Rights, Dignity, and Inclusion for All

​

This county works because people take care of each other. The west end calls it Small Town Solidarity: you show up for your neighbor regardless of background, politics, or beliefs. I have seen the same thing in every corner of this county for twenty-five years. It is not a slogan. It is how rural places survive.

​

Government’s job is to make sure that care reaches everyone, and that no resident is left out of the decisions that shape their life. That means a county where a Spanish-speaking parent can understand a public hearing, where a family in Egnar gets the same access to county services as a family in Telluride, and where the people who grow our food and staff our businesses are treated as the neighbors they are. Dignity is not a special program. It is the baseline.

​

I helped build some of this already. On the school board, I supported the dual-immersion Spanish program that now serves families across the district. Through my work in public health, I helped extend services to the residents a system this spread out too often misses. I know this work is practical, not symbolic, and I know it is never finished.

​

Make county services reach everyone

    •    Expand bilingual access to county services, and provide Spanish interpretation at BOCC meetings and public hearings.

    •    Continue hiring bilingual county staff and offer language training for current employees.

    •    Find out where residents are being left out, whether by language, distance, or income, and close those gaps.

 

Give every part of the county a real voice

    •    Make sure rural residents, from the west end to the outlying east end, get the same access and attention as the towns.

    •    Treat the workers and families who keep this county running, including our Latino neighbors, as full members of the community.

 

Honor who we are

    •    Support cultural and historic preservation through county programs.

    •    Recognize and protect the agricultural heritage and working-lands traditions that define much of the county, on the west end and beyond.