This piece originally appeared in the Colorado Times Recorder.
El Paso County’s District 3 County Commissioner race is one of the most competitive in Colorado. Consisting of the Westside of Colorado Springs, Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs, all of which lean Democratic, as well as portions of conservative Monument and Palmer Lake, the district is evenly split between Republican and Democrat voters. El Paso County’s Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) has been dominated by Republicans since the Nixon Administration, but in July the Colorado Democratic Party awarded $30,000 in grant funding to county parties – including El Paso – as part of its Colorado County Comeback strategic initiative.
Naomi López, a speech language pathologist in Colorado Springs School District 11, decided to run as a Democrat for the seat after the El Paso County BOCC unanimously voted to deny a $20,750 Community Development Block Grant to The PLACE, a nonprofit that helps youth exit homelessness, over concerns related to abortion and parents’ rights during a July 11, 2023 meeting.
“I observed the county commissioners have a very brief and fear-mongering discussion about the type of youth that the PLACE service here in Colorado Springs, and they decided unanimously not to fund the place because Commissioner [Carrie] Geitner said there were no homeless youth, that they were with their families or with DHS,” recalls López. “The entire board unanimously voted not to give that community block grant money to the PLACE. I had been doing advocacy – school board and city council – and I just was really appalled by the lack of robust conversation and how they were making decisions based on their ideological frameworks. We need to find somebody to run to actually fight for our most vulnerable people in our county, especially our children, and so I just decided instead of complaining about it, I would do something about it.”
López is running against Republican Bill Wysong, a small business owner and anti-development community activist. Wysong’s foray into politics began with his opposition to the proposed 2424 Garden of the Gods Road multifamily housing development as part of the Mountain Shadows Community Association. Wysong went on to co-found Westside Watch, which has opposed proposed development in Colorado Springs. During a Sept. 12 town hall event, Wysong said his opposition to new development stems from his concerns about public safety.
“District 3, almost in its entirety, is smack dab in the middle of the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI),” he said. “We experienced the horrific [Waldo Canyon] fire and the evacuation that ensued as they kind of all of a sudden said, ‘Get out.'”
Wysong’s opposition and advocacy against new developments on the Westside of Colorado Springs comes as the region is struggling with a shortage of approximately 27,000 housing units.
“El Paso County is growing whether we want to acknowledge it or not,” says López. “I think all of the leaders within the county and city that I’ve spoken to already, including those who are developers, recognize that we’re going to have to increase the units here. I think that there’s an issue with attainable and affordable housing that is not going to be solved just by a county commissioner, or just by a city council, or just by a mayor, or just by legislation. I think we all have to come together and find a way where we can increase the amounts of homes that are attainable for our residents within El Paso County. I think when it comes to safety within our communities, especially those that are in the WUI here – especially in our county, of course – there are many plans that are already in place, and there are experts who are using the technology that they have to assess safe evacuation routes, safe mitigation.”
Wysong, like the current BOCC, is committed to low taxes and supporting TABOR. “There are those that are very fiscally conservative,” said Wysong. “They’ve been able to say we need to keep taxes low and I think we’re all going to agree, we want to keep our taxes low. TABOR helps do that in the sense that the state can’t just – imagine with the super majority [in the legislature], they just keep printing money and most of it is unfunded mandates.”
López notes that the current BOCC has refused federal funding and grant opportunities. “We have watched the current commission board reject monies that are coming from federal programing or state programing, specifically in the area of green energy, and help for people who are struggling with drug addiction,” she said. “They are rejecting the money because they’re saying, ‘Well, we are a self-control county, and we don’t want to take that money from the Biden Build Back Better plan to increase our green energy or electric car stations within our county. I don’t know why they would do that. Those are the types of things that are directly hurting our community. I definitely will be working with the commissioners to make sure that we take every money, all the money that we have possible to us to serve our residents.”
Wysong also supports the current BOCC’s opposition to immigration. In February, El Paso County Commissioners held a press conference to oppose offering aid to migrants, which led Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade to issue a statement in an effort to defuse the situation. “We’re not in crisis mode,” said Mobolade. “Twenty-one families [arrived in Colorado Springs]. Denver is dealing with 40,000 families. They’re in crisis. I just want to make sure that we are ready if indeed that crisis ends up meeting our city.”
For Wysong, it is a matter of priorities. “We’re going to take care of our own people,” he said. “If people start coming in, we’ve got to close that border. We’ve got to get it figured out. We’ve got to get ourselves and everyone fully assimilated to where they are earning an income, and they don’t need to be put up for free. Legal immigration is great. I fully support it. It’s the illegal element. The BOCC has been very strong and said, ‘We do not support sanctuary city or county.'”
López condemned the BOCC’s actions on immigration. “I staunchly believe that those types of statements are fear-mongering and hateful vitriol against immigrants, particularly those from our southern border,” she said. “Me being a Latina myself, my family has been on this land in northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, since before it was the United States of America. So, I am strongly against any kind of rhetoric or proclamations that are meant to particularly target Latino immigrants coming in. Let’s just be very clear there, that’s what that is. When it comes to serving our residents, I think that as El Paso County, we have to serve all our residents, and we don’t go around and check if you are an immigrant or if you’re not an immigrant, or what your legal status is. We do not have an issue here in El Paso County with resources extending out to what they are calling, ‘illegal immigration.'”
Wysong’s plan for the BOCC is more of the same. “I have very strong feelings about where the board of commissioners needs to go,” he said. “I don’t see real strong deviations from where it is today.”
López and Wysong will take part in a League of Women Voters candidate forum at 6 p.m. on Oct. 22 at the Westside Community Center in Colorado Springs.
