 Welcome to Rational Politics. Today I'm joined at the table by Joan Peck, who is running for Mayor of Longmont. Joan, welcome to the studio. Thank you, Nigel. So tell me, let's start off very simply. Why on earth do you want to run for Mayor of Longmont? Ah, Nigel, good question. Mainly because I believe if the government promises something, they need to follow through on it. And that is why I'm running, that we have some policies and actions that we have not carried through on. How would you say that the town is doing at the moment, Longmont, as a community? I think it's doing great. And in my candidacy when I'm out walking and talking to people, they love Longmont. People love Longmont. And I think it is because of council, but mostly because of staff. And we have an incredible staff, and they keep the lights on, keep the electricity going, keep the water going, and we have great events. I have next light. And whenever I've had to call them, personable, they've got answers. They are one of the best support groups I've ever had to contact when using an outside service. And I think it's because it's local. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely, because we're all in this together, as Red Green would say. Yes. Now, I know you have some personal hot ticket items. I do. Okay. Let's start off with your number one. Transportation. Yes. And Nigel, that's exactly why I threw my hat in the ring. I have been working with RTD for six years, actually seven, because I started before I was elected, to get the promised Fast Tracks Northwest Corridor rail line from Union Station to Longmont. And we are right now in an incredible position to have that happen. It's been a really long road for the past six years because there's a lot of pushback politically on Longmont having a train. But the past director of RTD, our director in this area, in this district, and I worked really well together, along with our mayor, Mayor Bagley, and our incredible staff, to change the vision of two track 44 trains a day, or 55, to just a commuter service. So it would be three trains in the morning, three in the afternoon. The beauty of that, and why it's going to work for us, is that we are now in a great place where Amtrak, with Front Range Passinger Rail, is lobbying to put rail down I-25 between New Mexico and Wyoming. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that is really on Amtrak, with Amtrak running it. So what they really needed was a way to get their passengers to Union Station. So coming into our planned first and main transit station, where the transfer can happen, the passengers can go to Union Station from Longmont. So Amtrak and Front Range Passinger Rail are pretty well committed, not committed, that's the wrong word, but interested on a very high level in using our alignment, the Northwest Corridor, to get there. And right now with the Build Back Better bill that hopefully Congress can get out of, can pass, there's a huge amount of money coming that Amtrak is really lobbying for and with President Biden being an Amtrak person and with Pete Buttigieg loving the rail system as well, there's a good chance that Amtrak will get that funding. So that's the main reason I'm running for mayor, because of all the transportation organizations, the mayors and commissioners coalition, the Metro mayors caucus, they're for the mayors. And I want to be in on those conversations. Now, where exactly would the rail service run? Obviously from here, Longmont down into Boulder. It would go to Boulder, Broomfield, I'm sorry, Boulder, Louisville, Broomfield, Westminster, to Union Station. Oh, so that would be an absolutely incredible set of local stations to pick up and drop off. Yes. That would be so highly successful. Need to add Loveland in as well. They're not in the RTD district. Wrong county. Okay, so we fully understand transportation and I would vote for it every time, because local infrastructure and local transportation needs have been so overlooked for so long in this country, not just Longmont, this country. And I think it's a great shame. I mean, we're probably one of the only countries now that doesn't have some form, a high-speed rail end of story. I agree. And you know, Nigel, the beauty of rail is that it brings economic value to your city, because the economics of building doesn't really happen around a bus terminal alone, because bus routes change. And rail does not. So the market for anything retail or work related, it needs to be static. Yes. So it would be an economic boon to us besides being equity, you know, having options. We're still going to have, through the Fast Tracks program, 119, Bus Rapid Transit on Highway 119, but we need options. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. So I'm pretty excited about it. Good. Homelessness. And you know, I have noticed that homelessness in Longmont, well, everywhere, homelessness in Longmont has increased so incredibly over the last year and a half. Yeah. But one time it seemed to be, and I could be wrong, but it seemed to be fairly static, but as soon as the COVID hit, homelessness seemed to go up. What are your thoughts on this, and how are we going to help them? I have a lot of thoughts on that. You're correct. It has increased quite a bit. And part of the reason is because of rents escalating, of the high cost of living escalating, people being put out of work because of COVID, and not being able to pay mortgages, not being able to pay rent. However, the CARES Act has really come into help, and President Biden, with his $1,400 has come into help. But there are so many issues. It's really hard to talk about homelessness under one umbrella because there's so many issues as to why someone is where they are. It could be being addicted to painkillers. It could be having an overwhelming medical bills that they can't pay, so they have to make trade-offs. Food, medical, mortgage payments, medical, and that just places a lot of people. We tend to think about, let's just put them all in the shelter. Well, that doesn't work because of different personalities, different issues, different... I do have thoughts on that in a higher level, but maybe when I'm there, we can come back and talk about solutions. We will definitely do that. Let's stay with homelessness just for a minute, though, because one of the things that struck me recently is the escalating cost of rent. You touched on it very briefly, if you're earning X and your bills are X plus one, you know you've got a problem, and we could talk about why are medical costs so high? That would be a whole different program. In fact, we did a couple of shows about just the drug aspect of medical costs. Do you think there's anything we can do about the escalating cost of rent? You know, we're looking at the cost of rent in our inclusionary zoning ordinance that we passed in 2018. 2019 was when we were trying, just barely getting on our feet, and then 2020 hit. But within this inclusionary zoning ordinance, we have permanently affordable housing, which means that either the cost of it initially, of a single family home or a townhouse or a condominium, versus just renting something, has to be below market value and permanently affordable, which means when the next person, when the original person sells it, it'll be so many percentage points. Below market is all they can sell it for. And the same with the rent. The rent can only be escalated to a certain point. So that is in place for 30 years. And that, at this point, and we're always tweaking and amending that ordinance. But at this point, I think that's how the city can get some help for residents. Okay. In not letting them get priced out of the market. Right. I've talked to quite a few of my son's friends. My son is 40. And, you know, they're all in the same boat. All they're seeing are rents shooting up, way above inflation. I mean, way above inflation. Right. And I don't know whether it's because the greedy are getting greedier or the sum of a factor coming in here, but I've got a horrible feeling it's the greedy are getting even more greedy. Well, do you know what is actually happening, Nigel, is when a development goes in, we are now having investment companies coming in and buying the entire development or a large portion of it. I did not know that. Yeah. This is happening across the country. And because of that, everybody loses control. Oh, absolutely. So we need to be careful. But I don't, that's something we need to look at. But it's on a higher level at this point. Understood. But it does raise an interesting point because we did talk about this sort of a little bit earlier, but not on film. The amount of development going on, we both remember the droughts that we've had in the past. And we've had some severe ones. But since that point, all I've seen is development after development after development after development of housing, but not development after development after development of water capture. Well, yes and no. Longmont is destined or has been targeted to have 120,000 people living within Longmont based upon our resources. OK. So you do have a cap? I'm not going to call it a cap because having a cap actually is just about like zero growth. And zero growth tends to not be equitable. And it tends to lock out the, I would say, the lower socioeconomic scale. That, Nigel, is one reason that I like the permanently affordable part of our inclusionary zoning ordinance. And the reason for that is if we have zero growth, if we have a cap, we don't want to get rid of our middle class. Right. And we don't want to get rid of the upper-lower class, which is our bread and butter. Yes. Because running a city is a business. Yes. And the only way you get it is through users' tax, retail tax, property tax, all of those taxes to help us pick up the trash, fix the roads, keep the electricity, keep the lights on, keep the basic services. But as far as the water capture, we are, this brings up another point which, for me, goes into climate change. Okay. Because nothing can be done, as I've said before, in a silo. Whenever you do anything, you have to look at the total picture. Yes. And how does it affect everything? Good, bad, or not at all? So we do have the Windy Gap Project, which is building Chimney Hollow Reservoir to capture our water rights. Okay. Out of the Colorado River. We are just now starting the construction of that. There is, when you talk about drought, is there going to be any water to capture? But, and I'm going to kind of morph into climate change here, because this is a huge issue for me. No, that's fine. We have a reservoir, Union Reservoir, that for as long as I can remember living here, we, the city, had decided that that was going to be residential drinking water, and we have a pump-back system, and there still is a plan to enlarge that reservoir. And the pump-back system was to filter some of it, but use gray water to use outside for irrigation. But now, because we have moved all of the oil wells out of Longmont, thank goodness, we still allow with that contract fracking under that reservoir. And now we have 42 lines under there fracking it. Okay, I'm trying not to explode. I know. I explode often on this subject, because that is not sustainable. No. It's not sustainable. So are we shooting our own self in the foot here? I mean, occasionally there are earthquakes right here in Colorado. All it needs is a good little earthquake, and that could spell absolute disaster. Well, look at the line that was from Hurricane Ida, the ocean. Yes. They didn't know where that came. It just came bubbling up. Yes. It was not an oil tanker. No, it just happened. So what line do you think broke under the ocean? Let's go back to climate change. I know Longmont is a very small municipality, but what is Longmont doing for climate change? Well, you know, in 2012 I belonged to a group and led a petition drive to ban fracking in Longmont, and that passed on a 60% margin. So I was very happy about that because we wisely, and I have to credit another member of the team that did that, who has recently passed away. She was incredible, and her vision was, let's just don't do an ordinance, let's amend the charter, because to take it out of the charter is another petition drive and vote. So that was brilliant. So knowing that we have moved the oil wells out of Longmont. So we don't have any more oil wells in Longmont. I think our last one, hopefully it's gone, but it was supposed to be gone by this summer. And the delivery line, we had one delivery line that we closed. Unfortunately, all of those oil wells and the operating companies went to Weld County, I'm sorry, Weld County, which enabled them to frack under the reservoir. So there are always unintended consequences of everything we do. Because they are in a different county, we have no control. The actual fracking process is part of our bad air. I met a scientist who was very interested and concerned, and we held an event, a public event, for him to explain his air monitoring process and the staff agreed and council agreed that we would put a monitoring station in a union reservoir and at Vance Brand Airport. And those readings have been off the chart. They really have at certain times. I do have to say that part of it is because of the fires. However, what's causing the fires. The other thing that is affecting our air quality, monitoring stations actually is a cement plant. Yes, I can imagine that. Yeah, so it isn't just one issue. It is multi-issues. It's multi-issues, but one city cannot be the only one trying to fix. We fixed our city in a sense. Yes. But you get the impacts from everybody. So it has to be a region. It has to be a state. It has to be a concentrated effort on what our vision is. On everybody. So you shouldn't have had me start talking on this. No, no, no, no, no. This is all valuable information. So, Longmont has become very much an overflow town for Boulder. And for those of you that don't know, Boulder is made famous by Morgan Mindy. Has that sort of created any issues in Longmont? Because when you look at the south end of town, I mean, it's expanding so quickly. And they're almost now around the airport, which always worries me because airports there first, houses go around it and everyone starts complaining about the noise. Right, right. But apart from that, has Longmont becoming an overflow town, created issues like a traffic, for instance? It has created traffic issues, but those are not all from Longmont residents. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, again, as I've been out talking to people, I have found a lot of people who don't live here, actually, downtown, who said that in the past, they would drive right past Longmont to go to Boulder or to another town for their night out. But now they actually divert and come into Longmont because our downtown area is so much fun. We have the Friday night art walks. Yes. And like this next October fest. It's going to be huge with Cinco de Mayo. We have so many things going on that we get a lot of traffic from Larimer and Weld County. So that is good and bad. It's good because I'm glad we have a town that is exciting and our residents like it as well. But it's bad because it does create traffic problems. Right. So, what do we do about that? That's always a continual challenge. And there are people who don't like the growth, as you've mentioned, but I do find it interesting sometimes with people in my age and even younger who say they moved from Michigan or Wisconsin to be close to their children and grandchildren. And when they move here, be it 10 years ago or 15 years ago, they want the city to stay exactly as it was when they moved here. But then the next people who move in for their grandchildren, they want it to stay exactly. So that's something we can never really control that part of it. But as I think I said before, we're slated to be 120,000 people. And when I'm there, we're going to look at that again. We're going to look at our resources. We're going to actually come out with some kind of a definitive answer and how do we address it? But a lot of people work here and they don't want to live here. Right. Which is why we don't look at things in silos. It's why we have to have good transportation. Yes. So running through Longmont is a road that runs north-south. It's called 287. Up to Longmont, it's a four-lane road. After Longmont, it's a four-lane road. But it goes straight down Main Street, which is four-lane, however, tons of traffic lights, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Has anyone ever looked into building a ring road for 287? The problem is it has... CDOT has to okay that. It's a state highway. So it is not just up to Longmont to decide. And yes, we... It has been looked at to divert traffic to Kimbark on the one side, the east side, and to Kaufman on the other west side. But we're talking about trucks. That's right. Big semis. Yes. And are those two-lane roads going to be able to handle it? And we've already got, you know, build-out on the sides of the road. Yes. So... But you know, I think the same thing is in Louisville. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They slow down through the town. Yeah, but it's only, what, three traffic lights? I know. It's not too bad. And there's no pedestrians. And it's a slightly different scenario. It is, but I'm trying to make it okay. Understand. Joan, let's call it quits for today. Okay. I want to really thank you for coming into the studio and talking about all these subjects. You are so passionate about it. I am. I love Longmont. I love it. And that's wonderful. That's the type of person that we need in politics. Thank you. Someone who is totally committed and passionate to improving the situation. And I don't care whether you're Democrat or Republican or whatever. Those are the types of people that we have to get back into politics. Because from what I see at the moment, there are far too many politicians that couldn't find a job anywhere else and it's the only job they could do because they needed no qualifications. Joan, once again, thank you so much for coming in. You're welcome. And do you want to quickly close anything you'd like to say to finish? Yes. Thank you for having me on. It's really nice to be able to have a format in which you can talk about what you really want to happen and why. And I would just like to say that vote for Joan. Absolutely. November 2nd everybody, get out there, look for Joan on the ballot, fill that little box in. Perfect. Once again, thank you very much for joining us at Rational Politics. I'm Nigel Eaves, your host, signing off. Thank you.