The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Board of County Commissioners race heats up
A third candidate has officially entered the race for Gunnison County commissioner. Crested Butte real estate agent and developer Joe Matyk filed as a write-in candidate just before the deadline last week and thus qualifies as an official candidate for the county seat.
Matyk will be running against Republican Phil Chamberland and Democratic incumbent Jim Starr. Matyk said he threw his hat in the ring because he feels both of the candidates will be beholden to the parties and will be too cautious with their stands on issues.
“I’m running as an Independent because I expect neither candidate, as representatives of the mainstream political parties in our county, will say the things that need to be said for fear of alienating a particular segment of our citizenry and losing their vote,” Matyk explained. ”For example, one of the candidates has a yard sign with the slogan ‘Moving Forward Together.’ I think, what does that mean? Moving forward to where? Moving forward from what? How does that help me plan for my business? How does that help me get a job and feed my family?”
Matyk makes it clear he wants to focus on creating jobs in the county and that includes supporting the current tourism and ski industry.
“The number one issue is job creation—we have to foster an environment where a family can not only survive but thrive. However, an agenda of job creation depends on solving a number of sub-issues such as: one, slowing or even reversing increasing government spending in an era of decreasing revenues; two, solvency of our school budgets; three, the county’s role in hamstringing a pro-economic agenda (i.e., a carbon neutral requirement in the recently adopted Special Development Projects regulations); and most importantly, four, do we want to be a tourist-based economy or a mining-based economy? If we choose the former, then our leadership should remove bureaucratic obstacles and offer 110 percent support for a pro-economic agenda. In other words, give the job creators of our county the latitude to do what is necessary to achieve that goal.
“The current commissioner’s stance of ‘maintaining neutrality because the regulations we wrote doesn’t allow us to have an opinion’ is unacceptable and cowardly,” Matyk continued. ”If we don’t choose the former, and vigorously pursue that goal, then by default we will choose the latter, because at some point our middle class will tire of a ‘hand-to-mouth’ existence and welcome the security provided by one of the world’s largest molybdenum producers.”
We are entering the season of local politics, so go ahead and mark your calendar for the Crested Butte News candidate’s forum. Pencil in Sunday, October 17 at the Crested Butte Center for the Arts. Come and ask any of the candidates a question and get a feel for the county commissioner who will represent the north end of the valley.
Mail-in ballots will start going out from the county on October 12 and early voting will start October 18. The election is officially November 2, which, by the way, according to the calendar behind my desk, is also celebrated as the Day of the Dead. Take from that what you will.
