 Welcome everyone to tonight's candidate forum. Before we begin, I want to invite our Spanish-speaking community members to click the button at the bottom of your Zoom screen for interpretation and choose the Spanish option to hear the forum in that language. We will wait just a moment for our forum interpreter, Rosabel Rice, to translate what I've just said, switch over to the Spanish language channel, and then we'll begin. Bueno, vamos a quisieramos darle la bienvenida a nuestros escuchas en español y si desean recibir interpretación al español, lo que van a hacer en un momento van a aparecer al pie de su computadora un globo o en sus teléfonos tres puntos suspensivos y van a encontrar interpretación, escogen español y podrán recibir la interpretación y muy bienvenidos. We're good to go. Oh, you're on mute, Elizabeth. Good way to get going tonight. Thanks, Mandy. Welcome to the Colorado State Senate District 18 candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Boulder County. My name is Elizabeth Crowe. I'm a proud member of the League and I am pleased to serve as moderator for tonight's forum. The League of Women Voters is a non-partisan political organization. In 2020, we're celebrating 100 years of encouraging informed and active participation in government and influencing public policy through education and advocacy on a wide range of issues. To remain non-partisan, League never supports or opposes political candidates or parties. For this and several other forums, we are pleased to be partnering with Longmont public media. According to FCC policy, candidate forums must be broadcast in their entirety except by media reporting on events. Candidates or their staff are asked not to record the forum. However, it will be made available online for public viewing through election day. The Colorado State Senate consists of 35 senators who are elected to four-year terms. Each senator is limited to serving two consecutive terms. As of the 2010 census, state senators serve an average of 143,691 residents. State Senate District 18 includes NYWAT, the City of Boulder, Netherlands, Jamestown, Lions, and other communities. The format for tonight's forum will be as follows. Each candidate will have one minute for an opening statement. We will then begin with questions which have been submitted electronically online to the League or by League members. Questions have been reviewed by our League of Women Voters volunteer screeners and will be addressed to all candidates rather than directing a question to a particular candidate. We will try to ask the candidates as many questions as time permits. Each candidate will have up to one minute or 90 seconds to answer the question, and as the moderator, I will announce the time allowed to answer the questions, and our timekeeper will help you stay on track. Tonight's forum participants include in ballot order Steve Fenberg, Democrat, and Peg Cage, Republican. Let's start with opening statements. Beginning with you, candidate Fenberg, you have one minute. Great. Well, thank you to the League for hosting this. It seems like everything about this election is abnormal, so doing candidate forums and making sure that there are ways for folks to engage in this way is incredibly helpful. I guess what I would say is it's been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but also the biggest honor of my life to be able to serve in the Colorado Senate. I got elected in 2016, and then in 2018, I was proud to be supported by my colleagues to become the Senate Majority Leader. And the work we have done over the last several years, I think, is transformative. We have made huge strides when it comes to climate and energy. We have made huge strides on equality issues and racial justice and making our voting system more accessible for everybody. And I can't wait to continue that work to make even more progress on the things that so many of us care about in Boulder County, and that's what I'm looking forward to doing over the next four years. Thank you. And Candidate Cage, you're next. Thank you very much for hosting this to the League of Women Voters. It's always been a part of the process to go through these forums, and I've never been in one. I've helped to get other candidates there as the chairman of Boulder County Republicans and as the president of Longmont Republican Women. I've always been a leader trying to lead people to get into the election process, the process of getting their own representatives in government. And this time I was asked because the ballot place was empty and we don't want to leave it empty. We have to have a good fight, right, Steve? So I am running to represent Senate District 18 in the state Senate, and I would like to listen to you. I'd love to have your vote and I'd love to get your support. Thank you. Thanks, both of you. Now we will begin with the question segment of the forum. Again, I will let you know ahead of time whether you have one minute or up to 90 seconds to answer the question. And please keep an eye on our timekeeper who will give you that signal at 15 seconds and stop. If you are mid-sentence when your time is up, please feel free to just finish that sentence and then we'll move on to the next candidate. For the first question, we will start with candidate Cage, and the question is this. There are many COVID impacts on our state, which result in economic challenges for 2021 and beyond. What are some of your top funding priorities given these challenges? And you will have one minute to answer that question. By funding priorities, I assume that you mean the money that the state should be giving people. I think that the federal grants that were given to Colorado should go to businesses and help people open their businesses. I think that the regulations and the owner's stipulation, the owner's mandates that have been put on business owners and making them shut their businesses down is just something that I would fight to lift and let people decide if how much risk they want to take, if they want to open their businesses up, or if they want to go and attend meetings or go to a restaurant or to a business and how close they want to be to people. And I think it's an onerous government that would get in there and tell us how to live our lives like this. Thank you. Candidate Fenberg. Thanks. We are seeing devastating impacts on our economy and our state budget because of this crisis. And it started as a health care crisis. I think it's very quickly morphed into an economic crisis for so many folks. And so I think what we choose to prioritize with funding is an important question. In the end, we are not going to have a healthy state budget. And we didn't have one, frankly, before. And we are definitely not having one now. We are looking at billions of dollars of cuts. So in terms of priorities, I would say it has to be providing basic support for our health care system so that we are getting through this from a health care perspective. But then also K-12 education and basic government services that we absolutely need to be, unfortunately, filling the hole that we've had before this crisis, but has only gotten deeper now. And then I also think we need to make sure we are investing resources into economic support for families and for the small businesses that are suffering. And without additional support likely are going to have to shut their doors and that has a domino effect on our economy. So those are the three areas that I would prioritize. Thank you. For the next question, and I'm thinking we'll just go ahead, Mandy, and do a minute and a half, 90 seconds for each of these questions. You don't have to use all the time if you don't want to, but feel free. The next question is, and we'll start with candidate Fenberg. District 18 covers a wide variety of land uses, including farms and ranches. What is your position on the reintroduction of gray wolves into Colorado, which may very well migrate into your district? It was very beneficial to Yellowstone National Park. Does that outweigh the potential loss of livestock? So that's a good question. The reintroduction of wolves, I'm guessing most folks know, but it is on the ballot as a ballot question this year. I support it. I'm not going to say that I know every detail about it. I probably know a lot more about some of the other ballot measures than this one, but I support it. I think it's important because the ecosystem in Colorado is not only important to our economy, but it's important to our way of life. And I think there is a way to do it where we are keeping tabs on it and making sure that the reintroduction goes well. And a lot of scientists and public lands managers and folks that I've talked to that I trust feel confident that we can do this in a way that doesn't have major economic impacts for folks who use land for ranching and for farming and things like that. So I support it. This is, frankly, we are going to have wolves come into Colorado anyways. We've seen them already. And so I think if it's going to happen, it should be done by folks who really understand how to keep an ecosystem healthy and can watch it and can study it over time so that it's done right. Thank you. And Candida Cage. I absolutely am opposed to this measure. I think it is a misnomer to say that we are reintroducing wolves because this type of wolf has never lived in Colorado before. And we do have wolves, but they are being managed by the people who are already here. And they are not a new challenge. They are a challenge that they're able to live with. In other states where they have been introduced, it's been devastating. There's a film called Wolves in Government Clothing and it just shows how devastating this is. People had to build cage boxes for their children to wait for the school bus in because children were being eaten and their livestock. It showed a whole hill full of sheep that had just been killed because it was fun for the wolves to go in and kill all of the sheep. These particular breed of wolves carry diseases that we don't need to have spread in Colorado. We don't need it to be spread to our other livestock. And I think it's a terrible idea. I don't think that we on the front range ought to be making decisions for how the farmers and ranchers over on the western slope are managing their farms. We should not introduce wolves. Thank you both of you. The next question is how important do you feel fracking is to Colorado's economy? How would you weigh the economic factors with the health issues related to oil and gas? Should it be encouraged or discouraged? And again, we'll do 90 seconds for the question. We will start this with Candidate Cage. Fracking is imperative to Colorado because it gives us the natural gas that we run our converted coal power plants by natural gas now. They're clean. I remember I lived in the foothills in the 1970s and we always saw the brown cloud and then they introduced natural gas buses and natural gas vehicles that helped reduce it. We introduced natural gas fireplaces to replace the wood burning fireplaces. I think if you do away with the source and Colorado is basically self-sustaining as far as getting our own natural gas, if you do away with that, you go back to the brown cloud and it's much more detrimental to not have that natural gas than it is to have it. The fracking practices have evolved into very safe and the people who are doing that, they don't want to destroy the economy any more than I do or you guys do. We all want the economy and the ecology to do well and we cannot have either if we get rid of natural gas. Thank you. Candidate Fenberg. Thanks. I believe that if oil and gas extraction is going to happen, especially in the front range where there are population centers, it needs to be done in the safest possible manner. That includes many things but many of those reforms were included in a bill that I was the chief sponsor of which was Senate Bill 181 that I'm very proud of and a lot of it's getting implemented actually right now. We need to prioritize transition. It's not just a comparison between natural gas and coal but there actually is an alternative to those two options and that is focusing more on renewables. We know we can get to an electric grid that is predominantly renewables pretty close to 100% is very doable and it's actually cheaper. The market tells us that if we were to allow it to happen, get rid of the structural barriers that we have put in place over the last 100 or so years, that the market will actually tell us that solar and wind is how we should be powering our economy. I believe that if fracking is going to happen, it needs to happen with the absolute utmost care for health and safety and I believe that is starting to happen because of Senate Bill 181 and I think what we really need to focus on is improving our air quality and moving us from being an economy that relies on fossil fuel extraction to being one that relies on renewables. Thank you both. The next question will start with you candidate Fenberg and we are addressing the position itself of a state senator of this question. It is describe what you feel is the most important role of a state senator when it comes to supporting teachers and our public education system. Well, I think the most important role of the state senator for education and teachers is is funded and that's not to say there are another roles for the legislature but a lot of the impact on teachers in our education system, a lot of those decisions are made at a local level. So I support everything that we can do as a state to ensure that school districts have the resources they need to, for one thing, compensate teachers better. My wife is a teacher so I know firsthand how poorly they sometimes are paid but we need to be doing more as a state to ensure that it's a profession that grows and that it's something that gets the respect that it deserves and by that I mean we need to make sure we are not having onerous accountability programs. We are not having onerous testing that maybe doesn't actually result in better classrooms and instead at a state level focus on removing the structural barriers, frankly, that have created a situation where we grossly underfund public schools. And so I think the most important thing that I can do as a legislator is ensure that we are bringing in additional revenue in whatever way we possibly can and dedicating that towards K-12 education so that the local districts can support their teachers better than they're able to right now. Thank you. Candidate Cage, same question. I agree that that would be our responsibility to make sure that the money set aside for education would go to education. I'd like to see a switch from the emphasis being on administrators and school districts to being on the child and that however we can get the child the best education that would be how we proceed. I like the idea of removing a lot of the onus regulations that Stephen mentioned and I would like to see innovation come from the parents. The parents, it's their kids. They need to take responsibility for how their children are educated. I'd love to see more charter schools. I'd like to see school credit being allowed for things like 4-H and going to the county fair and showing and raising livestock and doing research, science projects through 4-H and through the county fair and other institutions would naturally pop up if they were allowed, if the children were followed by the money and the parents were able to decide what kind of an education they wanted their specific children to get. Thank you. Next question will start with you, candidate Cage. The question is, if elected as senator, how would you ensure to represent the interests of all District 18 residents regardless of political party affiliation? I love District 18. I've lived here since 1970 and we've got a great population. We've got very highly educated people and strong servant heart people and good hard workers. We've started three businesses here and I don't think that there is a problem with the people so much in having political divide as there is the politicians and I think if I'm elected it will be because people want to have their voices heard in the Senate and they will know that I will be a representative and that I'm there to take government off their back. It's supposed to be a government of the people not a government on the people and I think that people would appreciate me as a senator. Thank you. Candidate Fenberg, same question. Thanks. Obviously the city of Boulder Senate District 18 at least is probably safe to say a leaning democratic district but I absolutely feel like I do everything I possibly can to be an accessible representative. I think one of the most important things is getting out of the Capitol building even when it is not convenient and making sure that there are opportunities for folks to engage with me in my office. I do town halls regularly throughout session. I do some that are more large-scale like big events and then I do others that are more like a coffee or at a brewery where you can just sort of pull up a chair and stay for as long or as little as you'd like. I do everything I can to make it accessible so that different types of people whether you work or whether you're retired or you're young that you have a way to get in touch with my office. I also work a lot with constituents on actual bills and I think some of the best bills that I've passed are ones that came from constituents to me and I encourage folks to do that to be part of the process rather than just electing someone and then hearing back from them four years later on if they want to reelect them. I think the most important thing is to be transparent inclusive and accessible and then if you truly do that it doesn't matter what political party that constituent is from but it's more about the issues and what we can do through the legislature to improve their lives. Thank you. The next question moving to reactions about some specific state legislation. In this past legislative session the House passed HB 20-1081 which would provide multilingual voting ballots to counties with more than 2,000 people or 2.5 percent of the population that is not fluent in English. Would you support this bill if it is reintroduced in the Senate in 2021 and candidate Fenberg will start with you. Great. I do support the bill. I supported the bill before. I believe that was one of the bills that kind of got caught up in the right when the pandemic was happening but I expect it will probably be reintroduced and I would support it. I think it's important. We probably have the most accessible and most secure election system in the entire country and I think we should be very proud of it but that doesn't mean we can just sit back and be okay with what it is. We always need to improve it to be able to increase access to folks so if you are eligible to vote that you absolutely have the ability to vote. And one of those is by making sure that the election system which can be very complicated for a lot of people is as accessible as possible to folks who may not speak English as their first language. So I think this is important because it's a very basic service that we should provide and it can be done in a way that's cost effective. Maybe we don't mail the ballots out in multiple languages to everybody but we start with making sure they're available at the polling site and then taking it from there but I think it's important to make our election system the foundation of our democracy absolutely as accessible to everybody who's eligible. Thank you and candidate Cage. That's a tough one. I believe that America's main language should be English and while I welcome immigrants and people who would like to partake in the process of electing their representatives I think that if you come to America and you want to partake of that you should take up with the national language which is English and I don't know if they ever passed that but I know it's been on the ballot many times to make it the official language. I agree that everything that is on the ballot should be accessible to everyone to learn about it. I love that the League of Women Voters has their interpretations and recommendations and I know the Democrat Party and the Republican Party have their recommendations. I don't think it's the role of government to change the balloting. I think we need to keep the balloting as safe as possible. I totally disagree that we have a safe and secure, well we may have safe and secure but we don't have election integrity which means that only people who are eligible to vote and are voting and we don't have that. Thank you. For the next question we'll start with candidate Cage and it's regarding transportation. Transportation and specifically public transportation needs are growing and evolving in Boulder County and our region. How would you ensure our state transportation systems and infrastructure meet our current and future needs? Well Longmont has been paying for, Longmont and Boulder County have been paying for light rail for many years and we have not seen any of it and I'm wondering if it's a good thing. I mean there's only two rail lines in the world that are running in the red I mean in the black. All of the others are in the red and it basically falls to government then to maintain the rails and and everything and it's it's not an efficient way to do transportation. I think improving our roads is is integral to the responsibility for our legislature and for our county commissioners that's it used to be the county road commission. They used to have to make sure that the roads were taken care of. When you're talking about interstate then of course you need to find innovative ways to do this. I think increasing and auditing RTD making sure that they're using the monies that they're already receiving efficiently and I think that we could tap our citizens for ideas and instead of pushing pushing things that are going to make a lot of money for a small amount of people and be utilized by a small amount of people we could tap our citizens for good ideas for transportation. Thank you candidate Fenberg. So I think the way we fund transportation in Colorado is incredibly outdated. It's largely funded by the gas tax and as cars get more efficient and use less gas that means we're going to have less money for transportation. It also means the more people that drive electric vehicles they're not paying into the fund that is the main fund for transportation funding in Colorado. So we need to think differently. We need to make sure everybody pays their fair share. Everybody who uses the road should pay the fair share that they should put in to have a 21st century transportation system. That means probably charging EV drivers a little bit more than they currently pay for the registration fees and it means a few you know potentially increase in the gas tax which we've we haven't done in a very long time and so it's only it's actually lost value because of inflation. So we need to have a comprehensive I hope bipartisan agreement out of the legislature on how we are going to fund transportation because we have a huge glut of needs and not nearly enough revenue coming in and I agree with Miss Cage about RTD. I think there needs to be more accountability there. I will note though that that is the funding for RTD does not come through the legislature of the general fund. We fund CDOT and that's where we can make a big difference in terms of long-term comprehensive funding. Thank you for the next question. We'll start with candidate Fenberg and it is in your own words what does the term racial equity mean to you? If elected how would you work to ensure all Black and Latino Coloradans and other people of color are treated equitably? Well I think racial equity to me means that everybody no matter their race or their background or ethnicity have a fair shot at opportunity that everybody else has and that they are not discriminated against in a structural manner by society or by the government and I don't think we are there yet by any means. I think we have a long ways to go to have true racial equity in Colorado and I think there are many things we need to do. We need to look at what are structural pieces that we actually have control over that we can start moving in the right direction. I think we did a lot for this when we passed Senate Bill 217 which is the police accountability bill just a few months ago and that was actually very much bipartisan almost every single member of the state senate voted for it and so I think law enforcement is a big part of it. I think there's a lot of inequities when it comes to housing and housing policy and who has access to affordable and accessible housing and so I think we in order to address it better we need to look at all of the different sectors that impact someone's life and make sure we are proactively breaking down the structural barriers that perpetuate racism in our system. Thank you. Candidate Cage? Racial equity to me is a made up social justice term and I go back to the Constitution of the United States where we are all created equal and our government is to represent all people equally and any program that acknowledges one color, race, religion over another is not constitutional. We have a great variety of people and that is a delightful thing to have all of these people working together and when we have people who are trying to get more from government than others because of the color of their skin or you know it's just not right. I'm sorry. I believe in equality as in we were created by a loving God and we are all created equally and we have the same right to the American government which was created underneath the biblical laws where we all serve under, well we don't serve, the government serves us equally and the law affects us equally. That's what I believe. Thank you. The next question will start with Candidate Cage and it is, what do you consider to be a fair state tax system? What changes might you want to make or support to ensure fair and equitable tax system if elected? I love Colorado's flat tax and I think that that's very fair. It's been low and reasonable. When we do our taxes it's complicated at the federal level. We get done with that and we can just figure out the Colorado tax very easily. I think adding complications, making it a progressive tax is a very bad idea. Did I answer the question? That was the question, yes. Candidate Fenberg, you're next. Thanks. This is probably maybe not a big surprise but somewhere, one of the areas that Peg and I are very much going to disagree on. I think a flat tax is not good. I think it disproportionately impacts lower income folks and people on the higher income side of things are not frankly paying their fair share and so I would support moving over to a progressive tax although that is illegal under the state constitution because of the taxpayer bill of rights and that is one of the areas of Tabor that I think is most damaging to our state. I also think we should increase taxes. I'm not afraid to say that. I think we don't have nearly enough funding for the population that we have right now and so I would support something, a policy that increases taxes especially on those that are much wealthier and potentially reduces taxes for those who are lower income. There's different ways to do that than just simply having a different tax rate but I also think we need to decouple from the federal tax code. We largely mirror what happens federally so when Donald Trump passes a tax cut, that means Colorado passes the tax cut and so I think we need to make changes so that we have a more fair and more accessible tax system that makes sense for Colorado not something that is at the whims of Congress and Washington DC. Thank you. Next question we'll start with you Senator candidate Fenberg. The question is please share your perspectives on guns and gun safety. Would you support policies to help ensure safe and secure storage of firearms? So yes I do support that policy and then some. I think we should have a 72 hour at least waiting period before someone can purchase a firearm. I think we should improve our background checks that we do for gun purchases. I think I support licensing gun shops. I think there's so much more we can do and we should do. Frankly this is turned into such a political debate and it's often left versus right. It's really about mental health also. This is an issue where the fact that someone who's unstable can walk into a gun shop and walk out with a gun potentially hurt others but definitely hurt themselves I think is a tragedy and it's preventable and we absolutely should be doing a whole lot more to protect our communities and to keep people safe especially those who are struggling with mental illness and there's a whole lot more we have to do on mental illness and mental health as a state as well. But that's obviously a little bit of a different topic but I support having more regulations and more common sense laws that protect people and protect our communities. Thank you and candidate Cage same question. No I would not support of course a law that makes it harder for a person to get to their gun when they need to defend themselves. We see cities crying out to defund the police. I'm sorry it is my responsibility to protect my family if somebody's trying to get in my home they're going to be sorry and I am not going to appreciate government regulations that'll make it harder for me to get my gun. This progressive legislature has done terrible damage to the constitutional rights of the citizens of Colorado to defend themselves and that would be one thing that I would want to overturn if I were put into the Senate. I think that we would have to go through and do a lot of repealing and trust the citizens of the United States and of this county to make decisions for themselves. Yes we have problems with people walking in and buying guns but if they're going to do something criminal they'll probably have stolen the gun and more laws won't prevent that the laws have to favor the law abiding citizen and not the criminal. Thank you. For the next question we'll start with candidate Cage. Colorado is again experiencing extreme wildfires, drought conditions and other impacts attributed to climate change. What would you do as senator to address this so our future generations do not increasingly experience these problems? It is imperative that we take care of our ecology, our environment and that we do not allow for bad government to be detrimental and I think that bad government is buying up a bunch of land and then not taking care of it and allowing the underbrush to grow and the beetle kill to stand and then the fires get out of hand. There's some answering that the state needs to do to the people of Colorado and excuse me but I think that we're experiencing pollution because of all this smoke. If we had regulations that were followed if the state was taking care of the land that they own and clearing the underbrush I think it'd be easier to take care of the forest fires. As far as the climate change I don't think that all scientists agree that we have man-made climate change. I've been really happy with this year we've we've gotten quite a bit of rain and I think the climate is changing. I don't think it's people. I think that we need to be very careful about how we plan like the pioneers came out hundreds of years ago and they understood there wasn't water everywhere they would need it for farming so they made a wonderful canal system. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate Fenberg, same question. I do believe in climate change I believe it is exacerbating the wildfires and making things much worse when it comes to a lot of the natural weather events that we would see anyways but they're they're they're worse now because of climate and there might be one or two scientists out there that don't believe that but the absolute vast majority believe in that connection and can can connect the dots very easily. I think sure we definitely need to do better when it comes to forest management no question we need resources to do that and we are starving our state and we can barely keep public schools open for for more than four days a week in most districts so we definitely don't have the money to do the proper amount of forest management that we probably should be doing so I do I do think that's a good point we need to do more of that but I also think in the end we need to also fund a response to when there are fires and we absolutely need to do our part to bring in our emissions down because that is in the end what is actually making these fires so much worse and that's a global problem but that doesn't mean we should wash our hands of it and say there's nothing we can do we need to do our part as well and set an example and and be part of the solution rather than just saying oh maybe it's coming from California or maybe there's nothing we can do because it's not truly man-made I think we know the answers to all these big questions we have the technology and the science to do it we just need to do it. Thank you so for our final question this evening before closing statements we will start with candidate Fenberg and the question is please share your strategy to promote and secure more affordable housing for our region and state. How can we ensure housing for people with a wide range of incomes? It's a great question it's obviously something that's that's a big deal for Boulder County but I would say it's it's a big deal almost everywhere in Colorado these days. We there's several things we can do I mean we are a very much a local control state so a lot of it is the result of zoning and different policies on a county and sometimes a city level but what we can do as a state is make sure that there is funding available for those cities and counties that that have this need and are willing to build much more affordable housing that's one thing that we can do and and again that comes back to our fiscal situation as a state but and we've made big strides on this actually the last couple of years we've we have put quite a bit of money into affordable housing I would say it's it's maybe a little more than a drop in the bucket but it's not nearly what we should be doing to solve this crisis but I also think we need to do a whole lot more when it comes to homeless outreach and providing basic safety net services for folks who are not just looking for a slightly more affordable place but who don't have a place we need to do a lot more for those communities as well and then I also think there's maybe a role for the state to play to incentivize communities to have more pro housing policies at their local level and work collaboratively with them the other thing is we need to promote regional solutions to this problem this can't just be a city by city thing because we know that if one city is not affordable it just moves people to another community and so on so we need to think holistically not just city by city thank you well those were the questions for this evening thank you both for your answers oh I'm so sorry I'm so sorry it was jumping ahead yes please go ahead candidate cage to me affordable housing is a house that someone can afford and I don't believe that it's up to the government to decide who gets housing and it's not up to the government to take from one person in order to give to another person government is forced we need it to be forced because we need laws enforced but we do not need government to come in and take from somebody else's pocket to give to me and vice versa if the regulations were lifted yes there are a lot of regulations at the local level and I haven't studied the state level so much but I it is impossible to be a homeowner if you if you don't have a thousand dollars a month who's got a thousand dollars a month to spend on rent when they're trying to just get started when when I was young I bought a mobile home in boulder county because my mom said that the regulations had just come where no more mobile home parks could be built so they had just limited the amount of affordable housing and same with apartments and all that the people who own apartments they have such onerous restrictions and responsibilities that they they cannot provide housing it it needs to be fixed thank you both again for the questions my apologies again candidate cage for my ear hi elizabeth thank you we will now move to closing statements and for that we will go in reverse ballot order and we'll start with you candidate cage one minute please thank you I believe that we are supposed to have a government of the people I created a website government of the people dot us as in us we are supposed to be the people running the government the government is not supposed to be oppressive telling us what to do inside our homes outside our homes whether we can go to work whether we are essential or not um we are all essential we are all created equal we all have innovative thoughts and dreams the american dream they called it the american dream if you can't get out there and start a business and grow it and be sure that the government is going to make sure that your property is going to stay in your pocket then your government has failed you and I would like to get the government back on the side of the people and take all of the onerous restrictions off and let the people thrive if the people thrive they'll pay lots of taxes and the state will thrive thank you thank you and candidate fennberg go ahead please thanks Elizabeth um thank you to the league for for hosting this uh like I said at the beginning I think it's incredibly important um that these types of things go on even in these crazy times and and I want to thank um peg for uh you for participating um I actually think uh we probably agree on more things than we realize and and I look forward to having more conversations and and maybe even working on some issues together um I'm proud of the work that we've done in the state senate over the last couple of years um since I've been elected uh I'm looking forward to doing more of that work and carrying on a lot of the work that we've started uh for uh for boulder county but also for the state of Colorado overall um I I feel like I've done a good job it's been the honor of my life to to represent this district um and I can't wait to go back um as uh someone who I think represents the issues uh and the values of this community um I'm excited uh and ready to to roll up my sleeves and get back to work um especially in these uncertain times so thank you everybody for for letting me serve and I hope to serve another four years for you thank you on behalf of the League of Women Voters I'd like to thank both of our candidates uh for being here this evening uh for participating not only in tonight's forum but also in the democratic process we know that running for office and serving as an elected official is hard work and we really appreciate your efforts thank you to our lead candidate forum volunteers Josephine Porter Peggy Leach our operations director Mandy Nuku Sergio Agilis with Longmont Public Media and gracias to our interpreter Roosevelt Rice and finally thank you to the district 18 voters participating tonight as viewers it's up to all of us to make sure we respect and work to protect our democratic processes too many people have suffered and succeeded in the struggle to win these rights for us not to use them it starts with being an informed and active voter to check out other important issues affecting our community feel free to visit the league voter information website vote411.org which very soon will have all the information election you need this forum will be rebroadcast on Longmont Public Media's channel 8 and will also appear on the league's youtube channel look for links on the league's website at lwvbc.org or our facebook page and finally the League of Women Voters of Boulder County works throughout the year to help empower voters and defend democracy if you want to lend your time and skills to encourage civic engagement for all people in the non-partisan manner please join us all the information you need is at lwvbc.org and with that thank you again to our candidates and have a great evening thank you very much thanks