Candidate Interview: Elizabeth Philbrick — LPC Commissioner

Learn More

• Transcript

  Hello, my name is Elizabeth Philbrick and I’m running for La Plata County Commissioner. Well, most definitely, commissioners are interesting across all of Colorado. They set the budget. They oversee land use policy and zoning. They maintain county roads, and they help direct public health and human services kind of things. But the reality is, you have to look at it from a much bigger picture. Colorado runs in a state-supervised, county-administered system, meaning things like Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, a variety of child welfare and even elections are designed at the state and federal level, but they are actually delivered by county staff right here across our 100 plus or our million plus acres across the county. When a resident applies for benefits or registers to vote or needs a road plowed, it’s the county that carries that out. So it really is where the rubber meets the road. The seat matters because it’s the level of government where policy becomes something a resident actually gets to walk in and use. Wonderful. I’m seeking the position for more than just the title. I bring lived experience first and foremost and of utmost importance. I’m the mother of elementary-aged students of children rather, who are about to move through our school system right alongside me. So when families talk about child care gaps or what it takes to be a working household, I’m not really guessing at the problem. I’m actually actively living in it right now. Simultaneously, I’m also the CEO of an agriculture value-added business here in the region, which means I understand small business from the inside everything from meeting payroll to navigating regulation. I built a building within our land use code here in La Plata County, and I depend on water in a place that is not something that you can always guarantee is going to be available. And additionally, I carry a policy background that taught me a really hard lesson early in life. Good intentions are not the same thing as good governance, and the ability to create an intentional policy is not the same thing as actually delivering the needs to your people. So what I really bring more than anything, is a full understanding that if it doesn’t actually reach the people, it doesn’t matter.