Election ruminations for 2023 — Cameron for Golden

Updated 11/09/23 post election thoughts too

While the mayors race grabbed all the social media attention, first of all, let me say I’m glad that even on a relatively close vote that the mill levy for the GFD passed. I was in favor of putting our fire department on firm financial footing. It was a close vote as many votes about money have been close in Golden. Our urban renewal authority that brought Golden back from blight in the mid-late ‘80s was close, but has certainly paid off. The lodging tax money being retained for planned uses is also a big win for the city. The changes to the charter will be helpful and a long time coming. I’m glad to see those pass too.

As to the other races, on the District side, I really think people with be happy with Lisa Vitry and Patty Evans in those roles. I’m glad they won, and I’m glad they had competition that was viable and strong. It was nice to see good candidates to choose from. Sadly when I ran for my Ward seat in 2021, neither I nor anyone else had an opponent. I have yet to decide what I’m doing in 2025, but if people are interested in running for this seat (Ward 3), let me know and I can tell you what you are getting into.

The mayor’s race was ugly, plain and simple. And I will assert that it was a choice made by Heather Schneider and her campaign to go that way. Read my pre-election blog below for where I think different choices could have been made. And I frankly think that is why Laura won a second seat. Look at the data. Laura won almost the same number of votes as she received in 2019.

But it is not true that a majority of people in Golden voted against Laura. Because only a fraction of people who can vote, do vote! Yes, it is true that a majority of voters, voted for someone other than Laura, but it’s not a majority of residents. What’s my point? In our democratic system we are supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people, and yet, voter turnout has never exceeded 50% for the total population. Now I’m an elected official. Who do I represent? Just my voters? Just my Ward, but not others? Just those who agree with me? The loudest person in the room? Those who can cannot speak up for themselves? When someone says they speak for the residents of Golden and they seek X, it is highly unlikely that they do in fact speak for the residents of Golden, because no one does or can. Golden is too diverse politically, economically, interest-wise, etc., to say that we all agree on anything fully. I actually agree with some of the comments Heather Schneider made on her Facebook page (shared with me since I refuse to so Facebook).

Get our city to get to a back-to-basics approach that focuses on core services for the “health, safety and welfare” of its residents and businesses.
Prioritize serious conversations about our City budget so that we can navigate through unexpected emergencies or revenue decreases without resorting to drastic measures like laying off staff or cutting essential services.
Foster transparency in city government so that we can restore its credibility to residents. We vote in, and should be able to trust, our mayor and city councilors to LISTEN and actively engage with all constituents to make sound judgments that ultimately affect the livelihood of our community.
Protect the character of our city by bringing back the focus on residents to make them feel welcome again in their own town.
Build bridges and make the connections that rally Goldenites together.

The bullets above are from Heather’s note. So why didn’t I endorse her if I mostly agree? Read below for that. But also, I assert that we already do most of those things! Why do we park huge equipment on side streets during the candlelight walk? Because we want to protect our citizens from bad actors. We plow all streets, not just primary streets, we have great parks and amenities and health and safety are always at the forefront. Referring the mill levy to the ballot is to securely fund the Golden Fire Department so it isn’t at risk of cuts in a downturn, affecting our safety. Building codes are not to be onerous, they are to save lives. Why do we have fewer house fires than in days of yore? Codes!

Citizen’s Advisory Budget Committee could not be more transparent or engaged when it comes to budget. We have created a firmer foundation on revenue with the lodging and marijuana taxes that were approved by voters. When have we cut essential services? Foundational services in our city are secure, and with 42% reserves, shows we’re responsible too.

If you give someone advice, and they do something else, does it mean that they didn’t listen? Possibly, or due to a whole bunch of other inputs, reasons, even opinions, they didn’t do what you asked them to do. It’s the same for city council. We listen, read, think, research, and then do what we think is best. It is not arbitrary, nor does it mean we’re not listening when something else takes place. Sometimes you just don’t get what you ask for.

Finally, two bullets I won’t really comment on because I do think we have room for improvement here. This is already long enough, I’ll comment next month.

Protect the character of our city by bringing back the focus on residents to make them feel welcome again in their own town.

Build bridges and make the connections that rally Goldenites together.

Below was last updated on 10/25

Laura Weinberg for Mayor - A public report is out that has revealed to all, that I had contributed generously to Laura Weinberg’s re-election campaign. I had said I would not endorse any candidate for mayor, but I have obviously done so with my wallet. And it was not my intent to do so, but the direction of Heather Schneider’s campaign, of sowing mis-and-dis-information tipped the scales for me. In her first mailer to all voters she said that city council was getting rid of Buffalo Bill Days. The truth is different. We received in January a memo about addressing Events and how they are managed. You can read the memo here. The memo was terrible in many ways, and we were flabbergasted at its tone and wording. Besides avoiding street closures I don’t think we took any action on the memo but we certainly didn’t cancel the event. However, there is truth to the fact that events put a lot of stress on our parks and during high tourist season we need to be better about managing the crush and the damage to our parks. And we are doing so. So the mis-information was disheartening because it just wasn’t true. Staff give us things to discuss, we discussed them, but no one on council ever proposed getting rid of Buffalo Bill days.

The most recent mailing from Schneider saying that Laura essentially hates seniors just goes too far. You can listen for yourself, time stamp 1:19:58, for a few minutes, to what she said in August 2022. She very much could have said it better, but this is the reality. If you are a senior in Golden and you want to downsize, you literally have almost no choice. We have a big missing middle for condos, apartments, patio homes, etc. that are small and affordable. To say that Laura is anti-senior is not in keeping with either the facts, the actions of city council, or the politics of Golden that are non-partisan and should not get dirty. I will say this about campaign messages. I had a campaign manager and he helped me write some of my content. He often pressed me to say things like, “If Laura is elected she will destroy the character of Golden”. Or “I promise to stop growth in Golden”. I made neither statement. The former, because it is just mean, and I didn’t want to go there. The latter because I knew that growth is something that we have to manage, but cannot be stopped.

There has been further discussion recently about the requirements to list your “registered agent” if you spent more than $1000 dollars on any communications. This comes from a note from the Secretary of State (SOS), that was unknown to our city clerk and was NOT part of the candidate handbook that all candidates received. In fact the handbook has this statement in it, “There are no local requirements to identify the sponsor(s) responsible for the publication, printing, or distribution of the material” Emphasis added. One of the candidates shared this SOS information with the city clerk who subsequently shared it with all candidates. Ignorance of the law is not a defense, or so I’ve heard, but as a former candidate myself I can say that I relied heavily (entirely) on the candidate handbook and certainly didn’t try to find other rules to comply with. So saying that someone didn’t comply with a rule, which was unknown to them and others, while true, is not in the spirit of our elections. And, to add insult to injury on the accusation of not following the rules, the city clerk has published a memo indicating that we do NOT have to follow the state guidance and therefore no violation HAS occured. Granted, the laws are convoluted and obscure, but ultimately there is no there there. When I had substantial feedback to our city clerk in 2019 I shared it in a constructive manner.

With an endorsement one should keep it positive, so I will not say more about the mailers I disagree with. But I will reiterate, as I have in all my blogs and emails, do your research, read the information, get the facts, and don’t rely on just “soundbites”, or bullet points from a candidate. There is more to the story. Laura’s changes on the way council has worked with sub-committees, change processes, and her work on hiring a new city manager, who is doing a great job, as well as her engagement with peer mayors in neighboring towns are all working to improve Golden. If I ran against her in 2019, and still will endorse her, you can be sure its because I think the city will be better off under her continuing in the role of mayor.

BTW, if you click on any of the links in this blog, good for you. It takes a lot of effort to dig into all the details of some of these things.

City council voted to support all the ballot measures that we referred for citizen vote. I again endorse all of them. You can read about KK (Fire), LL (Lodging), and MM (City Charter) at the links provided. The Whereas clauses provide our rationale. I especially want to see the mill levy pass so we can keep our fire department on firm financial footing.

District 2 - Patty Evans - I have known Patty Evans for over 10 years and worked with her on Planning Commission. She was always thoughtful and strong willed. And that was important as sometimes we had tense discussions about changes to code, or land use cases, and she spoke her mind but always after doing the required research. Her experience on planning commission will be invaluable on city council as we roll out more changes to our new Form Based Zoning. Also, as a resident adjacent to CSM, in a historic home near the creek she brings a needed perspective to the downtown resident’s concerns. Having worked with her before I know she will make a smooth transition to City Council and be able to hit the ground running.

School Board Districts 3 and 4 - Michelle Applegate, Joel Newton. As a former teacher I still keep in touch with friends in the district who have their ear to the ground for issues and candidates. And from them I have received recommendations for these candidates. I trust my friends to have done their research. Also, I have repeated heard about the impact the Edgewater Collective has had (Joel Newton founded it), so that alone would get my endorsement too.