Topics:
Constituent/Candidate Priorities: :15
Wildfires: 1:29
Rural Healthcare: 2:33
Housing Solutions: 3:51
Latino Community Representation: 5:27
Community Safety: 6:46
Bipartisanship: 7:48
Personal Experience: 9:22
Livable Costs: 11:28
Education Priorities: 13:45
Additional Concerns/Statement: 16:02
Hattison Rensberry: This is a KDNK News special election interview. We have today as our guest in the studio,
Cole Buerger: Cole Buerger.
Rensberry: Thanks for joining us, Cole.
Buerger: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Rensberry: Yeah. Happy to. Let's just pop right into the interview and get started. What do you believe are the highest priorities for your constituents?
Buerger: Well I mean, we talked to voters all of the time and all across the district. And there are a few that really pop up and come to the forefront every single time. The first one is affordability in Colorado, whether that's cost of housing, healthcare, or childcare. Just making sure that families and residents can make ends meet is really important for everyone, and it's something that I would be laser-focused on in Denver.
The second priority, I think, is also just water and public lands, making sure that we have landscapes and resources that are resilient, especially in the face of a changing climate. So that's something that people want to ask about and talk about all the time and I appreciate it because we do live in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
And then the third thing is just kind of concerns about governance, in general, protecting people's rights, making sure that, you know, we are doing everything we can to protect the institutions of our democracy, solve problems for people, and restore trust in our institutions. And those air kind of the three buckets that people all across the spectrum talk to me about sure.
Rensberry: Absolutely. Something that you mentioned is the changing climate. Let's talk a little bit more about that.
Colorado has seen more intense wildfires and seasons that go with them which last longer than previous years. What are some of your priorities that will assist communities in dealing with these kinds of natural disasters?
Buerger: I think that the wildfire issue is very important. Many of the communities in the Roaring Fork Valley have been impacted by wildfire or the threat thereof. For me, it means making sure that we have really resilient forests and watersheds.
I think there's been some work in the capital. Representative Velasco has been a leader on this as well, ensuring that we have the resources and the funding that's needed to have responses to those.
I also think that we have just got to be very laser-focused on making sure that we are managing our forest in a way that lowers the propensity for wildfire in any way we can.
Rensberry: Rural health care and its limits are also looming concerns for many residents. What are some policies or partnerships that you believe would be beneficial in this current situation?
Buerger: Yeah, the first thing I think about is just how many residents of SD5, of Western Colorado in general, are employed by small businesses. It's high 80s. And so, when you do have a small business it's hard to provide your workers with those benefits. Oftentimes people are left out to find their own.
What I would like to see is some pools for and some policies that would allow or encourage small business owners to get together and pool risk and be able to provide more affordable options to their workforce.
The other thing I think of is access. We've got to bring dollars back over the mountain from Denver to make sure that we are eliminating rural healthcare deserts, but also encouraging, and changing the regulatory environment and the rule-making environment so that it's easier for providers to actually provide services and not just have to jump through a bunch of hoops, to eat up their time, or maybe even prevent them from opening their doors.
Rensberry: Sure. Something that you also mentioned is affordability and feelings of safety, and both of those play into the topic of housing. When it comes to housing, what are some solutions that you intend to encourage?
Buerger: Housing I think is maybe the most salient issue for most Coloradans. At the end of the day, I do believe it's a supply and demand issue. We are thousands and thousands of units behind our needs for supply in the Roaring Fork Valley. And then when you take that statewide, the number gets really big.
So, first I think we've got to work to make sure that we are creating incentive structures where builders are building workforce housing and not necessarily second homes. That is a balance that we've got to get right.
I think the second thing that I think about is maybe fast-tracking or creating and helping municipalities and other jurisdictions from the state level to fast-track approval of affordable housing and workforce housing to make sure again: we're getting that balance right.
A third thing is when we look at the dollars that we are – whether it's Carbondale or anybody else – receiving for affordable housing projects they tend to be in fits and starts. There's no reliable funding source or revenue source to fill those gaps.
There was an affordable housing loan fund that was created at the state level in 2022 or 2023. Which is a good start, but I just think that we need a bigger amount of dollars for that.
Rensberry: Sure. Our region, especially this part of Colorado, is seeing a growing Latino community, especially in the past couple of decades.
How do you intend to represent them faithfully?
Buerger: I think this is an incredibly diverse senate district. It goes from Aspen to Delta to Lake City to Rifle. We have a diverse population within there. The growing Latino community is a critical part of our community, writ large, and is really important to our economy as well.
So what that looks like in terms of representation is making sure that you show up as much as possible, as authentically as possible. And that you're making sure that you're reflective of the full community not just individual segments.
I think that's true of the Latino community. It's true of the district population as a whole. You know, there is no monolith on Western Colorado. There are incredibly diverse sets of voices and concerns. And that makes it ever more imperative for our next state senator to be somebody who consistently shows up regardless and does so with humility and just listens.
Rensberry: What is one thing you believe that can be done to make communities safer?
Buerger: That's a big open-ended question. I think that oftentimes safety, to me, comes with a sense that safety is inherently tied to security. And I think economic security is a really big piece of that.
Being able to provide for your family, put dinner on the table, and to exist comfortably in our communities, that's a safety measure to me. And so making sure that our economy is growing, that we're doing all we can to ensure that people have access to child care, they have access to health care, they have access to affordable housing and can make ends meet and get ahead rather than just kind of being right there on that threshold.
That to me is a really important piece of ensuring that people feel secure in our communities.
Rensberry: Absolutely. How do you plan to promote bipartisanship in the legislature with a lot of communities feeling the need to have some of their legislators work together more often?
Buerger: Yeah. Bipartisanship is a big piece of it.
I think that when you look at the makeup of our legislature you know, we have significant democratic majorities in both legislative chambers but that doesn't necessarily mean that we are achieving bipartisanship through that process. For me, I think it bipartisanship comes from leaving aside the letter after your name and focusing on problem-solving and how we do that together.
I don't think that we should be running over our opponents all the time. We should be trying to bring them into the policymaking process. That said I would say that one of the reasons why it's really important that SD5 sends me to the Senate is because it's a matter of efficacy.
Right now, if we were to send my opponent down there, it becomes a matter of he's voting party line and he's consistently losing. And we need to have – we're facing such a big spectrum of really important issues that it's imperative that we have someone who can work to actually create legislation and lean in. You know, it's a matter of like, good offense versus weak defense.
Rensberry: Interesting.
What is a personal experience or part of your lifestyle that you believe can help you to better serve the communities in your district?
Buerger: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think it's my full-lived experience. I grew up on a cattle ranch just south of Silt from that thriving metropolis that is Silt, Colorado.
I went away to school. I've worked abroad. I've worked in policy and policy analysis for 14 years. I'm a small business owner. All of those are different facets of my experience that I think when taken together make me a really well-suited representative for this district and reflective of some of the diversity that we see here and the diverse sets of problems.
Rensberry: Sure, yeah. On another personal note, is there anything else that you wish more people knew about you personally? You can think about that one. It's a hard one.
Buerger: I think that the biggest thing that I would like people to take away after they have conversations is that I have, again, it is that diverse experience, small business owner who grew up on a ranch though. It's the true kind of spectrum of who I am.
As somebody who is a fifth-generation resident of Western Slope, it's really kind of stunning to see the vast love that everybody in this district has for where we live. And I really have always been blown away and my eyes are open evermore that there are so many ways that we share that love and we can get together in the same room to solve problems.
Rensberry: Your constituents are concerned about the financial difficulties of living in this district. You've mentioned that before. Talk a little bit more about some solutions that you believe might help people make costs more livable.
Buerger: I think one of the things is that we have to approach the issue and the ability to have families thrive rather than just get by, is that there's a bunch of different causes to it.
We focus a lot on affordable housing. I think that is important, certainly. We need to create environments and regulatory structures that allow for people or incentivize builders to build workforce and not second homes or resort homes, right? That is a really big piece and I think that there are ways we can shift that we can move that needle, whether it's through getting out of the way of some of the builder restraints, but also just how we can make the path easier to build housing.
Another one that I often talk about is we can't miss the forest for the trees by only focusing on housing. Childcare is a huge, huge, huge issue. My brother and sister-in-law have struggled at times to find childcare because it is so expensive.
I think that we as a state and as communities we can start investing in building childcare centers along with housing for childcare workers and making sure that we're providing access to a much larger spectrum. For what we can build four or five units of housing for, we can build a health care center and we can provide a child care center and provide child care for hundreds of families. And I think that impact is much larger. So I think about that a lot.
And then we do have to make sure that we are providing access to health care in ways that match the needs and is not just a one-size-fits-all problem.
Rensberry: Sure. Absolutely. It's no secret that education has a lot of issues surrounding it that people are concerned about when it comes to teacher retention or what people are teaching in schools.
What's an issue that you'd like to address within education and how would you address it?
Buerger: So I worked in education policy for a few years, specifically around educational funding equity, making sure that underserved communities and communities of color were getting the resources necessary to have the same standards and offer the same quality of education as affluent communities.
So this one is near and dear to my heart. I think the first focus has to be, if we are going to keep and retain great teachers, we've got to address this teacher pay situation in the state of Colorado. If you adjust for cost of living, Colorado has the worst teacher pay of any state in the union. And that is a shame. We should be embarrassed by it.
And so I think there are ways that we can look at the state budget, and the state financial system and certainly make sure that we're paying our teachers more. I think that there's also some of the laws on the books that are pretty restrictive in how we use our funding for education.
I think when you look at the cannabis dollars and stuff like that they are heavily oriented towards capital costs or building. And I think we can adjust them to make sure that we are offering – we can use them in more creative and flexible ways.
And then the third thing is, I think, coming to school also means that we have places where we can interact with kiddos and make sure that we are also addressing some of these other affordability issues, whether it's mental health or physical health.
And I think, finding ways to create a Venn diagram where we're doing education, but we're also making sure that kids are healthy and happy and well-adjusted is something that I would like to work on.
Rensberry: Yeah, absolutely. I know we've gone over a lot today, but is there anything else that you want to talk about right now that we haven't touched on at all? The rest of this time is yours to just kind of discuss some of these other issues that might be top of mind for you, might be big priorities in your heart.
Buerger: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time and offering me this opportunity.
One of the things that I have been talking about is we have these four buckets that I really want to focus on affordability, whether that's housing, health care, child care you know, protecting our waters and our public lands.
I would like to make sure that our communities have the resources and the tools that they need. Small communities often get ignored or drowned out when it comes to the legislature. And so we need really effective voices over there for that, making sure that dollars come back to our side of the mountain.
The fourth piece though, is really rights and democracy. I want to make sure that we're protecting people's rights, whether that's reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, the right to vote. Those are things that are really important to me.
All of this to say that one of the reasons that I am running, perhaps the main reason is that it is my belief that we need energetic, effective leadership in Denver. Leaders at every level of government who are really focused on solving problems and restoring trust in our institutions.
I think for decades now we have seen people get really skeptical about the ability of their leaders to do the things that are necessary and help them on everyday issues that they face around the kitchen table. And to do that we've got to be putting people in positions who are not playing because of the jersey, but they're playing because they want to win the game for everybody, right? That are centering the voters, the constituents.
And so that's where kind of my heart sits: I don't have an agenda based on the letter after my name. I have an agenda based on, I think, what the needs of this community are, of this district are. My independent-minded approach to this is one thing that I think I would like to really make sure that people understand – that it's really top of mind for me.
Rensberry: Are there any particular coalitions or action groups in the Senate, if given the opportunity to take this role, you would be inclined to join? Are there any particular applications to these issues that you are looking at or bills that you're already kind of prioritizing?
Buerger: I don't know if there are coalitions or action groups.
I certainly have been thinking about what committees I would want to sit on in the state Senate. There are three that would be really top of mind for me, which would be finance, energy and infrastructure, and water and natural resources. Well, agriculture and natural resources. Those are the three that I'm really batting around.
Infrastructure has been a big one with the outage on U.S. 50 over Blue Mesa, the shutdowns on I-70 that we've seen in recent years, 133 washed out last spring. So infrastructure is top of mind. I think that's a bill that I would want to work on to make sure that we're looking at the possibility of a rural infrastructure trust fund, or at least some dollars to make sure they get to our side of the mountain.
The other thing that I've been thinking a lot about – I went to the Gunnison Basin Roundtable meeting – and one of the things that I think that the agriculture and the environmental groups and everything, like, really kind of come together on is being able to monitor our watersheds more effectively.
We have the SNOTEL locations that we all look up and see what our snowpack is on our computer every winter. But I think we can do it more effectively with LIDAR and some flights. And it looks like it would be like 200 flights a year. But everybody in the state would benefit. We'd know more about soil health and moisture content, more about snowpack and everybody could plan better.
So I've talked with a couple of other current legislators and other candidates about the potential to find ways where we can fund those flights and have really good information so that we can kind of respond to our moisture needs. Well, so I'm full of bill ideas. I got to get across this finish line first and I'll just be out there working making sure I'm talking to people and knocking on doors.
Rensberry: Well, I think that covers it all. Thank you so much Cole for coming in and having this conversation with me. I'm excited to share it with our listeners.
Buerger: Yeah. Really appreciate your time. Thank you so much, Hattie, for this time this afternoon. I appreciate you.
Rensberry: But if people want to get ahold of you or want to get more information about your campaign. Where can they go?
Buerger: Yeah. Great question. Thanks for that one. You can go to Cole for colorado dot org, so C-O-L-E-F-O-R colorado.org. You can also shoot me an email at Cole@coleforcolorado.org. But we would love to talk to you, happy to answer any questions, and would love it if you visit the website. I have my issues page up and endorsements. So yeah, we're feeling pretty good.
Great. But thanks for the opportunity.
Rensberry: Awesome. Thanks so much.
#ColeForColorado
