Candidate Interview: Greg Lopez — CO Governor

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• Transcript

  Hi, my name is Greg Lopez, and I’m running for Governor of Colorado as an Independent Candidate. I’m running for Governor because I believe that both parties have failed the people. They no longer really focus on solving problems. They focus on scoring political points. And I think people are tired of that. I think people want common sense back in the government, and they want a governor that will listen to their concerns, understands their struggles, and more importantly, will do what’s right. And so my governing principles are pretty simple. People over politics, do no harm and do what works. Now, my experience has been very vast as it pertains to government and business and community involvement. So I’m a former Mayor of the town of Parker, Colorado. I was elected at the age of 27. I was a strong mayor, so I was both the mayor and the city manager, which meant all the department heads reported directly to me. I’m the former Director of the United States Small Business Administration here in Colorado. So for six years, I was a voice and face of small business, making sure that they had access to capital, were able to get contracts and were successful out in the marketplace. I’m a former congressman. I was the Congressman for the Fourth Congressional District here in Colorado. And so I understand the challenges both at the local level, the state level and the federal level. And I think I’m the only candidate that truly understands the complexity of what it means to deal with all the issues that the state of Colorado has to deal with. And so I understand transportation. I sat on the board of E470, I’ve worked with the Denver Regional Council of Governments. I’ve worked with the Colorado Municipal League, which is all the mayors and council members, and also Colorado Counties Association. And so I think I bring a unique perspective as to when government works, how well it does, and when government doesn’t work, the harm it creates in people’s lives. And so I believe I bring something very unique. The other candidates bring party governance. They have political bosses that they have to listen to or political rhetoric that they have to support. My loyalty is to the people. My loyalty is not to any political party, my loyalty to the people. And I can work with either side as long as we’re bringing good solutions to the table. You know, one of the one of the things that has bothered me the most about perhaps making not the right decision. When I was Mayor in Parker Colorado, I had the opportunity to have the town purchase about 78 acres adjacent to an existing park, and it was going to make it a regional park. And so I took it to council to see if we could acquire it. It was the council felt that it wasn’t an appropriate purchase because it didn’t have water on the property, and I was so caught up with a lot of different issues that I didn’t make a stronger case as to why the town needed to buy it. And so five years later. Well, I was looking to buy it for about $178,000. The town ended up buying it for close to $5 million, the same amount of land that I was going to buy five years earlier. And so what the things I’ve learned is that, you know what, if there’s something that you believe is going to be in the long term betterment for the future of the people, you need to stand in your ground. You need to make sure that you educate those around you of why you see the vision that you see, because often times they don’t. And so I learned that you know what? You need to slow down, prioritize all these projects, and also understand what projects truly improve the quality of life with people. And any regional park right, can be utilized by families, you know, kids playing soccer or baseball. So that’s probably one of the things that I regret the most is I didn’t fight hard enough to create a regional park in the state, in the town of Parker. You know, there’s there’s so many policies, right? Whether they’re internal policies of the governor’s office or legislative bills. You know, I don’t know that everybody understands that predominantly, every year, 600 bills are passed by the legislature, and they have predominantly a fiscal impact on them. So that means that there’s going to be costs to these bills. But one of the bills that really bothers me is when, again, it impacts families? And that would be House Bill 24-1370, which dealt with natural gas. You know, there’s a movement to remove natural gas from the homes and so forth. And, you know, we we use here at my house a natural gas stove, you know, and so natural gas is very important because most water heaters in people’s homes are fueled by natural gas. And so the poor cannot afford to change their water heater, you know, into an electric water heater. They don’t have that extra disposable income. And so all these requirements as it pertains to moving forward and getting rid of natural gas is hurting the poor, is hurting those that are struggling. And it really doesn’t improve the quality of life of people. It just creates another anxiety point by which they have to deal with. So that would be one that I would definitely roll back. You know, the one that I, I support is Senate Bill 25-261. And this is dealing with property tax. This is property tax a deferral program that if you can’t pay it all at once, you can defer paying your property taxes without the threat of you losing your home. And I think it’s important for people to not to lose their home for whatever reason. But predominantly, if you’re not able to pay your property tax because of a fixed income or life, threw you a curve ball. And we all know that the property taxes through the ceiling. I would like to see the property taxes go away completely, or reduce them to such a point where it’s not creating a financial burden on the poor, on the young men and women that have just bought the home and starting a family. That is one that I support and that is managing the high rise of property taxes. You know, we all know affordability. Affordability is hurting every single household. That’s what people talk about at the kitchen table. Can we actually afford this? What are we going to do to pay our bills right there, having to make these hard choices because of the affordability issue. And so one of the things that I want to do is, first of all, remove the heavy hand of government on small business, the heavy hand of government on everyday lives, you know, enterprise funds. People don’t understand that under governor policies, administration, they created more enterprise funds, which are funded by fees. They’re not funded by taxpayers dollars. And so every time they create an enterprise, it is another tax on the people that is not considered a tax because it’s identified as a fee. So those are the types of things that I want to roll back, is remove those fee burdens on people. When it comes to housing and affordability, I want to build starter homes. We don’t build starter homes anymore. You know, starter homes should be 1,100 square feet, two bedrooms, one baths, a small kitchen, a little living room with a nice little yard. Not at the fancy upgrades of granite countertops and vaulted ceilings. These are starter homes, and these homes will range around $235,000 for people to purchase. This can be done. I understand land use, understand zoning. I’ve worked with builders. Developers understand the cost of developing a lot to put a house on there. So those are the types of things that I would work as on very closely is fees. What are they doing? They’re hurting people that the overreach of government as it pertains to regulations and pushing small business out of the marketplace, and also affordability with homes. Yeah. You know, and again, right. My governing principle is again, a pretty simple people over politics do no harm and do what works. And so I’m going to look at every legislation and ask those three questions. Is this politically driven or is this really being driven by the need of the people? Is it hurting people? If it is hurting people, what do we do to modify it so it doesn’t hurt individuals out there? And then the next question, which is the most important question is can it work? Does it actually work? Or we just passing these bills because it feels good. It sounds good. It’s an emotional appeal to people’s fears and concerns. I think those are the types of things that are very important. One of the things that and I don’t remember what bill it is, but there is a bill that mandated these transit-oriented communities where they want to build next to RTD light rail stops, and they increase the density from 15 units to the acre, up to 40 units to the acre. They’re actually mandating people to live on top of each other because they believe the government believes that that’s the way we should live here in Colorado. We love our open space. We love to be able to have our own little yard. People don’t want to live in townhomes. They don’t want to live in apartments. They want to live in single family homes. They want to establish their roots. They want to be able to raise a family. So we got to stop mandating people to live in these transit-oriented communities. These 15 minute communities is not worked in Colorado. It may work in LA, they may work in New York. But that’s not the Colorado fabric. And so these are the types of things that I would pull back and allow local control to decide where they want to build. Not state government telling them where they must build. You know, the biggest challenge right now is water. A lot of people don’t understand the the importance of water. And we must capture more water. What does that mean? That means we got to invest serious dollars in reservoirs. We got to invest serious dollars in improving the infrastructure of how water gets transported throughout the state. And I know it’s not, you know, luxury or fancy. You know, nobody wants to cut a ribbon on a water pipe. Nobody wants to cut a ribbon, you know, on a reservoir. But right now, Colorado is out of water. Every drop that we’re currently using is water that we saved over the years. If you haven’t gone up to the mountains, to Lake Dillon or to Blue Mesa Reservoir, to Green Mountain Reservoir, if you do go, it is shocking. It is shocking to see how much mud and how little water exists in these huge reservoirs that we used to use for boating and hiking. And, you know, water is a huge component of our economy. It’s not just drinking water that we must preserve, but we got to preserve the economy fishing, boating, river rafting, all those things that bring people to Colorado to enjoy the beauty of what we have. And now the words getting out that we had a bad snow season last year. We got to hope, we get a good snowfall this year because it’s starting to hurt our economy, starting to hurt the local communities up in the mountains and people are really stressing out about the future. So we must make sure that if there’s one thing we focus in on is water. Water is life here in Colorado and we are a headwaters state, which means no water flows in all the water flows out, and we provide water to 19 states across the United States. So water is a major infrastructure project. It’s going to cost a lot of money. And people may not like the fact that we’re looking to preserve water, but this is a difficult discussion that we must have. This is a discussion that will lead us into the future. We must have water if we want to maintain the beauty and the the ambiance of Colorado, as well as providing a good quality of life for everybody that currently lives here. You know, it’s interesting because, you know, I never really know that I’m under a lot of stress. I know that there are times where I’m thinking a lot about a topic or an issue. My wife is the one that says, you know, you’re stressed out. I said, really? She goes, yeah, I can tell. I can tell in your demeanor. I can tell the way you carry yourself. You know, one of the things that I really enjoy is either getting on the elliptical and just kind of getting that energy right and sweating it out and feeling that you’re doing two things simultaneously right. You’re reducing stress, but you’re taking care of your health. And the other thing is, you know, I love to read. I love to read good books. And just being quiet, I like to do that. And the last thing I like to do is just really sit in nature and just sit still and just enjoy the silence and enjoy the beauty of what Colorado offers and what the Lord has created. That gives me peace, which is really what we need, is less stress and more peace.