U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen paid a virtual visit to Chaffee County’s elected leaders Feb. 23, after her in-person trip was canceled due to winter weather concerns.
Buena Vista trustees Gina Lucrezi and Sue Cobb and Mayor Libby Fay were in attendance, as well as Salida Mayor Dan Shore, Salida City Councilor Dominique Naccarrato and Poncha Springs trustees John-David Longwell and Adrian Quintana. County commissioners Keith Baker and P.T. Wood also attended the meeting, in addition to Chaffee County Assessor Rick Roberts.
The conversation centered on the leaders’ concerns and questions for Pettersen, which spanned recent post office frustrations, seniors’ access to housing, mental health and broadband expansion.
Pettersen said she was grateful for the chance to “really partner and roll up our sleeves together so that I can be the best advocate at the federal level to help address the needs in (the) community.”
Baker kicked off the conversation by thanking Pettersen for her efforts on the postal front, pointing out that many freshman representatives may not get involved or see it as their place.
“It would be irresponsible for me not to advocate on that issue,” Pettersen replied. “That’s one of the most fundamental services that the federal government provides, that everybody has access to, so I look forward to getting to work together.”
Mayors Fay and Shore brought up the lack of affordable housing, specifically for the county’s senior population.
“We really don’t have anything right now, and if we don’t have anything, then people have to leave when they get to be a certain age,” Fay said. “They leave our community and we don’t want to lose all those volunteer hours and all that history and all that philanthropy.”
Pettersen replied that they need to explore financial incentives like tax credits for home builders to build the type of housing needed in the area, whether for the workforce or for older residents.
“The profit margin isn’t there, so when I’ve met with business leaders, they have said that that’s why they prioritize investing in things like luxury apartments and things that are not helping us address our housing crisis because the profit is there for them to actually invest in that,” she said. “We have a big gap in helping kind of the middle folks who don’t qualify for subsidies at the lower end of the income level and the people in the middle who are unable to get ahead to even consider buying a place to begin with.”
Trustee Lucrezi brought up opportunities for sustainable energy, and Pettersen said her office wants to support local governments in knowing what grants are available and ensuring they have access to support in the grant writing process.
In the chat, Longwell brought up access mental health services, which Pettersen identified as a priority for her work.
“My wife is a mental health provider,” Longwell wrote, “and that’s a big issue here, especially post-COVID.”
“I’m already working on a big bill, my first bill, around increasing access to mental health services and substance use disorder treatment and recovery services,” she replied. “I know that our kids have significant mental health problems because of lack of access to services, especially in rural Colorado.”
Pettersen noted centers of internet access for those who cannot connect consistently, such as seniors and students. On the broadband front, Justin Kurth, Pettersen’s rural field representative in Cañon City, said that he and Pettersen recently did a tour that helped them learn about technology in rural areas.
“You’ve probably seen advancements in some of these areas of satellite and broadband coverage,” Kurth said. “There are businesses in my community that are adopting technologies to augment what they’ve had, which is unreliable at best internet service through the traditional providers.”
“We need to make sure that rural communities who are targeted for these programs are actually rural,” Baker said. “They need to really come to rural Colorado.”
Another concern Fay shared was the amount of dying wood and struggling forest health in the area.
“Whatever you can do in that area, maybe in connection with the farm bill, but to help us work towards healthy forests so that we can keep our watersheds as clean as possible would be really helpful,” she said.
“We’ve made progress with some of the bills that have gone through and funding priorities and you all were a part of making that possible,” Pettersen said. “We just need to keep that momentum on exactly what your needs are in thinking through putting together a plan.”
Chaffee County Assessor Roberts brought up education, whether students pursue college, trade programs or other opportunities.
“I know Biden was trying to get college basically paid for and I’d sure like to see that, especially because in a rural community, the things we’re missing are plumbers and electricians, HVAC guys and all of these other things, so that we can build all the housing that we need,” he said. “We’ve got to be able to educate our youth in order to take some of these positions, especially the guys who don’t want to go to college.”
“I look forward to partnering on that,” Pettersen said. “It’s something that I lead on at the state level, but there are some limitations there. So I’m excited to work on that nationally.”
Pettersen is also committed to exploring ways to improve access to preschool and daycare access, particularly as universal preschool takes root in Colorado.
“Being a mom with a young toddler, I couldn’t ever do any of this work without access to childcare services, and I think often about how many people, especially in the rural parts of this district, are completely out of luck with being able to send their kids to be taken care of while they go to work,” she said. “This is part of recovering from the pandemic when we saw lots of closures and we saw women being forced out of the workforce at two times the rate of men. I’m sure that women are in a place to enter the workforce again.”
She said she’ll be working with Katherine Clark on childcare and sees it as a top priority.
“These services should be subsidized because they’re critical to the success of our communities,” she said. “Our kids zero to three, that’s the best investment that we can make in kids and impacting their long-term outcomes in life. So that is the way that I look at policy and my job as a legislator, is to ask what we can do to increase opportunity and be as strategic as we can with the limited investments that we have. That couldn’t be more important.”
The meeting closed with Pettersen’s gratitude for the leaders’ partnership and for the chance to serve.
“It’s an honor to be able to fight for you all at the federal level. And I just really appreciate your time and partnership.