To learn how we produced the 2026 town election Q&A, read here.

Resident of Colorado for 35 years. Resident of Granby for 4 years.

Q: In your opinion, what are the three most important issues facing Granby over the next four years, and what specifically would you like the Board of Trustees to do about them?

I would say, from what I’ve witnessed by going to the meetings for the past four years, probably the largest issues would be: affordable housing, our infrastructure, our water, roads, things like that, and our overall development. Granby itself doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, whether it wants to develop or if it wants to remain a go-between, a pass-through type of town. And I think it’s mostly that they don’t know what they want to be, because we have a group of people who represent both ideologies. As far as affordable housing goes, our biggest problem with that is when we have developers looking at building, whether they want to help with affordable housing or not, or they just want to build. They always look at the AMI, the average mean income of the county. So that includes remote workers, those who don’t get paid from Colorado companies but live here. And then we have the actual residents also who live here and work here. So the number itself is probably skewed to a higher level because of a lot of those remote workers.  And so when the developers come and look for that type of thing, and they do want to partner to do affordable housing, the problem is true affordable housing lies in the below 60% of AMI. The affordable housing that has been built or claimed as affordable housing has tended to lie within that 80% all the way up to 160% of that AMI. So we’re actually not filling the housing need for the actual workers in Grand County. 

By the time things get to the board of trustees, they’ve already gone through the zoning and permitting. And as long as a developer or anybody buys a parcel of land, and they are following the zoning and the permitting, they can start that process. Then it goes to the planning commission, and then the planning commission, as long as all those things are being met — those permits and height requirements and easements are being met — they have to say yes. They cannot just say no because we don’t want a big old set of condos in our town. So then, after the planning commission gets it and they approve it, it then goes to the board of trustees. Oftentimes, it has seemed like when the board of trustees sees that the planning commission has approved it, they approve it also. Because they do know that the planning commission has looked at all the zoning and the codes and everything permitting that needs to be done in order to fall in line with the specifics of what Granby Town Code has already stated it needs to be. In my opinion, in a way, the board of trustees’ hands are tied when it comes to development. It really, it starts at zoning, code and the permitting. And right now, we’re in a transition period where our zoning and our codes were trying to be changed and updated. That will significantly determine what Granby will look like in the next 20 years, by what is put in that code and what Granby’s grand plan — what they want it to look like, comes from that code and that those planning zoning.

Q: What is one area where you believe the town should be spending more money, and one area where you believe spending should be more carefully scrutinized?

That’s a tough question because I really do feel like it has to not necessarily be spread evenly, but it does have to be distributed in a way that we’re not overloading one area. So if I say we need to be focusing on our downtown businesses and infrastructure and the face value, if you will, of our town when people come in, that is great. That’s awesome. That’s going to invite people to town to want to come into the businesses, which in turn gives us the taxes, right? The sales taxes. The second part of that, though, is we really do want to bolster the town with families. It cannot survive solely on tourism, you know. So I really want us to also focus on those things that are going to keep families here. Jobs, child care is number one. And just the access to homes, to affordable living. Period.

Q: How should the town balance the needs of year-round residents, local businesses, second-home owners and visitors when those interests conflict?

I don’t feel like they have to conflict necessarily. As a business owner myself, I would like to see it more balanced. I am a firm advocate of building our businesses and a business culture.  That’s literally the main reason why I am on the Grand County Chamber of Commerce board. We want to empower the business owners to create this culture. We don’t want to just be there, to be able to promote them on social media. What I really would like to ideally see happen is that the locals would know what’s available for the businesses in the county, but specifically talking Granby, so that they can be going to those businesses year-round, and there’s not such a gap for the businesses between when the tourists are here in the winter ski season and/or the summer, and they have to live solely on that tourist money. I want our community to be supporting our businesses so that they don’t have to have such a gap or discrepancy in that income for them, and they can survive without the tourists. I feel like that right there helps build our community. If we’re not necessarily depending on people from the outside coming to visit to help us, then we’ll have more of an all-around community feeling instead of a tourism feeling.

Q: What should the town be doing to support locally owned businesses and strengthen the year-round economy?

Well, I will tell you, it is very easy when good examples when they feed the staff, when they get any kind of gift card or incentive for activities for town members. Please use local businesses. Starbucks is corporate. Our money doesn’t stay here in the county when we go to Starbucks. It’s convenient. It’s great, but we have local businesses who do the exact same thing, and you see them every single day, also, and that money stays within the town.

Q: In a situation where trustees try to make a decision that a vocal group of residents strongly oppose, how would you approach that situation?

First, I will always look at what the majority of the community is saying. We cannot just go with what our friends are saying or the people we know because we all tend to be around people who are like-minded. It’s crucial for us to be able to hear the opposing viewpoints, and then take the majority. Think about it. Come up with the questions that they also are asking, that come about with that sentiment that they’re presenting, and you have to look long term. You can’t base your decisions on emotion. You can’t base them on what’s going to solve a problem or possibly band-aid a problem for right now; you have to look long term and what’s going to be the best for Granby and the majority of its citizens.

Q: At the end of your term, what specific accomplishments would make you say your time as a trustee was successful?

I would say my time as a trustee would be successful if I had community members coming to me, consistently, throughout my term, talking to me about their real-life concerns, confiding in me, and basically trusting me to make a decision for them, because that’s who a trustee represents is the community. We actually are not there to put forth any kind of our own agenda. We work for the community.

Q: Granby continues to see development both downtown and in areas such as Granby Ranch and Grand Elk. Where do you believe additional growth makes sense, and what infrastructure needs to be in place before additional development is approved?

We have to start at the ground up, so we have to have that infrastructure in place before we can develop any direction. We have pipes, water, sewer, everything that needs to be addressed right now. We have to make sure we have enough water taps for all of the development that’s going on. I would love to be able to see a more defined Collaboration with the town and Granby Sanitation. I would like to see our town be able to support, first and foremost, its current residents.  And then, if we have enough and we’re maintaining or repairing what needs to be fixed now, then be looking at the expansion. But I feel like we have to take care of our town people first.

Q: Affordable and workforce housing has been a continuing issue in Granby. What specific changes, if any, would you support? What are your thoughts on Granby’s proposed rezoning plan and the Nuche Village project?

There’s a big difference between affordable, as we discussed before; truly affordable for Granby right now would be the 30% to 60% AMI. AMI currently, I believe, is around $79,000 a year. There’s no way I make near $79,000 a year. When it comes to workforce housing, they tend to put it in the very bottom of 80% all the way up to 160%. There’s information from the Fraser River Valley Housing Partnership that gives statistics showing that the majority of people that are falling within that 80% to 160% are town employees. People who are not doing your day-to-day. They’re doing the town jobs; they’re doing police work, nursing, things like that. They are not typically your servers, your handyman, basic workforce type things. It has been the affordable housing has been filled has gone to government employees, more than the majority of the employees in the town of Granby, which fall under that 80% to 160% AMI.

For the rezoning plan, I mostly want the verbiage to be specific. Right now, we have an opportunity within the rezoning plan to be able to have housing that people truly can afford, that mostly falls into the manufactured homes. If that is all people can afford up here, then we have to be able to let them have that type of housing in these certain zones. For the homes that already exist in these zones that they’re looking to change. They need to be included. The verbiage needs to be very specific, and I feel like there’s been a lot of confusion on the difference between a modular and a manufactured home. So the very first thing is the zoning committee; whoever is rewriting the zoning needs to make sure they have that specific. There are a lot of residents who live in manufactured homes who would be affected by these zoning changes, and I think that’s when we talk about doing the best for Granby; that’s where we’re looking ahead. We have to look ahead and see that if we change the zoning and we exclude manufactured homes, those people who live in those zones right now would not be able to stay there if they had some kind of catastrophe happen, like a fire. Don’t think there’s going to be flooding here, but you know, any kind of disaster, because they would then not be able to rebuild. So, I believe the new zoning needs to make sure that they say that if there’s manufactured homes already there, they need to be able to stay. They need to be able to replace their home.

I was on board when Nuche Village was affordable housing; it quickly turned into attainable, workforce housing, and the town running it. I don’t believe Town government should be in the real estate Arena. Because of poor mismanagement, the town is now $3.8 million in debt.

Q: As Granby grows, what do you believe the town’s priorities should be for public safety, emergency preparedness and evacuation planning?

I was. not here during the Troublesome fire, but I’ve heard nightmare stories about the evacuations and so on and so forth. Of course, we can’t control Mother Nature, and when she starts to take over, and our police, our firemen, our EMS can’t really do anything about it other than try to get us out, we have to cooperate. Pointing the fingers during or after isn’t really going to help anything going forward. I believe the police department has started a new program or new hours. I should say 48 and 120, and from what I’ve heard, that’s already starting to be a benefit for us. It allows outside police candidates to look up here because they would only be working 48 hours, and then they would have 120 or five days off, so that makes it where they do not have to live in the county. So it gives us a broader selection of candidates, and so that can bolster our police department. So that we can have better coverage, and we do need better coverage. We don’t want to spread our officers too thin. The same goes for our fire and our EMS. We need to be able to have it where our hours that they work could possibly make it where, it opens up the candidate pool.