On The Issues
SUSTAINABILITY AND ENVIRONMENT
STATEMENT
Forest health, wildfire resiliency, wildlife, watersheds, sustainable recreation, and the rivers and mountains themselves are what make this county worth living in. Protecting them isn’t a side project. It’s the work.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Established a joint Office of Sustainability with the City of Salida.
- Completed the EPA-required work to stand up a materials recovery program, with cardboard recycling beginning by the end of 2026. The plan and program made Chaffee eligible to expand recycling through EPR funding and EPA SWIFER grants.
- Fund forest health work every year through Common Ground, reducing wildfire danger across the county.
- Fund a Common Ground program that supports ranchers and farmers to keep land in production and undeveloped.
- Adopted the wildland-urban interface fire code, setting defensible space and ember-resistant construction standards countywide, ensuring homes are insurable.
INTO THE FUTURE
Complete the countywide groundwater study, due next spring, mapping where groundwater replenishes and where it has been historically depleted. That data is how we prevent over-extraction before it happens, not after.
HOUSING AND SOCIAL SERVICES
STATEMENT
A livable Chaffee County means the people who work here can afford to stay here. That takes more than a house. It takes a doctor to see, someone to watch the kids, and a way to get to work.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Allocated more than $5 million to housing over the past three years.
- Helped Chaffee Housing Authority bring $13.8 million in state housing funds into the county since 2022.
- Helped the Chaffee Housing Trust acquire two mobile home parks, keeping roughly 90 homes permanently affordable.
- Committed $1.3 million to early childhood care, including completing the Grove in Buena Vista.
- Doubled the county’s foster care capacity so no Chaffee child has to leave the county.
- Built the plan that kept every affected household fed when federal SNAP benefits were cut.
INTO THE FUTURE
Fully fund the Chaffee County Housing Authority, expand childcare capacity, and defend food security programs against further federal cuts.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
STATEMENT
“Tourism pays some of the bills. It shouldn’t pay all of them.”
Chaffee County needs an economy that works in April as well as July. That means agriculture, small business, and innovation alongside recreation.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Launched Working Lands and Food Access Resilience initiatives connecting local producers directly to local consumers.
- Worked with agricultural producers through a hard year of drought and rising operating costs.
- Supports Common Ground program that keeps agricultural land in production rather than in development.
- Represent Chaffee County’s economic interests directly with state and federal officials and public land agencies.
- Thirty years running businesses in this valley — building homes, Moonlight Pizza, Wood’s High Mountain Distillery — and every permit hearing that came with them.
INTO THE FUTURE
Build out the agricultural resiliency program so producers can stay, thrive, and pass their operations to the next generation. Keep widening the economy so it doesn’t rest on a single season.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND SAFETY
STATEMENT
“Potholes don’t wait for budget season, and neither do emergencies.”
Roads, bridges, and emergency response are the services people notice only when they fail. Keeping them working is the most basic thing the county government owes residents.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Completed the North End Public Safety Complex, improving sheriff and ambulance response for the north end of the county.
- Kept roads and bridges functioning despite a road and bridge budget that has not seen a real increase in twenty years due to state mandated limitations.
- Adopted the wildland-urban interface fire code, strengthening defensible space standards countywide and keeping homes insurable.
- Sustained funding for law enforcement, dispatch, emergency management, search and rescue, fire, and EMS through state and federal cuts.
- Fund trail safety work annually through Common Ground.
INTO THE FUTURE
Keep infrastructure maintained under real fiscal constraints, and keep emergency services staffed and equipped as costs rise faster than revenue. Roads and bridges don’t get cheaper by being ignored.
RESPONSIVE, BALANCED GROWTH MANAGEMENT
STATEMENT
“With years of land use code experience, I understand the need to balance the community’s interests, wildlife impacts and private property rights to achieve the best outcomes for everyone”
Smart, phased reform protects property values, water, and wildfire safety. Gutting the code protects nobody.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Completed the Land Use Code update — a job attempted for more than twenty years and finished in this term.
- Wrote it through eight public hearings and weekly community meetings over several months.
- Delivered what residents have asked for over fifty years: growth around existing communities instead of sprawl across the valley.
- Recognized for protecting wildlife corridors and viewsheds while giving landowners a clear path to develop.
- Processed 306 land use applications in the first half of this year, including agricultural splits and fifteen minor subdivisions handled administratively in weeks not months.
INTO THE FUTURE
Correct the handful of parcels where the zoning could be more in line with use, and keep amending the code where real applications show it isn’t working. A code is a living document, not a monument.
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
STATEMENT
“Potholes aren’t Democrat or Republican. Neither is a balanced budget.”
Careful stewardship isn’t a slogan. It’s the difference between absorbing a federal funding cut and passing it on to residents.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Runs an inflation-adjusted budget $5 million smaller than four years ago, with services maintained.
- Held healthy fund balances without growing the budget, positioning the county to absorb state and federal cuts.
- Restructured county operations since 2022 so departments give residents consistent answers instead of conflicting ones.
- Maintained critical human services for the county’s most vulnerable residents through federal funding reductions.
- Represents Chaffee County directly with legislators, agencies, and land offices to protect local interests in state law.
INTO THE FUTURE
Continue the efficiency work, hold fund balances steady as federal support contracts, and keep county decisions focused on community problems rather than partisan fights imported from Denver or Washington.