 Welcome. Welcome to Longmont public media's conversation with the candidates. I'm Richard Lyons, and I'm here today with Joan Peck, one of the three candidates for Mayor of Longmont. That's right. Thank you for having me and one of three. Good. Well, Joan, tell us a little bit about yourself so Longmont can get it to know you better. Oh, okay. First of all, I've been on council for six years, and I have lived in Longmont for, let's see, my son was four years old, so we've lived here 43 years in the same house. So I came from Ume, Arizona, where I grew up, went to school at Northern Arizona University, took one of my last classes in skiing. So when I graduated, I came to Colorado to ski. And I have been doing that until I got too old. Well, what one thing do you want the Longmont voters to know about you? I want them to know that I don't think that city council should ever make policy in a silo, that all of our policies, they all interact, regardless of what we're working on, it interacts with something else. And we should always know or try to figure out what the unintended consequences of our policies are and revisit those ordinances and policies often. I've seen policies and ordinances that have been on there for 20 or 30 years, and I think I think we're a little bit different town now. Yes, yes. So, yeah, it's a lot of diving in and a lot of work. It is. I think you've already answered this, but what brought you to Longmont? It sounds like it was skiing, right? It was skiing. You know, after growing up on the desert, I did not want to ever see a saguaro cactus ski. But now I appreciate them. Good. What do you especially like and don't like about Longmont? You know, there's not much I don't like. I like it a lot. I've watched it grow from 50,000 to I guess about 97,000 now. I think that what I don't like right now is the negative attitude about each other and some of our reasons for doing things. But what I do really like is that residents are really engaged in conversation. They like to talk about Longmont. They love Longmont, and there's no stopping them, telling them, telling you what they want you to do. So that, to me, I like that. Very good. So here's a hypothetical for you. Okay. If the city received a million dollar grant to use for the city in any way the council wanted to determine, what would you do with it and why? Oh gosh, that's a loaded question, isn't it? There's so many things I would do with that money. First of all, I'd get the Northwest Corridor commuter rail to Longmont between Union Station and Longmont because that affects almost everything we do, environmental, economic development, et cetera. And then I would spend as much money to make sure that our drinking water, and I don't know if it's going to be our drinking water, is cleaned up, whether it's Union Reservoir or to be sustainable, to thrive. I would also try to protect some of the agricultural land. Very good. Joan, did you have a person that was your mentor as you were proceeding in life or that was very influential in your life? And if so, how did that person help or influence you? Actually, I don't think it was one person. I think it was my whole family. I had 12, 11 brothers and sisters, and I realized that none of us are the same. We may look the same, we may have some nuances and mannerisms, but our processes and thinking, logical thinking were all different. And I realized how difficult that was on my parents because it's really easy to have a template and just treat everybody the same. And I think I realized growing up that we're not all the same. You need to learn to listen. You let people be who they are, and they will engage with you if you don't try to mold them in what you think they should be. It's worked really well with our kids, but so yeah. And then when I met my husband, that was just perfect. Good. Well, are you mentoring or helping someone that will someday say, Joan was my mentor or influenced me greatly? If I have, I don't know about it. But I do think, I'm glad you brought this up actually, you know, being a candidate for council and then getting on council are two huge things. There is a really big learning curve, because you could have a passion for your city and what you want it to be. But getting into the nuances, the policymaking, the rules of procedure, Robert's rules, it's hard. So I think that counselors should mentor candidates and people that are elected, regardless of the ideology. It would just be processes. How do you conduct a meeting? What do certain acronyms mean? Different things to make the road a bit easier. Good point. Colorado and Longmont have lots of recreational opportunities. Which do you enjoy and how do you spend your recreational time besides skiing? I enjoy swimming a lot. I don't do it as much now as I used to almost every day. Early in the morning before I'd have to go to work when my kids got old enough to be home alone for an hour. And cycling. I love to bike. Hike. Just about anything. Be outside. Good. I love the bikeways that we're creating here and the paths and the trails. It just gives people an opportunity to get outside. So I think our department's doing a great job. Looks like from the latest map that they've released, Longmont will switch from the fourth U.S. congressional district to the second. What impact, if any, do you think that's going to have on Longmont? Not much. I think we might be a bigger influence in the second district. We have not been able to make much of an impact in Weld County and Ward 4, I think it was. So for me, it doesn't really make much of a difference at all. We're going to have to work hard no matter what. So we might have an easier time of it in the second district. In the second. So Joan, how do you learn and stay informed about local, state, and national issues? I belong to a group called Clean. And don't ask me what that acronym means off the top of my head. Which monitors all of the bills coming up. And every Monday, there is a meeting about what's coming up this week. What does it mean? And I go probably once every month. And that's been incredible help. And then just the other entities that I belong in, like Dr. Cog, is always having state bills come up. House and state. Just also through our city, Sandy Cedar, the assistant city manager. She brings up bills that she thinks are pertinent to Longmont, to our policies. And do we want to support them or do we not want to support them? So it comes from many sources. So national politics are, I think everyone would agree, are very divisive. Oh yeah. And not only the federal, but also state governments. State government. And although the city council is non-partisan, some say it's becoming more political. What would you do to keep that divisiveness from occurring in Longmont City Council? It's really difficult. First of all, I think you have to have respect for each other and understand that even though you may not agree on an issue or a vote, that respect and integrity on speaking about it or talking to each other is incredibly important. I know that I don't agree with some things, but if it can be explained to me why a person is doing what they're doing or voting, then I respect that. I've changed my mind on issues. And I do think that our residents, be it state or local, need to see a government that works without bitterness, without animosity, knowing that we're not always going to agree, we're human beings. So that's, I think we're getting better at it in Longmont, but it's going to take constant vigilance. So how do you plan on involving residents in the decision-making and city council issues? Well, I'm going to go back to RTD and our trained fast tracks. Before COVID, Judy Lubau, who is our past RTD director, and I worked very well together, and our new director, we worked really well together as well. We were holding some community events to explain what RTD was doing and what we wanted to do, both with fast tracks, et cetera, where we were going, transportation. And I think with our early childhood coalition, we need to reach out to the residents more than we have. However, these are all new work plans that we were hit with COVID. So none of this could happen in 2020. I am waiting to see what Congress does with the Build Back Better Loan, not loans, infrastructure plans. And at that point, if we can get dollars coming for different projects, we should have community meetings about that. This is what we're planning. What do you think? Where should we go with it? But that's so regimented on what you can spend it on that it does confine us a bit. So, Joan, if you could change one thing in the current municipal code, what would it be? You kind of alluded to having lots of outdated provisions in the code. What would it be? Right now, at this very moment, what I would like to change is our building standards and design standards. We need the code to say, and again I need to do deeper research on this, but we need our code to say that we can build different styles of homes. We can have townhouses, condominiums, paired homes, even container homes. Maybe small. That's a strange term, small. I don't exactly know what that means myself, but more confined homes so that people can actually thrive and build their way up. They used to be called starter homes. When my husband and I bought our first one, it was a starter home, and there were dollars for that. Otherwise, I wouldn't be living here. Who knows where I'd be? Well, that's a good segue to our last question. Between affordable housing and attainable housing, which do you prioritize as being the greater need facing the city? I think they're both the same. You can't attain a house of it as an affordable. It doesn't matter what the price point is. I don't think there's a difference between attainable and affordable. It's just a different way of saying it. It's like paired housing now is the term for duplexes. They're basically the same. I do think that we need to have permanently affordable homes. That comes with education of the residents as well. Of course, when they want to sell and move up, they can't sell at market value. It can only be a percentage over. We need to educate before we start pushing things on what does this mean to you as a buyer? Where can you go from here? What do you have to do in your own personal lifestyle in order to move up to something better? That comes to personal financing and lifestyle. Joan, I thank you for coming here today. That's the end of our conversation. That's too bad. I was enjoying this. I wish you luck in your campaign. Thank you. Thanks for coming today. You're welcome.