 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the 2023 Longmont City Council debates produced by Longmont Public Media in partnership with the League of Women Voters and sponsored by Sustainable Resilient Longmont. This is the Ward 3 debate. I am your host Faith Halverson Ramos. In alphabetical order from left to right are candidates Spencer Adams, Ron Gallegos, Suzy Hidalgo-Fairing and Gary Hodges. I will call on each candidate to give a one-minute opening statement and we ask the audience to remain silent and ensure that your cell phones are turned on silent or airplane mode. So to begin uh candidate Adams could you give a one-minute opening statement? Sure I'd be happy to. I'm Spencer Adams. I'm going for Ward 3 and I want to bring some fresh ideas and better representation for the ward and I want to be a representative that is more transparent engaging with everyone in Ward 3 by donating my time much more often with coffees and meet and greets etc and I want to think about Longmont's future for the next 20 plus years. Thank you candidate Gallegos. My name is Ron Gallegos. I previously have served on the City Council. I am a businessman here in town. I have my own mortgage company. I previously was with US West where I was a product and a process manager as well as a line manager. I think the we're at an inflection point in our community. We need to determine what our future will be. I think we need to some elect some thoughtful folks to counsel people who have experience both in government and in the business community. I think that's important. I think that particular perspective is a little bit underrepresented now. I bring I think a strong grasp of the position and would be a good advocate for the ward. Thank you. Thank you candidate Hidalgo Farion. Good afternoon. My name is Susie Hidalgo Farion. I am running for reelection for the seat of Ward 3. I've been a public educator for the last 30 years. The last 20 years have been with public school through St. Rain Valley school district. My apologies. And we have I've raised my children in this community and as well as I've been an advocate for our teachers association membership of approximately 1500 individuals served on the negotiating team. So understanding budget and policy. I come in with that knowledge as well as the last four years of council experience in government and policy and practices. When I'm not doing council coffee with council I am working with residents on on the outs you know around around the vicinity as well as hosting my own community conversations at different businesses and parks. So I hope to continue with that work as well. Thank you candidate Hodges. Thank you. Good afternoon. Hi my name is Gary Hodges and I'm running to be your next Ward 3 city councilman. I'm a senior associate scientist with the University of Colorado and NOAA. There is a general ideological alignment on our current council that's leading to a disproportionate number of unanimous votes. If elected I will bring diversity of ideas to city council ensuring that all voices are represented. This will make for a stronger council producing better policy which can only be better for our city and the people who live here. I look forward to working with mayor and city council members to make Longmont the city along the front range that other municipalities look to for inspiration and guidance and all the important topics of the day. Thank you. Thank you for your statements. Next I will read the rules of the debate and ask the first question of candidate Adams. So the rules are that the candidate on the left will be asked the first question which they have one minute to answer. When the answer is finished or their one minute is up each of the other participants has 30 seconds to rebut or extend the first answer. Rebuttals move left to right beginning on the answerer's right and moving round Robin. When all candidates have spoken the candidate to the answerer's right becomes the next answerer. I will then ask a new question of the next answerer and rebuttals proceed as before. At the 25 minute mark the current round of questions and rebuttals is completed and the lightning round begins. In the lightning round each candidate answers the same question with a one word answer. Five questions will be asked. The first question will be answered right to left. The second question will be answered left to right and so on. When the lightning round is over the second half of the debate begins. It proceeds as above in the steps one through four except that the first answerer is the right most candidate. Candidate Hodges and the round Robin proceeds right to left. At the 55 minute mark the debate ends after the current round of question and rebuttals is completed. I will then call on the candidates right to left to make a one minute closing statement. So with that I'm going to ask our first question that candidate Adams will answer first and then we'll go down the line. What inspired you to run for office? What inspired me to run for office is when I moved in this town which was only a year ago I absolutely just fell in love with it. As someone who came from a much smaller town in a different state I loved the main street and the businesses on it. I loved the neighbors around here and I figured it was a great place to start a life. I then got more involved with city council and watching their meetings and attending more coffees to kind of see where the direction of the town is heading because I see myself having a huge future here and I wanted to have a part of that future and to make good decisions based on people in my age and demographic and to think about the long-term future of this town not the next couple. That's what really inspired me to be a city council member and to meet all the other people that I would have otherwise never met if I wasn't in this race. Thank you. Candidate Gallegos you have 30 seconds to answer. Um my uh question can I ask ask Adam's a question? Um I think we need to stick to answering the questions asked. Oh okay repeat the question please. Yes so what inspired you to run for office? I had previously been on the council and we were on the council that built the rec center, expanded the senior center, did the museum, purchased sandstone ranch, put next slide in and went to the mechanized form of garbage collection. When I ran for council there were 10 things that I wanted to accomplish I accomplished seven. What I hope to do is I've got a grand vision for the community and where we should go. I think I want to utilize my experience to move in that direction. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate Hidalgo Ferry. Okay so I am running for reelection so my my goals and objectives are to continue the work that we've started on council. We had a lot of setbacks the last four years we had a worldwide pandemic. Three of our buildings are city city hall public safety and library infrastructure was on the verge of collapse for years of neglect so it was trying to bring that up recalibrate and and pay and get the job done as well as our water mains and other storm drain system so working and keeping that ball rolling to get things done. Thank you. Candidate Hodges. I spent seven years on transportation advisory board and that was a great experience. It was a lot of fun learning about the city and the operation of the city and after my tenure ended on there I wanted to be more involved in the city and play a deeper role more important role and I've been thinking about running for council for a long time and it just seemed right. I ran for the special election last year and I'm running again this year to just bring my voice to to the council and be a part of the city that we live in. Thank you. Thank you. The next question will first be answered by candidate Gallegos. What would you do to prevent vandalism in public outdoor restrooms? Many communities have had an organization called Neighborhood Watch and it's been very effective. I think it's the kind of community involvement we need to have. Most of these outdoor vandalism to the restrooms are taking places in the park. What I envision is a group of people who adopt the park and sort of become the guardians. We don't have enough personnel and we don't have a park police per se so we need to have eyes and ears of the community involved in this endeavor. Thank you candidate Hidalgo-Ferry. So that is something that's been a very grave concern for us on council as well as our city staff in public safety. We've recently adopted the use of cameras, park cameras that are very high quality, high tech and they're able to pinpoint as soon as activity is happening, undesirable activity, so to continue supporting that program so that we can keep our parks safe as well as far as the public restrooms you know a locking mechanism to well my time is up but there's a lot of work we can do with that. Thank you candidate Hodges. Well this is an important point. We're at a safety inflection point in our city. I've spoken to a number of people lighting around the corner says that she feels safe and long up and not as safe as she once did and this leads to everything from the nuisance kind of crimes that were just described and the quickest path forward to that really is to bolster our police force and I have a plan for that. I think I'm the only candidate that has laid out the specific plan for improving our police force making it the jewel of the front range really that is mired by other communities around us. Thank you and candidate Adams. Yes I do agree with Ron Geagos with the neighborhood watch program and also with Susie with her cameras to hand over as evidence for vandalism and theft to police. However to be more reactive a neighborhood watch would be a good idea that way there's more community involvement and with lights it will prevent vandalism just a little bit more and also be able to hand this evidence over to police to possibly catch these suspects. Thank you. Our next question will be first answered by candidate Hidalgo Ferry and it is what life or work experience do you have that informs your positions on climate change and how will you address it on council? So for the last 30 years I've been heavily engaged with the national education association in the work that we've been doing around environmental justice and so seeing how other communities are addressing that was something that I brought in during my first term I've seen and had conversations with residents especially people who are residing in apartments, high density units, mobile home parks and really bridging that gap between how our underprivileged and our vulnerable populations can access environmental sustainability and how we can offset some of that cost because it is expensive to make that transition and it's really important that we have the education outreach and the buy-in from community as well as support to community so that we can transition to a more economically or environmentally sound city. Thank you. Candidate Hodges. The last 30 years, 31 years of my life has been immersed in this topic. I have a degree bachelor's, master's degree in meteorology and I've been working in the global monitoring laboratory of NOAA all this time so I've spent a long time trying to decide what makes sense on this topic for me and one thing I can tell you a truth of this matter is nothing that Longmont does or doesn't do will have any impact on global climate is just not possible so there's a lot of things we can think about doing or do what we want to do but really it's all about how much we're willing to pay for just acting like we're doing something. Thank you. Candidate Adams. Could you repeat the question one more time for me? Yes. What life or work experience do you have that informs your position on climate change and how will you address it on council? So my experience with it is I went to vocational school for electric and more specifically in solar as a form of clean energy. I think it is a great clean energy source especially for homeowners and small scale stuff and I've been with it for the past couple of years just in solar and I would really advocate for homeowners to possibly have solar as a form of clean energy to make just a little bit of impact on improving the climate crisis. Thank you. Candidate Gallegos. I have kind of a practical background. I come from a cattle ranching family. I'm probably a 22nd member of a cattle ranching family. In that you have to be sensitive to grazing, water conservation, soil erosion, the kind of pesticides you put on the land. I think that kind of background will help me to be sensitive about some of the decisions and policies we make on council that affect our community as well as our environment. Thank you. Our next question will be answered first by candidate Hodges and it is if the minimum wage were raised do you expect that there would be a loss of tax base? Please support your argument. Well there are a lot of reasons to think about raising the minimum wage and none of them are particularly good. If you give one person a five dollar an hour raise you've helped that one person. If you give everybody a five dollar an hour raise you've helped nobody. So if Longmont chooses to go out on their own and raise the minimum wage to something above and beyond what neighborhood communities are doing there will be a loss of tax base to the city. I think that's what you asked because people can easily go to surrounding communities for restaurants or buying goods and services. So yeah that's the case that it would have a negative impact on our city. Thank you. Candidate Adams. Yes okay I believe raising the minimum wage would have a positive impact on this town whereas the market has only gone up and up and up and minimum wages stayed relatively the same and I support the council's movement and numbers to raise it and people will be more open to spending that money on goods and services in town and if you give them a raise for minimum wage they will also be paying more taxes on that paycheck. Thank you. Candidate Diagos. When I was on the board of directors of the National League of Cities in Washington this issue came up and it's always been kind of controversial. What studies have found in communities that raised the minimum wage there was not a negative impact. In fact Mr. Adams is right there is a positive impact to the community because the worker base is instilled. What it means though is communities adopting a positive economic outlook and with that is the opportunity to make more revenue and to have a better quality of life. Thank you. Thank you candidate Hidalgo Ferry. So I sat on the working group with the Boulder Consortium of Cities on the raising the minimum wage ordinance and one of the outcomes of that working group was that we have other communities that are on board with moving forward on this. So we will be behind the mark if we do not adopt some kind of regional approach then you know our businesses would lose out on on retaining and recruiting quality employment. So it's really something that we have to work holistically and with our neighboring communities to see this successful. Thank you. This next question will be first answered by candidate Adams and it is should Vance brand airport be an engine of economic development? If yes what are your thoughts on how? If not why not? The answer to your question is yes I think can you repeat the question one more time for the airport? Yes. Should Vance brand airport be an engine of economic development? Yes it should be because it will increase a lot transportation for just regional movement for air travel. Thank you candidate Gallegos. I believe it can but we'd have to get past the county which has done everything in its power to stop us from expanding and expanding the the runways to the east where we would need to have them in order to land larger airplanes and have a more commercial base of activity. So right now it's kind of a mixed situation. Thank you candidate Hidalgo fairy. So you know I've spoken with many individuals who do utilize the airport. I think there is a lot of potential especially in networking with our school district and the innovation center for expanding one of the issues that we've seen and I hope I don't detract but um is the lack of people coming into the field as far as mechanic and so really working to enhance that piece and working around you know federal guidelines and restrictions that prohibit us from really having to say so in that in the airport. Thank you candidate Hodges. 100 percent we should do everything we can to use the airport as the economic generator of our city. We should do everything we can to lengthen the runway. The airport produces about $500,000 a year in tax base. There are federal funds out there to help expand airports regional airports like Longmont. I've heard Boulder might be closing their airport if they do that. Longmont airport is going to become even more important so it's a it's a jewel of our city. It's used for the parachuters and other recreation and and we should do everything we can to enhance that that that driver of our economy. Thank you. Our next question will first be answered by candidate Gallegos and our question is what do you think is the most unique aspect of Longmont that must be preserved at all costs? I would think it was our sense of a small town yet we're growing as a city and we still have I think a respect for each other a concern for our neighbors. We have an excellent symphony I think we have an arts community to be proud of so these are the small gems that sometimes don't get a lot of focus and a lot of attention but these are the things that make Longmont unique and that's why people are choosing to relocate here. Lots of times they follow their grandchildren but really they want to buy into the sense of community small town feeling and the quality of life we offer here. Thank you candidate Hidalgo Ferry. So um you know I do agree with the that small town feel that was something that attracted my husband and I several years ago when we came to Longmont and I think something that has really enhanced that is our social infrastructure and what I mean by social infrastructure are our libraries our museum you know our access to services our parks and um and nature spaces that really allow people to engage in that that quality of life and really feel like they can have that sense of community um you know and I'd want to continue to support that in my second term on council. Thank you candidate Hodges. We Longmont is in Boulder County and Boulder County has an overarching goal of preserving the agricultural heritage of the area and that has been done over time with open space and conservation easements and such and one of the issues right now pressing in our city is the termination of the can of motor conservation easement so that is something we should try to protect we should do everything we can to protect those spaces around our city that have been designated as space as open space and conservation easements to preserve our agricultural heritage of the area. Thank you candidate Adams. I think for Ward 3 to preserve in Longmont at all costs would be that small town feel I got that feel when I very first moved here and maintaining our very small businesses especially on Main Street and I'd like to see that possibly extended also our sense of community here I've never felt anything quite like it I'd like to preserve that at all cost as well. Thank you this will be our last question for this round and will first be answered by candidate Hidalgo Ferry. The Supreme Court has ruled that all firearms in sensitive areas which includes municipal buildings may be prohibited in Longmont only the courtroom has equipment to detect concealed weapons. Should the city extend this protection to other buildings? Absolutely so I you know I'm a school teacher every month we have our lockdowns we've had instances where we've had you know real real threat in our buildings I have my big cabinet right by my door so when we sit down you know we go into lockdown I am ready to block that door at all costs our youth should not have to live with that stress we really have to work to keep our community safe I understand that there are several things we cannot do at the local level but as a member of the Latino advisory council for congressman August I have advocated at the not just at the state level but at the national level as well to to advocate and to initiate change we have to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do harm and having safe spaces for people you know life liberty in the pursuit of happiness everybody's entitled to that so what can we do to to protect our our residents thank you candidate Hodges the hyper focus on firearms really leads us down a path of one-dimensional shallow thinking we have to think more broadly on this and consider all kinds of crime if fortunate not not if fortunate to be elected on council I would not support any policy or otherwise that would restrict the right of law-abiding citizens to own firearms thank you candidate Adams I would also not support any gun control legislation that infringes on our second amendment right and I believe also we the city will be getting sued a lot if we try to inflict upon that and that will ultimately cost the city money I do agree that we should be keeping our children safe but we need to find a different way other than disarming members of our community and law-abiding citizens thank you candidate I would oppose it and I also oppose the the peak cameras at the parks I think these are infringements more and more on our constitutional rights you know right now if you commit a crime in Britain they can catch you pretty quickly because they got a a camera on every corner and whatnot but I don't want to live in a society that's run by the nanny state that controls where I go and what I what I do right now I can see for having some kind of restriction of the courts but I know I would not support that thank you that concludes the first half of our debate now we have the lightning round questions where we will begin first with candidate Hodges moving to the moving towards me one answer one word answer yes or no have you ever ridden a city bus yes yes yes yes okay now starting with candidate Adams Sam's or Costco Sam's Costco Costco Costco okay beginning with candidate Hodges would you ban plastic straws if you could no yes no no okay beginning with candidate Adams should long mod freeze annexations of land no no no yes okay last question for lightning round beginning with candidate Hodges what would your what would be your vehicle of choice if money were no object forward f-150 electric bike candidate Adams what would be your vehicle of choice if money were no object I'd say a Prius okay now we're going to start the second half of our question answer beginning with candidate Hodges the question is we'll go from candidate Hodges to candidate Hidalgo fairing for long month to achieve its zero waste goals an approach to increased composting must be developed funded and implemented how important is zero waste to you if you would think achieving zero waste goals is important what do you believe to be the best or most viable approach the city should pursue for me personally I don't think it's a important goal I'd like to segue a bit into recycling in general though and talk about that I'd like to see our our martin street recycling center accept harder to deal with items so liquid mercury chemicals and things like that but I do think we should take a hard look at plastics and maybe glass there's a lot of I'm reading a lot of articles and such that says maybe but recycling plastics is actually releasing more micro plastics into the environment than if we simply buried them and the same might hold true for glass also so I understand the desire to you know zero waste recycling etc these are all nice ideas but we should really be logical and thoughtful on this and make sure we're not causing more harm than than not doing anything or excuse me than not just burying the items thank you candidate Hidalgo fairing um zero waste is something that's very important to me you know I think we have to look at other means I mean our reusable items that we can continue to use and educate individuals to make that transfer we see it we're a zero zero waste school in our a green star school at Indian peaks and you know really educating our kids in those those reusables and not that single waste and so really trying to divert away for that as well as focusing on getting a regional or local composting opportunity so that we can work on compost compostable items and being able to process those materials and not just organics thank you candidate gaiagos I think we have to take a different approach if you look at the statistics less than five percent of anything everything that's recycled in terms of plastic can actually be put back into production so it's kind of a big house of cards I think we really need to go to the federal government and get them to pass a law that says we really need to use natural products corn soy based products and replace plastic with biodegradable material and then we wouldn't have to have these programs thank you candidate Adams yes zero waste I believe is an important goal on the regional level and I do agree with our incumbent on reduce and reusing is the best way in recycling last that's why I got that motto and and it is a goal I want to hit a city council member to have zero waste and more sustainable Alma it's a part of that grand vision of mine thank you this next question will first be answered by candidate gaiagos followed by candidate Adams the question is the problem of housing affordability can be framed as wages being too low or as housing costs being too high what do you see as long months responsibility with regard to a minimum wage I think guys answer the question I'm in support of minimum wage I don't think it'll have a negative impact on the community it's only positive but I think the other component to the whole question of affordable housing is product in other words the availability of land in order to be to build we've sort of framed ourselves into a situation where we're quickly becoming bolder because there isn't any usable land in order to build on in the community and consequently the prices of homes have really gone up astronomically and affordability is a big issue even for the middle class and so the service people are really suffering it's a crisis we're going to really have to deal with thank you candidate Adams yes I believe housing is a very important deal and raising minimum wage I don't see it as going to be a negative impact it is going to improve upon that but I don't want to just trust that the housing market's going to take care of this and we don't have a lot of room in Lamont we're very filled up in our city limits I think building up vertically just a little bit by five six stories for high-density housing is going to help that good idea thank you thank you candidate Hodges it's cliche but the truth is a real minimum wage is zero if everybody gets a raise there is no benefit and what will happen is it will just drive housing prices up and there will be no benefit to anybody so um there when I first started working it was three dollars and 15 cents if it had never been raised past that does anybody really think the wages would be three something today no of course not so it's a it's a pointless endeavor as bumper sticker politics thank you candidate Hidalgo fairy so um I served on the um state ring valley education association negotiations team for seven years and one of the things we really looked at was the impact to our paraprofessionals our bus drivers our custodians and not being able to afford to live in the community they service I absolutely support raising the minimum wage and it's just a baseline in conversations that I've talked with in with other businesses they're already paying their employees above that amount uh as and the city is also our lowest paid employees get paid 16 25 I believe thank you so our next question will first be answered by candidate Adams and then candidate Hodges and our question is given long months air quality concerns and shortage of affordable housing would you commit to voting against any tax incentives intended to bring new business to Longmont I would like to bring some tax incentives to entice developers to come in more businesses to come especially on main street and possibly having a little business district where they can remain in this district to provide these tax incentives too and it will increase more businesses here and more businesses equal better economy and it will all fall into place can thank you candidate Hodges no I would not commit to that that is uh that's crazy we should be doing everything we can to energize our business community I'm really worried about the empty storefronts I see on north main I'm speaking with business owners around town uh a lot of them are having concerns with the amazon effect and if we want a vibrant prosperous city we have to do everything we can to nurture the golden goose which is our business community thank you candidate Hidalgo fairy can I ask you to repeat the question please yeah given long months air quality concerns and shortage of affordable housing would you commit to voting against any tax incentives intended to bring new business to Longmont so voting against any tax incentives to bring new business to Longmont no I mean I really look at it case by case and I think um you know we do have to support our businesses as well as new construction trying to think if I've got the essence of the question correct um especially as they're looking at incorporating um 100 electric and solar panels you know I think there's a lot we can we can leverage in order to um allow our business to to make that transition as well as incentivizing new businesses to come in thank you candidate gaegos uh no uh you've got so many tools in your toolkit as a city council in terms of policy and and incentives in order to get businesses to locate in the community I think when we talk about sustainability we don't talk about economics sustainability but we need to keep a positive business environment so that new businesses are attracted to our community because without them and the the employee base and the taxes they pay we really can't have a community unless we want to become an elite a stronghold no I don't think that's a good course of action thank you candidate Adams yeah could you repeat the question yes given longmont's air quality concerns and shortage of affordable housing would you commit to voting against any tax incentives intended to bring new business to longmont I would do it by a case by case kind of basis I wouldn't be completely opposed to it given incentives for new businesses to come in and possibly relocate in abandoned storefronts that we already have and if those are full I'd like to see it extend up thank you our next question will be answered first by candidate hidalgo farry and the question is describe the kind of leader you will be on city council um so I would say very empathetic I have worked the last four years with several residents who struggled with maintaining business during COVID as well as traffic concerns you know I've worked with the neighborhoods by um in lake macintosh area and working to get funding allocated so we could meet the needs of that area the dynamic the dynamics over there really changed since COVID given all the people that weren't allowed to go to union reservoir and ended up heading to lake macintosh and really kind of navigating and mitigating concerns in that area so it's it's meeting people where they're at validating the concerns and making it sincere effective changes to to support and boost boost community and I think there's there's several issues that we have to adjust when we were in COVID I helped of I have my 26 27 students I had that year only three had access to internet so it was working to get them that connectivity and just thank you by all means thank you candidate gaegos uh uh when I was on council before one of my credo's was really to be responsive and be a listening council person I think that's important what I've heard now in walking the neighborhoods and I've talked to probably over 500 people is right now they feel like they're not getting responded to for instance the folks on north the Spencer have been asking the city and their council people for uh traffic mitigation in other words they're big trucks that go through and they're going through quite fast they've asked for bumps and a roundabout and whatnot and they haven't been responsive so I would be the kind of leader that would really go out and the community and listen to people thank you thank you thank you candidate Adams I'd like to be a very transparent and engaging representative and donate my own time to do so and I'm hoping the kind of leader I can be is somewhat empathetic forward thinking and progressive and to be thinking about long months future for next 20 50 plus years thank you candidate Hodges fortunate fortunate to be elected I will bring a reality-based approach to city council and not chase unattainable goals if you look at my campaign platform it's filled with what I think are attainable goals for our city so for example the 2030 uh 100 renewable goal the city has is not going to happen that is an unattainable fantasy and it's not something that I would have supported at the time thank you our next question will first be answered by candidate gaegos and it is the covenants of homeowners associations or hoas can often overrule city code do you concur with this practice how would you work to change it or why do you think it's appropriate the way it is having been a past president of the homeowners association out at the shores I would keep it as it is right now lots of times people are buying in for two specific communities or specific neighborhoods or specific developments because they have covenants in place that are controlled by the deed and that's a very important mechanism to assure that their quality of life and what they've paid for when they when they bought that particular bought into that particular neighborhood is sustained there has been this tendency and a push and pull between the current status and communities and counties to try and undermine the existing status quo and I don't think it's appropriate thank you candidate Adams I would not like to see hoa supersede city ordinances but I would have very little effect on hoas a lot of people in this town do like their hoas and I do agree with a lot of what ron said about them thank you candidate Hodges well I speak to this exactly on my campaign platform I will fight for the right of hoas to self-govern myself I'm not a fan of an hoa I choose not to live in one but I completely respect those who who like them for the benefits they provide I think is rather disturbing I've heard from city council uh that the desire to rest rights away from hoas and I would oppose that as strongly as I could if I were on council thank you candidate Hidalgo fairy okay um for me I feel like there needs to be a sense of continuity throughout the city um and not necessarily you know just squashing the rights of hoas entirely but really looking at some of the you know there's a lot of greenway space or a lot of grass so how are ways that we could work with hoas and neighborhoods to to put in low water native plants in their yards and and really kind of steer away from that everything has to be green it uses a lot of water and so really trying to to focus I think we can leverage some things with hoas thank you candidate oh wait I'm sorry I lost track of her who's next candidate you think you're confused we're confused we get to be confused together another question thank you so this question will be answered first by candidate Adams okay Colorado's goal is to achieve 100 percent renewable generation of electricity by 2040 the four cities of the Platte River Power Authority have mandated that the authority reached the same goal by 2030 what do you think about this difference should Longmont align with the state roadmap or continue to attempt to be a leader I think we should continue to attempt to be a leader in this space and I do agree with the state's incentive to go with zero waste and I would like to do everything I could to possibly move that forward thank you candidate Hodges I understand the desire and wish I mean it's obvious where that's coming from I respect that but there is no way the state is going to achieve that by 2040 and certainly there's no way the city is going to achieve the 100% renewable by 2030 we have to live in reality and understand the realities of something that is so important as the power we use in our city for everything it's just we can't be be flipping with it and pursue unattainable goals for vanity thank you candidate Hidalgo fairy so I frequently meet with staff and representatives from PRPA and you know I we are a part of that organization they they work with multiple cities who are on board in moving this forward and it's coming together as a collective to be able to to bring this forward to achieve our goals and they're they're doing their work so they can provide battery sources for holding solar and wind energy and you know and we have our part to do as well I think when when we all come when we all come together we can make things happen in a larger scale thank you candidate gaegos could you repeat the question yes Colorado's goal is to achieve 100% renewable generation of electricity by 2040 the four cities of the Platte River power authority have mandated that the authority reached the same goal by 2030 what do you think about this difference should Longmont align with the state roadmap or continue to attempt to be a leader I would go with the latter I I think you're never going to get there unless you really aim high and yes there is some truth to what Gary is saying but if we don't attempt it we don't we'll we'll never know if we can really get there so I would think that it's best to be in the leadership position and even if we don't get there at least we put up a good effort thank you candidate at us could you repeat the question one more time yes Colorado's goal is to achieve 100% renewable generation of electricity by 2040 the four cities of the Platte River power authority have mandated that the authority reached the same goal by 2030 what do you think about this difference should Longmont align with the state roadmap or continue to attempt to be a leader well I agree with you just ask this question here yeah everybody answered it yes yes I was gonna answer just again you thought it's something else you wanted to say that's why I wasn't starting to get an additional press time yeah okay all right I'll just roll with it thank you for doing what I was told um think that we that concludes our question answer time and so now we have 10 more minutes so I was going to give you a five minute you have five minutes before you have to go to the closing statements okay never mind scratch that we have a time for another question then that will be that will be first answered by candidate Hodges and it is what should the city's approach to dealing with that part of our unhoused population who refuse housing assistance we need to deal with this more affirmatively for sure there's a lot of people that are being negatively impacted by this I'll try to be fast gentleman I met a year ago has a special needs brother that lives in town and he is routinely accosted and taken advantage of by people who are living on the street I met a woman who lives on gay street near the king super's on north main and she is frightened to walk to the grocery store to buy food for her children she doesn't have a car so she has to walk and people high on methamphetamine literally get in her face and accost her and she said is exceedingly frightening so I'm going to flip the script a little bit and say if I'm fortunate enough to be elected on city council I want to be a voice for those that are out there like the special needs man like the woman on gay street bring their voice to the table which is a noble position to be in just as it is for those who advocate from the homeless and we will work together collaboratively and we will find the line that is most acceptable to the citizens of our city thank you candidate doggal fairing so one of the things that I've really advocated for and worked with city staff on is are the neighborhood impact teams where we do have our community neighborhood resource staff as well as public safety really targeting certain areas and getting folks you know on board you know and it's if it's not addressing it one day then you circle around a bat and address those same individuals the next day keep coming around until we finally chisel and and convince convince folks to to get the the support and help that they need and so it's really just having that presence in these spaces and continue that work thank you candidate gaiagos this is a really tough nut to crack and we're not the only city dealing with it it's a problem throughout the entire country part of it has to do with some of the things that came down under the reagan administration where a lot of the funding for mental health went away so that is a component that has to be dealt with I think we have to as a community offer alternative alternatives to some of these folks on the street and give them a choice and some options thank you thank you candidate adams could you repeat the question yes what should be the city's approach to dealing with that part of our unhoused population who refuse housing assistance I think the best way is well you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped I've tried before it's never worked however I would recommend to go to the whole program for food and some shelter and and offered to go to thrift stores for cheaper alternatives for clothing that's really about all you can really do as a council member I think and I am empathetic to these people that are living on the street but yet they don't want housing assistance thank you and now we come to the time for our closing statements and we'll begin each candidate we'll have a minute to give a closing statement and we'll begin with candidate Hodges thank you like I said in the 20 minute interview if anybody's watched that there will be people that watch this forum they're going to pick one of these candidates on who to vote for but I'm going to make the case if you don't think you're ideologically aligned with me why you might want to vote for me and I will bring something different to city council that will make city council better even if I'm in the minority on council I will I will push and the majority to better articulate and refine and define policy and positions that they hold so that the end result for our city is an improvement we're not well served when we have ideological alignment on council it's better when we can debate and have people pushing and pushing back on on different directions on policy rather than everybody just continuing down a path of alignment thank you thank you candidate Hidalgo Ferry okay um yeah so I would hope that you would vote for me I ask you for your humbly ask for your vote to continue this work that I've been doing on in my last four years you know especially since 2019 since 2020 COVID I mean that's really changed the dynamics of everything and how we do business and it exacerbated it really looked at the gaps that we have in our structures I've seen it in the school district I've seen it in our city government and looking taken an equitable approach to ensure that all of our residents have that access and opportunity to to thrive in our communities I've done work with the core elites team I have a daughter who survived suicide and in my work knowing seeing what has happened from we transitioned from policing to public safety we've been able to make ground and make change to destigmatize mental illness to work with our own house our most vulnerable populations and I want to continue that work and really solidify the benefit the great work that we've been doing so far thank you candidate Kyagos I guess I have to agree with Gary I think we need to change the composition of council or at least to make it more inclusive and I guess from my perspective is we don't have a business presence on council currently most of the people on council are in soft occupations either paid by the school district or by government or are retired I think it's important that whoever is on council also have a sense of a business I've run my own business I've worked for a fortune 500 corporation I think that's important so we can't always come from an environment where the dollars are endless in some of these institutions that the council members are associated with fall into that category I think we have to take a realistic approach to the community how we spend their resources their dollars how we're taxing them what kind of promises and what kind of incentives we're we're adopting as a council so I think some head and shoulders communication and experience is called for thank you thank you and candidate Adams well I don't like to ask for your vote I prefer to rather earn it with being I want to be one of the most interactive city council members and candidates I think more three in Lamont is going to be the part of town that is going to make that historic step into electing someone like myself who has fresh ideas who wants to grow with this community and is coming on the council with a new perspective and I would like to see the council have a change of composition on that thank you this concludes our debate the next debate begins in one hour you may stay in your seat for those of you who are in the audience leave the building or spend time in the lobby speaking to candidates and gathering candidate literature please return to the studio no later than 15 minutes before the next debate if you're choosing to stay for the rest of the debates and lights will flash and there will be an announcement and we would like to thank our friends at the League of Women Voters of Boulder County and sustainable resilient Longmont for their help and support