we really have tried to, but it's very frustrating.
Rensberry: Our region, especially Garfield County, is seeing a growing Latino community. How do you as a commissioner intend to represent them fully?
Samson: I'm not really trying to talk politics here, but I want to share this story with you because I think it illustrates what you're talking about. I have a little five-year-old grandson that goes to Graham Mesa. And I was taking him there one day, and this Latino lady pulls up in a pickup truck, and she rolls down the window and she says, “Commissioner Samson, come here.”
And I said, yes, can I help you? And she said, she pointed at me, and she said, “You did the right thing in passing that non-sanctuary status resolution.” And I said, well, thank you. I want you to know you're the fourth Latino lady that has said that to me in the past two weeks. And we got talking about things and so on and so forth.
She's actually on my re-election committee now. And she has been a godsend to me because she is very active in the Latino community. And I've got to know a whole lot of other people. Now you've got to realize, I grew up in Rifle, and we had Latinos here, not like we do now. But I went to school with them, and they were my buddies, and I played sports with them, and the whole nine yards, and so on.
But it's changing. Our community is changing. And if I do have my statistics correct, I think in most schools in Garfield County now, the Latinos are the majority. So, the dynamics, the demographics are changing.
We've had ups and downs with forming a group. A Latino group that kind of was an advisory group and talked about and we, as a county, put money towards them and got them formed, and it's kind of gone up and down. And people move away, you know, it's just really fluid, so how things go. But it's been instrumental to me to listen to some of the feedback that they have.
And we've helped them. I've gone there and talked to them as well as the other commissioners. We've had state representatives or representatives from business or college or something and so on and so forth. And I think those are ways that we can reach out.
The library board, we just appointed Myrna Fletchall on there, who is a very, I mean, I'm very impressed with her. And when I saw her, as I'm going through trying to make my decision, and that's why I made the motion that she be placed on there, is because there wasn't a Latino on that. And I said she's great. And I'm glad that she's on there.
I think trying to get more people involved, and I've talked to Latino men and women, and I'll just say this, and I don't want to offend anybody, the women seem to be the movers and the shakers a little bit more in things that are political. They're more involved, it seems like, in that culture. So I talk to a lot of the ladies, Latino ladies and I'd like to see more of them get involved in various things.
Rensberry: Interesting. You talked about this a little bit earlier, but let's go into it a little bit more. What's one thing that you believe can make communities safer?
Samson: I think society and civilization, should be based very strongly upon the family, okay? I was a high school teacher for 25 years and an administrator for 5 years. Thirty years, I worked for Garfield RE2 School District. I graduated from Rifle High School in 1972. Things are a lot different in Rifle and Garfield County when, in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, I mean right up to 2024.
I've seen things evolve and so on and so forth, but I think one bedrock thing that is so important, and I see because of modern society and the influences of things, some good, some bad, so on and so forth, and we could dissect that and talk about that for hours, days, months, but boil it down: the family, okay?
I like to do and support things that encourage and support strong families. Because I see, and I'll just be really honest, I came from a single-parent family. My father died when I was two. My mother never remarried. I never had a father, per se. That being said, I had a lot of fathers. My grandfather and my grandmother raised me.
So I didn't have that traditional family. But I think it really is neat when you do have that traditional family and you instill those kinds of values. There's all kinds of families. I got that. I was different because it wasn't mom and dad.
But instilling in young children teenagers, good values, good morals, good sense, common sense, good decency, those kinds of things. Learn to be self-reliant. Don't depend on the government to give you everything. Don't depend on the government for a handout.
That being said, I know things happen to people and they need help. But hopefully, help your neighbor, help your family, help your extended family. Learn those kinds of things, because those are the kinds of people that I have seen in my life benefit people and make strong, independent people that make good citizens of all cultures, of all lives.
Those kinds of things. So if I were to say to anybody who's listening out there, those things are much more important than all this other, for lack of a better word, noise that's helping us or hurting us around us in our society.
The bedrock of a community, of a county, a state, a nation, a world: it starts with that family, that nucleus of a family. And instilling in them those kinds of values. That's really important. I think in a lot of ways we're losing that and we're losing it quickly. And that's why we see so many problems that we shouldn't be, but we do.
Rensberry: There's a lot of discussions amongst voters and amongst different points of the legislature about bipartisanship, and on a local level, there's some requests for that as well.
How do you promote community cooperation between people who might not necessarily agree with each other?
Samson: Well, let me give you an example of that. I believe that politics, all things are local with this one exception: politics and the flavor start at the top. And what do we have, and what have we had for many years in national politics?
Pretty ugly, pretty nasty. This election is no exception to that. And I say it starts at the top and it works its way down. So if you've got a nut, ugly – which we do, and I think it's going to get worse – political flavor coming down from the presidential race, down through all the states, down into the counties, okay? It's happening and we see it.
I called up my opponent – I'm gonna say it was in April. I said, Steve, I would like to talk to you just one-on-one because I've never met you. And he says, let's just go over to the Rifle Library. I'll meet you at the Rifle Library. We got a room there we can go.
So we went in there and we sat down. We talked for 45 minutes, 60 minutes, an hour, whatever, just about all kinds of things. We got several things. It turns out we both love “Lonesome Dove.” He's from Texas, okay. And I think that's how we got on it and Westerns and, you know, just talking like guys talk. And we both love Lonesome Dove and we talked about that probably for 10 minutes.
So anyway, but I said, the reason I want to talk to you is I said, I've always tried my best to run a clean campaign and not get nasty. And I would say it's been that way with the four previous elections that I've been in. I said I imagine you want the same thing. And he said, yep. And I said, good, we shook hands and everything so far has been – nobody's thrown any dirt and mud like you see at so many other things.
Now that's not going to say, and I'll point out my differences, and he'll point out his differences, and then the voters can decide who do they think they want to vote for and so on and so forth. But I really have never ran an ugly campaign, and I have no desire to do that. I think that's a great way for the two of us to set an example for all of Garfield County.
Rensberry: I think it would be good to circle back here and talk a little bit about another personal experience or part of your lifestyle that you feel can help you to better serve your community.
Samson: For 30 years I was an educator. Twenty-five years at Rifle High School teaching mainly the social sciences, U.S. government, and American history. And then the last five years out of that 30 years, the Dean of Students at Rifle High School.
I like high school kids, okay? I love working with them. I was the head volleyball coach at one time. Took the first Rifle High School team to state. Working with high school kids, you know, I was the speech club sponsor – besides coaching those two sports, I was the speech club sponsor. I was the student council sponsor for many, many years. Student government, helping kids to get into leadership positions, and so on and so forth. Those experiences really helped me.
The last 20 years of that, 30 years, I taught CMC. I was an adjunct professor there at night, teaching. I think I taught speech, a lot of speech classes, a lot of political science, and American government classes. Loved that, also teaching adults and so on.
I guess what I'm saying is those experiences really helped me. I've had a lot of people ask me questions, “What's the big difference, Mike, between doing that and being a commissioner?” And it's kind of a joke, but I say it, that when I was in the high school as a teacher and administrator for 30 years, I had to take care of teenagers. Now, for the past 16 years as a county commissioner, I have to take care of the parents of the teenagers. [Laughs.]
Also, serving time on the Rifle City Council as a young man, I mean, I had just graduated from college, moved back, and got that job. And several people came to me and said, “Mike, you got a degree in political science. We want you to run for Rifle City Council.”
Rensberry: Well, I've got only one more question for you. Is there anything else that you want to discuss that we haven't touched on yet?
Samson: Well, I would say this, okay, as the people here in your listening audience and the clientele, the constituency of Garfield County, there's a lot of differences between my opponent and me. What I would say is take a good look. If you've lived here at any amount of time and you don't know who Mike Samson is and what I stand for and what I've done, then I guess you just haven't been paying attention or been hiding under a rock or something.
My life is pretty much an open book, being the commissioner for 16 years, okay? Take a good look at me, what my record is, what I've done, what I stand for, and take a look at him. There's gonna be some stark differences there. Really stark differences. And make an educated – I mean you have a right to vote if you're a U.S. Citizen, you're registered, you have a right to vote. Hopefully, you'll vote for me But if you don't you don't but that's your right. So that's what I'll end with.
Rensberry: Well, thank you again Mike for coming in today and making the time. We really appreciate it.
Samson: My pleasure. My pleasure
Facebook - N/A
Instagram - N/A
