 Hi I'm Marsha Martin and I am having conversations with candidates. Today I have with me a representative Jonathan Singer from the State House and he is term limited and will be running this fall, is running for County Commissioner in District 2. So welcome Jonathan, can you introduce yourself briefly and then I have some questions for you. Absolutely well thanks, thanks for doing this. I want to say to all the folks out there I hope you're staying healthy and I hope you're well right now. And while it's been my honor to serve House District 11, the State House for the last eight and a half years, I really just appreciate the opportunity to be able to communicate with folks and you to be able to be that conduit to make sure that people understand what choices they have this June. Okay, thank you Jonathan. We always start out with why are you running from County Commissioner? You have choices which are you know not to run, run for the Senate, but so why are you running for County Commissioner and what do you hope to accomplish there? County Commission is probably the most important job that you may have never heard of. There are three County Commissioners that oversee half a billion dollar budget and I have to say as somebody who's a former County employee working on the front lines protecting our kids in our child welfare division and making sure that at-risk adults were kept safe and able to stay home. When the majority of your half a billion dollar budget or not the majority but the plurality of your half a billion dollar budget is in the human service system, it would be my honor to be able to support our progress that we've made in our County to make sure that generations from now will be able to look at this as an example across the state and across the nation, but on top of that we're in the middle of the climate crisis and it's our County that can put forward a green new deal for Boulder County, something that will actually bring workers and the environmental movement together. You know I'm supported by leaders in our labor movement and our environmental movement, everyone from skilled trades all the way to the Sierra Club. It's time to bring those two together because we don't have time to waste and our County has the resources, the infrastructure to do this right now and then the last two things really one I know that another huge part of our budget is our County Sheriff's Department that's where our jail is. Our County does a great job of housing and feeding and providing for the healthcare of people in the least effective way possible and that's called our criminal justice system and so it's time to flip the script, recognize what the Black Lives Matter movement is about and bring new ideas to the table that brings forward real accountability and at the same time creates a more humane system where we treat each other as neighbors not as criminals and a big part of that is going to include affordable housing. As somebody who lost their own housing just a couple of years ago when my rent doubled we need to make sure that every single person here who has a job can afford to live in this great community. Okay that was pretty much your platform I think so some of the questions I had planned to ask will be drilling down on a couple of those points but the second legislative the second half or the second third of the third third of a legislative session has some surprises in it and one of them is referring the Gallagher Amendment to this false ballot so that is a sweeping change it makes it it's potentially a fiscal rescue for not just Boulder County but all of the counties in the state if it's done right and if the people vote for it and we have this impending recession it hasn't been long enough to be a recession yet but all the other signs are there so could you talk about that first of all will you vote for the referendum in the house I'm not going to ask you how you're going to vote on the ballot and what what will your campaign message be if it goes to the ballot what will your what will your campaign as county commissioners say about this you know tax policy is probably the most dry but most important thing that we can talk about because I believe that our budget is the moral contract with our community and unfortunately Gallagher while it was really well intentioned to make sure that people weren't cash poor but house rich and we that is hitting us harder in Boulder County than probably other places at the same time if we don't come up with a fix kiss your fire districts your library districts any other special district that you've got right now our school districts kiss any bells and whistles goodbye maybe we may lose entire school districts if we don't fix Gallagher that is not an exaggeration so we need action and this needs to go to the voters and voters need to be given a choice I'd like to see some compromises in there to protect people who are like I said financially under resource but happen to live in a house where the property value has ballooned but this artificial process that was created really doesn't really doesn't help our same variant school district is is supporting this tax fix and in all likelihood I'll be supporting the tax fix as well and I'll certainly be making sure that something goes on the ballot this year because we cannot sit on our hands and Tabor does not allow me to fix these things by itself this needs to go to you as the voter absolutely I'd like to take Tabor along with it sometimes but baby steps 71 is also coming up and this is really important this will put in a progressive income tax if you haven't had a chance to sign the petition sign it there's no reason that millionaires and billionaires pay the same tax rate as people who make minimum wage and this is not a way to actually help our budget crunch right now to be able to afford the things that we need to for our teachers in our schools and at the same time be a little bit of a tax break for for those of us who are making under a million or a billion dollars a year you know I have often had that feeling about property taxes that that there is no reason why someone in a five or seven thousand square foot McMansion pays the same rate as someone in a 1200 square foot house that happens to be in a great neighborhood and so has appreciated there ought to be something we could do about that too in terms of property taxes I don't know whether that's harder maybe you do you know it's a really good question I think you know when we look at square when we look at putting any any sort of artificial formula in there we need to correct for for exceptions and that's what becomes challenging even in residential property versus commercial property if you have a large family maybe you live in a bigger house I mean it's a worthwhile conversation the I think the only thing that we can't keep is the status quo because it's it's it's gonna decimate our districts in our budgets yes that's that is certainly true well the the state house has a heavy lift in front of it getting this worked out in in three weeks is that the target I think we might be done even sooner than that well very possible that this could be our last week at the capital it's very possible we could go in another one or two weeks there's not been a lot of dry eyes there were 3.2 billion dollars in cuts that were made this year because of the economic downturn and because of Tabor and and there were not a lot of dry eyes in the state capital this week or last week because we know those are human lives that are being affected this is really now up to our local governments to step up to the plate and do the right thing for our at-risk and our frontline communities with what money well we've we've got a we we've got to do two things at the local level and I give our counties a lot of credit they stepped up to the plate and said hey state of Colorado you're getting these federal dollars what are you going to do to make sure local governments get it we and the state has stepped up to the plate on that one we need to use the bully pulpit to go to our federal government to say if you want a green new deal or a jobs program or a housing assistance program it's time for our local governments especially in a local control state like Colorado to say we know how to spend it best don't make these federal programs make these grants for local government cities and counties and then the third thing that we can do and and we've done a great job of this in the past is really appeal to the voters in boulder county and in Colorado um boulder county and longmont and city of boulder to to say you know what you may not be willing to accept a permanent tax increase on something but what if we did a worthy cause initiative and you see what that worthy cause initiative has done for things like early childhood education we've got a long ways to go um but I really have a lot of faith that our voters who do happen to have a little bit more means to be able to step up to the plate in the middle of a crisis just like we did after the 2013 floods one would hope um another thing that I expect to have happen at least if we have a new administration in 2021 is that uh there will be a lot of federal infrastructure grants as stimulus coming down uh from the federal government um uh sort of along the lines of of era in 2009 and 10 um era was handicapped I was working in the smart grid industry at the time an era was handicapped by the lack of shovel ready projects for grant applications as county commissioner can you find ways do you believe to help um either with partnerships or with really brief influxes of money to help the municipalities uh prepare shovel ready proposals so that we can get this money that that we have our fingers crossed we'll be well first of all I mean shovel ready is is is uh the wrong term that should have never been used that's not your fault that's the federal government's fault um actually pretty much everything is not your fault the federal government's fault so um so you know when we look at this um my biggest frustration with with the reason we haven't finished fast tracks yet and had to built up to Longmont in Boulder is because it wasn't a shovel ready project so when um Recovery Act dollars came through um during the Obama administration you know we gave up our own fair share to the west line and the south line saying you know what you're gonna double your money right now don't forget about us they do I feel like I think they forgot about us I'm sorry and so um we need to find ways to start getting projects shovel ready whether that's you know even work or the people work or whatever it is um and then our county has done a really good job in the past of working with um other communities and knowing when to step up and when to step back I bring this up during the flood um you know the state and the county were there to provide resources for local communities Longmont has a great city manager um Longmont has a great city staff um they're able to do a lot of things on their own better faster and cheaper um than going through a larger bureaucracy don't forget about us and I don't just say that because you're on city council um I I'm on the flip side um I would also say that um smaller communities like Jamestown um it's not their fault but when you have a population of under a thousand people you're not going to have that administrative infrastructure and that's when it's time for your county and the state to step up and say we're going to work with you we're going to take your best ideas and we're going to make them work and um and this is exactly the time where we can start talking about how do we make shovel ready projects that will increase mass transit and other parts of what a green new deal might look like um and and also increase our infrastructure on trails and open space to be able to maintain those things similar to what the original new green green deal did excuse me new deal did um back in the 1930s and 40s yes my own father didn't starve because of the wpa so I'm uh I'm a fan of that model um let's see I'm I'm torn in terms of the order of questions since we're mostly talking about the county there are people um talking about petitioning uh Boulder County um to do its own fracking ban um I like that a lot better than the other way that's being exercised here um to get a fracking ban in place uh why do you think that Boulder County has not gone for a fracking ban and do you think that you would support doing that uh if you are elected to the county commission so those are both great questions um and and first of all I will say that I think it is a climate change is the largest existential threat to our entire planet not just the county and we've got to step up and do our part um when I worked on Senate bill um on the Senate bill last year to give local governments the authority to do everything up to banning fracking um I did that on purpose because I knew that our state didn't have the political will to stand up to the um oil and gas industry and to our fossil fuel industry and so um this is a land use decision and so I'm always careful that I'm not potentially um showing prejudice before I make a land use decision but I would say as a policy I've always believed that the state of Colorado should have enacted a fracking ban and that at the very least a moratorium needs to be put into place to give um people a real sense of what the dangers and risks are um in terms of going to the ballot this is a really loaded question and so I'm just going to jump right into it um I really think in terms of going to the ballot first of all um it's a really hard to go to the ballot when you're not a home rule county and so we should be um one one stepping up to the plate to allow petitioners to really petition their county government part of that might include putting the county commissioners putting something on the ballot to consider becoming a home rule county like I said that there's a lot to unpack there um so I don't want to be cavalier about it but I also fundamentally believe uh that um democracy works and that the will of the voters should be enacted and so we need to put this in front of the voters to give them the choice um I give our county commissioners a lot of credit at the same time they have done a very good job of um crossing their teeth and dotting their eyes to um hold off a lot of the fracking industry but when they're looking at fracking over open space right now not just my land but literally our land that we want to preserve for everyone to enjoy and we're putting people at risk with air quality levels similar to that of downtown Los Angeles over union reservoir and we see the scientists that whistleblow on that get fired from public institutions we've got to be in this for for the fight of our lives the fight on this like our lives depend on it because if it's not our lives it's our kids lives and their kids uh-huh what um just as a passing follow-up uh if boulder county becomes a home rule county does that have any impact on the home rule abilities of the home rule municipalities in the in boulder county or is there enough separation of powers that that doesn't happen that is for a whole other segment entirely i'm so glad you brought that up because i want us to be able to have this conversation it's been brought up a lot of times but we need an open and public forum my goal if elected is to have town halls on these issues in communities not just relying on people to come down to pearl street to the courthouse there or the old courthouse and have the conversation there but you know let's when social distancing is over let's have these conversations one-on-one between your commissioners and average residents the short answer to your question is no it doesn't really impinge on on home rule municipalities it's actually home rule municipalities have a lot more breadth and power than a home rule county would i would expect and and counties have historically been seen as a political subdivision of the state and and really if unless the state sort of enumerates something in law the county cannot do it uh you know what in a county that's as big as boulder i'm not sure that's the best way to do things i don't want to be taking my orders from people like me at the state legislature i want to be listening to my community members okay well that's a good answer it's 1030 we got started late so we probably have a few more minutes and uh people would think we were crazy if i didn't ask you about the police reform bill especially since you were sheltering in place the night the shots were fired at the capital so what do you think about that bill and uh what do you think people's expectations should be uh if a police reform bill passes oh should they expect to see immediate impact is it going to take a long time that kind of stuff you know um i was out there with the protesters last week um when unfortunately we were shot at um i've been out there with the protesters almost every day since then uh and this is such a breath of fresh air to be able to see so many people out in the streets fighting for this and we would not have a bill without people stepping up to the plate and i'm so proud to be a co-sponsor of that bill because i've been working on this issue my entire career um i think that this is an amazing first step i'm a co-sponsor but this is not the old this is not the beginning and it's definitely not the end i was able to pass a bill this year to make sure that our dispatchers who get mental injuries ptsd on the job can take time off without worrying about whether or not they're going to get fired we need people who are trained and ready to work and held accountable when they're on the job and you know i worked on a bill just last year to make sure that when there's police officer force used that people get the help that they need so that when they go back onto the force they don't have an itchy trigger finger that they're out there to protect and to serve they are they are um our protectors they are are not warriors they are not men of and women of military um they they are our guardians so um so i think that the short answer is yes but the longer answer is this is something i've been working on for years and we've got a long way to go even after uh even if this bill is able to pass through the house in the senate you know that may be not just you alone i'm not going to give you fat much credit but but you and others like you who have been working on this for such a long time maybe the reason uh that the hurry up bill doesn't have some of the aspects of the hurry up bill but it's um uh it's it's really pretty good um nevertheless um i want to say and your your point about ptsd help um uh speaks to it is is that what you have to do really is to get the right force um uh you know if you don't get elected the county commission you should consider joining the long mount police force jonathan because uh we have a lot of social workers already um um on on our safety um force a lot of safety officers who are trained and and work as as social workers um but you have to manage for a profile that is different from the profile that i think uh a lot of police forces are composed of right now and um i think that's why people are talking about defunding the police but uh having worked in local government for a while now i don't think that will work either um you know i think we need to hope the our best hope is for a very controlled trans transition of of what the police force should be like um do you agree with that view and what do you think can be done to make sure that we have uh an equitable approach to policing as soon as possible there there's a lot there and and yeah i'm in an office across the street from the capital right now so you may be able to hear the protesters um and you know first thing is that we need to listen to what the protesters are saying people have never come out in this level for this long on any issue and i am not going to presume to know all the answers but what i can say is what we've set up in longmont is something that um i've been actually working to reproduce across the state of colorado we have a co-responder system now where if someone is exhibiting mental health issues they're actually able to talk to a professional in the place and the time and when i did a ride along with law enforcement we had a licensed mental health professional there i can count at least five arrests or mental health holds that were avoided so heartache that we saved on that that that doesn't go far enough because this is not just a mental health issue this is a race issue and and we cannot deny our 400 years of history of starting in 1619 and we we need to deal with that head on we need to make sure that not only are we kicking out the bad officers and protecting the good officers through good strong whistleblower protections but we also need to be having that bigger and broader conversation about making sure that we are hiring new law enforcement officers that are attracted to this from all walks of life from african americans latinos and hispanics um to get make sure that community members know that they're valued for who they are and that we value them so much we'd like them to work with us and yes there is some time that we do need to defund some parts of this we do not need military like weapons on every single police force out there and the federal money that's come down for that you know we should probably be turning some of it back and and so this is there's a lot to unpack here the last thing i'll say you know i'm working with tay anderson um who's the school board member the youngest african-american um school board member um the state of colorado who um right now is working on taking our school resource officers our police officers out of our schools and and this is an incredibly important conversation to have we want to end the school to prison pipeline there's no reason that anyone shouldn't you know call uh at school if they need a police officer but there are community approaches to this that can work a lot better especially when you consider that there's only about one school counselor for every 300 kids that's worse in some parts of our state and some parts of our county so we've got a lot to do defunding doesn't mean cutting funding entirely it's reallocating your resources to what's going to actually preserve health and safety and stop a racist system that needs to be dealt with head on yeah certainly they don't need tanks and robocop uniforms um in the well that's what they are i mean you saw them in the movies first uh but yeah uh yeah i agree with you it doesn't mean well maybe to some people it does but it doesn't mean let's not have any police and start over from scratch leaving a gap um we have to have a different kind of a police force in some places do you consider longmont a model that is worth taking uh to a wider audience because i'll tell you i do yes i think there's always room for improvement but i think community community policing um that we've done here in longmont is far better than so many other places it's not to say that it's perfect um but i think the fact that we have a co-responder system where we're prioritizing mental health over um over crime and punishment is a great step in the right direction you need to have a strong district attorney's office and a strong sheriff's office that's working with you in concert it's our sheriff at the county that work that runs the jails um they need to be working in concert with our da's to be able to make sure that we're providing the right kind of resources for people when they need it um and and longmont is being looked at as a model i can tell you there are folks in colorado springs now that are going gosh jonathan what is going on at the longmont we want to do that here in conservative colorado springs that's not just from people that is from people inside our law enforcement departments so we've got a long ways to go but i would say this is longmont is a great place to start and let's build on it all right well thank you jonathan i think we're we're getting up to the eyeglaze point of time but uh but this has been a great interview and i um uh i'm going to give you a chance just to make a closing statement if you could keep it to a couple of minutes i'd appreciate it absolutely um i just want to thank you again for for doing this um everyone june 30th your ballot should be coming out starting about june 8th or june 9th june 30th is the deadline to have those returned to your county clerk's office you have a choice this year and democracy is about choices and i'm proud i'm proud of that fact um but i've been on the front lines in boulder county my entire adult life in one way or another as a caseworker and now i'm ready to take the experience in flipping the script changing the system systemically at the state and bringing those programs together at the local level there's only three county commissioners and i want to be the one to be the voice of those who've never stood up been able to know never had someone stand up for them at the county commission i want to be the voice of labor and the environment and maintain our beautiful open spaces that we've always had to keep our character and at the same time make sure that people who work here can afford to live here it's going to be a tough line to to tell and i'm going to need all of you and win or lose i just want to thank you all for this opportunity because it's been a real honor all right thank you jonathan um and uh glad to be able to talk to you it's a fascinating uh time to be running for office especially you know changing horses as you are and uh i look forward to this election um because yeah i hope we vote as well as we demonstrate oh i i think we'll be pleasantly surprised there's no time like a crisis to show who we really are and and i'm optimistic okay thank you jonathan and i hope we'll do this again closer to the election thanks again okay bye bye