Laura recently sat down with Alan Wartes, the Publisher of the Gunnison Country Times, for an interview about her run for County Commissioner. The interview touched on why Laura decided to pursue public office, a little bit of her backstory in the Gunnison Valley, as well as some of the issues she is hoping to be able to address as commissioner. Answering the question of what brought her to the valley in the first place, Laura emphasized that her story is similar to many people living in the Gunnison Valley saying:
“I know from firsthand experience what it’s like to try to survive here and make things add up. I found that the better jobs I got and the more opportunities I had to work one job or to work a more sustainable job allowed me to give back to the community in different ways. It deepened my bonds with this community, having interactions with people on trail work days or on the planning commission, or coaching. These different things that I do now give me this connection to folks in different sectors of our community that has created the profound sense of belonging I have here and I want other people to get to feel that way.”
Laura also touched on the fact that she does not have all the solutions, but she is ready and willing to listen:
“My approach is to recognize that I don’t have all the answers, but there are a lot of experts in our community who are working on it. Whether that’s working with health and human services, working with our behavioral health department at the hospital, working with the community foundation, working with our teachers in the school district — really trying to listen to people across the sectors who have more expertise than I do about how we make these changes to raise people up.”
When discussing the issue of housing in the valley, Laura also acknowledged that the housing issue is one part of a stable and healthy community in the Gunnison Valley:
“It is really urgent and I do think we need to be putting resources into it, but housing is only one piece of that triangle, and… if we don’t also talk about where kids are going to go to preschool so that people can go to work, we’re not talking about the whole picture.”
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