 Hello, my name is Ginny Schuster, and this is an installment of Longmont Public Media's Candidate Interview series. I am here with Nia Wasink, challenger of Longmont City Council for Ward 1. Hello and welcome Nia. Thank you so much for having me, Ginny. You'll have time for a summation at the end, but since our time is limited, I'm going to start right off with our first question. So, question number 1, if you are elected, what is the biggest issue you want to address and is that issue actually within the control of City Council, or is it something that requires a ballot measure or state level action? Great question. I think what most of Longmont would say is the biggest issue is housing. And that needs a multi-pronged approach, which means it's yes to all of those things. We need to be addressing issues at the state level with construction laws so that it's actually reasonable to construct new housing. We need to address it at the city level with zoning, with accessory dwelling units, and we also need to address it beyond the council room. You know, I think council has this position where they can really leverage in the community to make partnerships. You know, we had this incredible partnership between the in-between and a local faith community to build a small tiny home community on their parking lot. Well, if you look around, we have some churches with really amazing properties where we could be doing the same. And that's where a city council member could really step in, build those relationships, draw them into the discussion, and help them see how they can be part of the solution with us. So really, we have to do all of it. That's the only way we're going to get through this crisis together is looking at every single opportunity at every level of government to actually address where we can bring in more housing for our community. You mentioned in-between. Do most people know what in-between is? Great question. And we have so many fantastic nonprofits here in Longmont, and of course that's the work I do, so I love getting to highlight them. So, the in-between does really fantastic programming primarily with families or seniors, folks with disabilities, but people who really need that housing support, and they've got transitional housing, permanent supportive housing. They've got the full wrap around of what housing looks like, and they are about to start a brand new project actually. They just announced it this week to bring in even more housing units to our community. Interesting. Great. Alright, question number two. There are several safety and crime reduction measures the public has asked for, such as vision zero, restorative justice, and increasing police force. Which of those solutions do you think are effective, and what else should city council do? Oh, love this question as well, partially because I also just spent last night talking about restorative justice. It is one of my absolute most favorite things we can do in the criminal justice realm for those who aren't as familiar. Restorative justice is really about addressing harms caused by incidents. Instead of being punitive, it's about taking responsibility, understanding how actions can impact the community, and then addressing them. We've got some amazing programs here in Longmont, we're wind through the city of Longmont, for public safety, L. C. J. P. Longmont community justice partnerships and what we see in restorative justice here locally. This number is local to Longmont. We see less than a 10% recidivism rate, so it works. Right. That that's the most amazing transformation that can happen. So the more we can get folks, especially young folks into restorative justice, the healthier our community will be. Vision zero is also incredibly important every time we have a an incident, especially a fatal one. It's a tragedy for our community. Yeah. And there's some real work we can do and our transportation department is working on bringing in some truly innovative solutions for that towards vision zero. So those are so critically important in talking to our public safety chief. It sounds like we're actually, we have the funding to be well staffed. The biggest issue right now is workforce. So we don't necessarily need to be adding more funds to the budget. They can't use the budget because they can't bring staff in. So I would just continue to support those efforts and especially support the innovative ones are core and lead teams are leading the country. You know, they're being looked to as the model here in Longmont. So let's bolster those programs that provide those kinds of interventions while protecting our community at the same time. So you're thinking of it sounds. Let me ask you, are you talking about involving the community a little bit more in crime prevention. Yeah, and that's one of the neat things in restorative justice to is their community members that are part of those circles. So not only can they bring community voice, but they can also understand, you know, what a young person might have been thinking when there was a vandalism incident. And so it also just allows, I think, all of us to have more compassion and empathy for what might have precipitated that. Nice. Good response. Question number 3, what is your vision for the future of Longmont's transportation network of vehicles, streets, sidewalks and multi use paths. I appreciate you just give me softballs this morning. Again, I want to uphold and uplift some of the amazing work that has happened thus far. Some folks might not know Longmont was named one of the top 10 cities for bikers for, you know, bicyclists in the country for mid level cities. I didn't know that's amazing. And what I understand is once you get to that level. It's a flywheel effect, you know, our infrastructure around bikes and bike safety really just increases from there. And part of our multimodal approach to transportation has to be safe biking. You know, we have this amazing project going in on 119 that will transform that trail. So folks can bike commute from Longmont to Boulder. Well, we need that to connect in to our city so that you end up at hover and 119 and you can actually get to your home from there. So we need to keep those investments going. We've got some exciting new grants that we just received for microtransit. You know, getting from your home to a hub where there might be more transit or shopping or whatever folks are needing to get access to, which is a pilot, you know, we're going to see how that works. And I appreciate that the city of Longmont is willing to invest time and resources if pilots. All of this also then works with our regional response, you know, getting our bus rapid transit in. Hoping to get the alignment for the train that would actually go through Longmont, which I want to be clear will likely not happen during my tenure, if I make it to Council, but it's something we have to keep working towards and keep putting efforts into. So do you have any other creative ideas. Transportation is not my expertise. We have amazing staff and if I'm Council, I would rely on them to bring forth those innovative ideas and provide as much support as I could. Super good response. Okay, question number four. The high cost of housing makes it difficult, which you mentioned, for service workers to afford to live in Longmont. Do you believe that they should do this, should be able to, and how do you believe it would impact the lives of the current residents if they could, if they could live here. Well, I think there might be a false assumption underlying that that service workers aren't currently living in Longmont. We do have many who do. And there are many others that commute in. So I'll focus on that population for now. Yes, not only do they have a right to live here, but it's better for Longmont if they do folks who live and work in the same place can contribute to their community better. They're volunteering at their kids schools. They're sitting on city boards and commissions. They're going to our city parks, right? We can have a more vibrant community if they can live and work in the same place. It's also better for the environment. Less in commuting means less greenhouse gases. And it also means that we have a more diverse community. And I mean diverse really across the spectrum, racially diverse, socioeconomically diverse, age diversity. That's part of why I love living here. We have a place where folks can belong and feel included. And if we don't create spaces for folks of different socioeconomic statuses, we will become the city of the elite. And I don't want that. I don't want that for the next generation. We need to continue to provide opportunities for that diversity. True. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Well, I think you wrapped that up pretty well. So let's move on to our last question. Number five. I'm going to reset the timer for seven minutes. And there are three ballot questions coming up. And as I mentioned to you, we'll take each one individually and you can give your input on that. And what we want to know is, do you think that the public should support each and why you feel that way? So 3C is the new branch library and library funding. You can take them all. You want them all? Well, I may pinpoint you. Please. Okay. And then 3D is Arts and Entertainment Center. 3E is Recreation Facilities. So, I want to take them together because I want to give the overarching context that right now, not only do we have a cost of living crisis, but we have property taxes going up 35 to 40% for the average Longmont resident. So, it's a really difficult time to talk about adding additional taxes or even extending existing taxes. And that's what I'm hearing from Longmont residents. So, I want to just make sure that I'm really clear that that is a very real concern. And one that we need to be looking to mitigate in a variety of ways. At the same time, having a library rec centers, before we know it, that's part of a really vibrant community, a vibrant city. I love our library. I cannot talk enough about it. Every time I go in, I find a new program or service that I didn't know existed. And these have been issues we've been talking about. And we tried to get a rec center funded years ago. The proposal kind of got blown out of proportion and then it failed. So, I also want to make sure that these funding measures succeed. I don't know that they will this year. When we did polling in the spring, we were not hitting those thresholds that would be required for a ballot measure to be successful. So, that's genuinely my biggest concern. We have this external context of the financial struggles that families are facing. We have polling data, which was predating even our property tax increases that showed that there was maybe lackluster support. And if they fail at the ballot box in November, what does that mean? What does that mean for our aging rec centers for our overburdened library for the arts and entertainment community that's trying to bring this together. So, those are very real concerns that I have and I'm hearing from the community at the same time. We do have some pretty amazing opportunities. The rec center, the measure that ended up on the ballot is a really, again, innovative one because it's not just funding for a new rec center. It's that plus this land swap deal with the YMCA for Centennial pool. And if folks haven't been to Centennial pool, it's definitely one of our most aged facilities that if you're not swimming, there's not much else to do there. And the pool is in significant disrepair. So, we know as a city. Maintaining that is not really an option for us. So, not only does this give us an opportunity to look beyond just repair of that facility, but to bring in a lot of housing. And as I've said, housing is such an important issue, not just for the community, but for me personally. So, this feels like an interesting private public partnership where we can really look to meet that rec need and the housing need. I will absolutely 100% be supporting that ballot measure. Similarly, for the library, we're hearing over and over again that our facility is at capacity. It's also right downtown, which is great for some folks and we need it elsewhere. So, some of the options that include locating it in the rec center. It would make sense. It brings our library into the community. We also know that libraries help with social and emotional development. It helps kids get ready for kindergarten. So, again, in terms of preparing our community and our young folks, libraries are a critical part of that. I will absolutely be supporting the library measure and help folks as well as well. Now, to the performing arts center, this is the trickiest 1 for me because again, I'm a huge fan of the arts and they are so important in our community. And we cannot currently staff our other facilities. The steward auditorium, which is a fantastic facility. We do not have enough staffing for to actually meet the community need. So, the thought of adding a new performing arts center where the operating funds would go into the to the city's budget has me worried. How will we ensure that we can actually operate that facility? We just saw the 1st bank center being closed down by the city and county of broom field. What does that mean for us? So that's the 1 that I'm. That I really want voters to weigh what that would look like at the same time though. It does have a stopgap measure, right? The tax funds only get released if the private funding is obtained in their capital campaign. I do a lot of capital campaign fundraising in my day job and that's a big lift. So we have some protections. If that doesn't come forth. If they're not able to raise those funds are tax dollars then wouldn't be on the line. So, in terms of kind of contingency measures, that would be 1 that you could support without being worried about some of the long term ramifications, except for that operating budget piece. That's that's the question that I haven't heard the answer to that makes me really comfortable thinking about having to vote on a budget for it in the future. And, and that is a continuation. So that's what some people have in the back of their mind is what I've heard. So, let me just, we have a couple minutes left on this 1, how would you bring the community in so that you could hear what they have to say and get more of the community involved with city council on these issues? I'm so glad you brought that up. You know, we did this massive polling process in the spring and we sent out text messages and emails and social media campaigns and got a ton of responses. But then there wasn't a follow up. You know, if you weren't sitting in city council, if you don't have a membership to the times call, you probably don't know what happened with those responses. So that's where I would love to see us doing more town halls, getting into the community and actually asking for feedback. You know, we've had a few opportunities where city council has actually had boots at community events. You know, they're down at Cinco de Mayo, they're at the Juneteenth festival. Well, are they talking about these things? That's what I would really love to do as a city council person is create opportunities to get that direct feedback from the community. You know, when this YMCA deal came about, which was post polling, it got presented in front of council. At about 11 o'clock at night, because that's what often happens in our council meetings and there really wasn't a great opportunity for folks to weigh in to talk about what that could look like and to even get their questions answered. So that is something that we absolutely need to do better of as a council in general, but especially on these ballot measures. We asked the community for feedback. We made decisions based on that. Where, where's the feedback loop going back to them and saying, here's what we're doing. How can we improve this for you? That's great. Great job, Nia. So now I'll let you go ahead and give us summation. Wonderful. Well, I've spent my entire career in service. I've worked in nonprofits, child welfare, human services. I've sat on boards and I feel like sitting on city council is just the natural progression. And now I get to serve the entire community. And I intend to do it in many of the ways I've just described with community voice at the center, promoting inclusion and equity, whenever possible, increase in accessibility to council, to city government, to everything that's going on. And making sure that we're really hearing the needs of our community. I think that's the core role of city government, especially city council. We're proxies for the citizens. So, we can do that in deeper and better ways, which I'd love to do on city council. We have to address our housing crisis, our affordability crisis, early childhood access, things that make it hard for families to live and thrive in llama. If elected to city council at the end of my tenure, I would love to look back and say, more people can live here. We have more diversity. We have more socioeconomic diversity and people are truly thriving. And I will look to my community to help guide that I will reach out. I will look for community voice and hope that folks will will genuinely Way in and tell me what's going on in their lives. What is their family need? How can city council support it because that is our role. So, for folks out there, if you are interested in learning more, getting more involved, please visit my website, nea for long month.com. You can also follow me on socials, Facebook, Instagram and tick tock. Yes, I am a millennial on tick tock. But I think it's important to get to where people are to share what's going on. I give summaries of city council meetings what's coming up so you can also just start, you know, tapping in right now to your city government through my socials. I love it. Social media is terrific. All right, so I'd like to thank you very much, Nea, for all your input on these questions. I'm Jenny Schuster and I'd like to also thank Longmont public media for this candidate interview series. Thank you for watching.