El sábado 27 de septiembre, el Comité Demócrata de Legisladores Latino de Colorado estuvo visitando Glenwood Springs para reunirse con Sopris Mountain Collective, una cooperativa formada por residentes del parque de casas móviles Cavern Springs. La visita formaba parte de la “Gira de escucha por el Oeste” del Caucus, una iniciativa bienal para conectar a los legisladores con las comunidades de los cuatro rincones de Colorado.

Cinco legisladores —los representantes Elizabeth Velasco, Javier Mabrey, Julie Gonzales, Matt Martínez y Alex Valdez— se reunieron con los residentes para hablar del tema. “Creo que fue una buena reunión, y el hecho de que vinieran específicamente a escucharnos significa mucho para mí”, reflexionó Judith Álvarez, presidenta del Summit Mountain Collective y residente de Cavern Springs.

La discusión se centró en el esfuerzo del colectivo por recaudar $26 millones de dólares para comprar su parque al propietario establecido en Maryland. El propietario ya había llegado a un acuerdo de adquisición con un comprador anónimo por la misma cantidad, pero el colectivo presentó una denuncia ante el Departamento de Asuntos Locales de Colorado (DOLA) alegando una discrepancia entre el precio de venta anunciado y el precio final, lo que paralizó la compra. Si DOLA exige una nueva notificación de venta, los residentes tendrían otros 120 días para recaudar fondos e igualar la oferta, aunque el propietario no está obligado a aceptarla.

Conseguir ese nivel de financiamiento está resultando difícil. Por lo general, las compras lideradas por los residentes dependen de una combinación de gobiernos locales, subsidios estatales y federales y socios no lucrativos como Thistle ROC, que ayudó a facilitar la compra de los parques de casas móviles Aspen-Basalt y Mountain Valley por $42 millones de dólares, así como del parque Mountain Mobile Home Park, de 40 unidades, en Glenwood Springs, por $4.5 millones de dólares en agosto. Pero para Sopris Mountain Collective, el plazo y el precio hacen que la petición sea más difícil.

“Queremos seguir luchando en la medida de lo posible”, dijo Alvarez a Sol del Valle. “Pero sí, la gente dice: ‘No tienen tiempo. ¿Cómo te podemos ayudar?’”.

Razón por la cual el colectivo invitó al Colorado Latino Caucus a explorar opciones con los legisladores, aprovechar su influencia y buscar soluciones viables a nivel estatal.

Los residentes comentaron sobre cómo ha sido la vida bajo la actual propiedad del parque. Describieron alquileres al alza, la mala calidad del agua, las limitadas instalaciones y el aumento de las multas y restricciones. Aun así, resaltaron su amor por su hogar. La ubicación del parque les mantiene cerca del trabajo y las escuelas. Lo que quieren es quedarse, tener voz en su futuro y ver inversiones en su comunidad.

Pero lo que está en juego va más allá del parque. Si estás 98 viviendas se enfrentan a desalojos, Glenwood Springs perderá familias trabajadoras y a sus hijos.

“No creo que la mayoría de la comunidad fuera de este parque de casas móviles haya lidiado aún con la realidad del tremendo impacto económico que esto tendrá en todo lo demás”, dijo la representante de la junta escolar Jasmin Ramírez.

Para los residentes, la propiedad es algo más que dinero. Ser propietarios del parque les demostraría que la acción colectiva puede generar cambios. “El objetivo es que, en lugar de que la gente se enriquezca, podamos invertir lo que ganemos para mejorar el parque”, dijo Alvarez.

Los legisladores se marcharon con un sentido de urgencia y una mejor comprensión de lo que hay que hacer a nivel estatal en materia de vivienda accesible. Cuando se les preguntó directamente qué podían hacer para ayudar al colectivo a corto plazo, los legisladores mencionaron los problemas presupuestarios de Colorado y un gobernador áspero como barreras inmediatas.

“Queremos asegurarnos de que los residentes tengan realmente la oportunidad de recaudar los fondos, solicitar préstamos y obtener todo lo que necesitan para hacer una oferta”, dijo la representante Velasco. “Y no están obteniendo un descuento. Tienen que igualar una oferta existente, por lo que es importante que este proceso sea optimizado”.

“Cuando hablamos de desarrollo de viviendas accesibles, también deberíamos preocuparnos por la conservación de las viviendas accesibles existentes”, añadió el representante Mabrey. “Andy Boesenecker lideró la iniciativa de estabilización de los alquileres en los parques de casas móviles. Esa iniciativa fracasó hace un par de años, y me gustaría retomar esa lucha con un nuevo gobernador”.

Incluso si el colectivo consigue los fondos, su viaje no terminará ahí. “Comienza una maratón de 30 años”, dijo Álvarez, refiriéndose al posible modelo de préstamo.

Para la cooperativa, la compra también supondría los costos de reparar el sistema de agua potable y añadir servicios. Pero para estos vecinos, la inversión merece la pena y es la menor de sus preocupaciones.

“Esto va a costar mucho dinero. Pero si podemos comprarlo por $26 millones de dólares, entonces podemos arreglarlo”, dijo Álvarez.

Por ahora, tras haber tenido una audiencia de legisladores en sus patios traseros, la cooperativa Sopris Mountain tiene una renovada sensación de esperanza y claridad sobre su situación.

“Realmente, si se está creando un poder en el que ellos tienen voz y la pueden utilizar, sean o no ciudadanos”, dijo Alvarez. “Son residentes de Colorado. Pagan impuestos. Es posible que no puedan votar sobre algunas cosas, pero pueden hablar con sus representantes, y esos representantes son su voz”.

Traducción por Dolores Duarte

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Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer is the latest candidate vying to be Colorado’s next governor. 

The state senator from Brighton filed paperwork Monday making her long-anticipated 2026 bid official. She’s planning to hold a launch event Tuesday evening in Fort Lupton.

Kirkmeyer ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022, losing narrowly to Democrat Yadira Caraveo in the 8th Congressional District. Kirkmeyer sits on the legislature’s powerful Joint Budget Committee, which makes her a ubiquitous voice in the state’s budget conversations.

Before entering the legislature in 2020, Kirkmeyer spent two decades as a Weld County commissioner. As a commissioner, Kirkmeyer supported an unsuccessful 2013 push for 11 counties in northeastern Colorado, including Weld County, to break off from Colorado and form a 51st state.

Kirkmeyer also served as head of the Colorado Department of Local Affairs under-then Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican. Additionally, she ran unsuccessfully in 2014 for Congress in the 4th Congressional District. 

Current Gov. Jared Polis is term-limited and can’t run for reelection in 2026. He won reelection in 2022 by nearly 20 percentage points. He secured his first term in 2018 by 10 points.

Colorado has not elected a Republican to be governor since 2002, when Owens secured a second term.

Two prominent Democrats are running to replace Polis: U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. 

The Democratic headwinds in the race haven’t stopped a growing crowd of Republicans from mounting a run for governor, including state Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs; Sen. Mark Baisley of Woodland Park; and Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell.

Baisley and Kirkmeyer serve in the state Senate together. They’re statehouse colleagues with Bottoms.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

Many communities have foods that define them: Los Angeles has tacos, Green River, Utah, has melons, while New Mexico’s Hatch Valley is famous for its green chiles. Historic power dynamics — from colonization to migration — have always influenced how and why people began growing, cooking and consuming these symbolic dishes and crops. Today, these foods and those who prepare, raise and sell them carry cultural power; people travel hundreds of miles to buy a juicy Crenshaw or sweet canary melon from a family-run stand in Green River. And yet the farmers themselves often struggle to stay afloat. They lose access to markets as large companies buy up smaller, locally run grocery stores. 

Most grocery stores across the West trace back to a few major corporations. Whether you’re visiting King Soopers in Colorado, Smith’s in Utah or Fred Meyer in Oregon, you’ll find the same Kroger-brand products. The original names of the once-locally owned grocers might remain, but the shops are now just part of one of the nation’s largest grocery corporations.

A handful of companies control the production and distribution of most of our food, and the West plays a leading role in that system. The U.S. headquarters for the world’s largest meatpacker, JBS S.A., is in Greeley, Colorado, while Driscoll’s, the largest berry producer, is headquartered in Watsonville, California. These companies rarely confront the riskiest parts of agribusiness, raising the cows and growing the berries. Instead, they produce, brand and ship them. 

This global food system has profound impacts on the West’s farmers, workers and consumers. It’s getting harder for family farms to turn a profit, and those who seek alternatives to the consolidated corporate market must navigate complicated policies and finances in order to sell directly to consumers. Berry-pickers and meatpacking workers — often immigrants — face exploitation and unsafe conditions, with workplace protections varying from state to state. 

Meanwhile, food insecurity has increased across the West, and yet Republican-led states, including Utah and Idaho, opted out of a federal summer grocery program for kids last year, in part because of anti-welfare politics. 

Beyond its connection to this international system, the West has deeply rooted myths and policies around water and land that create and sustain other layers of power. In the 1800s, settlers stole land from Native people and killed off bison as they drove tens of thousands of cattle westward. Ever since, the cowboy and his glorified cattle have held cultural power that politicians are rarely willing to tarnish. 

As “The Big Four” meatpackers have consolidated most of the beef industry, the economic power of ranchers has dwindled. Only 2% of U.S. beef comes from cows that graze on public lands, and yet multigenerational ranching families and large landowners continue to influence and benefit from antiquated federal grazing policies. 

Most land in the Eastern U.S. is privately owned, but the federal government owns nearly half of all land in the West. Ranchers graze cows on huge swaths of public lands, paying fees well below the actual cost of managing those lands. Over the past century, grazing policies have changed little even as cows destroyed native vegetation and degraded waterways. State and federal policies often put the health of livestock above that of the region’s arid soils or the lives of large carnivores like wolves and bears. 

Ranchers and Big Beef also intersect and overlap with those who control water in the West. Agriculture consumes nearly 80% of the water diverted from the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin, primarily to grow alfalfa and other cattle-feed crops. An investigation by ProPublica and The Desert Sun found that most of the water consumed in California’s Imperial Valley goes to just 20 farming families, with one of them using more than the entire metropolitan area of Las Vegas. Only four of those families use the majority of their water rights to grow foods people consume, like broccoli or onions. The rest use their water to grow hay for livestock. 

Many of these families have senior water rights, and that increasingly means power in the arid and rapidly growing West. Together with livestock associations, irrigation districts and their political allies, they have sought to influence food and water policy. 

Yet in some parts of the West, other interests are gaining power. In the Northwest, years of advocacy from tribes and environmental groups led federal agencies to decommission dams on rivers like the Elwha and Klamath. The farmers might worry about their ability to continue irrigating, but tribes are reclaiming their traditional foodways as salmon return. 

And the Northwest’s rivers aren’t the only places where tribes are reasserting their culture and food sovereignty: Indigenous-run restaurants, farms and cooking classes are springing up across the West. 

Farmers markets, mutual aid efforts and community gardens are creating new forms of cultural, social and economic power, often led by and benefiting those who are excluded and marginalized, including queer, immigrant and Black farmers. Their efforts encourage people to take back intrinsic food traditions while they act in resistance to the global, capitalist food system. 

Still, the corporate structures of our food system are so deeply entrenched that they can be hard to fully comprehend or even notice. In this region, food is power, and that power is not equally shared. Before that can change, however, we need to understand the complexities of this system, tracing its roots to the growth of retail giants and the consolidation of Western agricultural production. 

The grocery giants

The illusion of competition

Farmers markets — a bright spot in the grocery landscape

Get big or get out: Consolidation in agricultural production

The small family farm holds a special place in the American imagination. Today, however, a modest and diminishing portion of our nation’s food is grown on smallholder farms. Production is shifting to larger-scale factory farms in every Western state and across nearly every commodity.

This November, regional voters will decide whether or not to pass the Early Childhood Service District ballot measure proposed by the Confluence Early Childhood Education Coalition (CECE). If approved, it would become Colorado’s first special taxing district meant to improve access to early-childhood care and education — another is being explored on the Front Range, but won’t likely make the 2025 ballot. Following a successful judicial review in July, CECE launched its “Strong Start, Bright Future” (SSBF) campaign to promote the measure and connect with voters.

“We really believe sustainable funding is one of the critical pieces [of the] puzzle,” said Maggie Tiscornia, SSBF’s outreach coordinator. 

Spanning Garfield, Pitkin and the southwest corner of Eagle County, the special district would implement a 0.25% sales tax on non-essential goods. Items excluded from the tax are things like groceries, gas, medicines, diapers, feminine hygiene products and other goods not taxed by the state. The tax could generate an estimated $10 million in annual revenue.

To maximize reach and address the region’s diverse socioeconomic needs, the funds would be flexible. Families with children under 5 could benefit from sliding-scale tuition assistance, while childcare providers would receive grants for expanding capacity (particularly for infant and toddler care), lowering tuition rates, improving quality of services or obtaining licensure and so forth. Additional funds would be used for the district’s operational needs and third-party accountability reviews.

Voters will also elect the special district’s five-person board of directors. Akin to a school board, the special district’s board would implement programs, determine policies and listen and adapt to the community’s needs. Nominations for the new board are due Aug. 22. 

“I think the beauty of this being local, and these directors being voter-elected to represent these communities, is that we can directly advocate, have our voices heard and respond to the needs here,” said Tiscornia, “rather than at the state level.” 

Community-wide challenge
From Parachute to Aspen, the need for high-quality, reliable and affordable childcare is increasingly prevalent. Noting that 90% of brain development happens from birth to 5 years old, Tiscornia said supporting these children will set them up for success and also benefit the communities where they live and play.

Currently, the region has 2,272 licensed childcare placements, but over 5,100 children under the age of 5. Faced with this challenge, many working parents have opted to reduce their work hours or leave the workforce entirely. Based on CECE’s data analysis, the lack of accessible childcare leads to an estimated regional loss of $50 million in annual revenue, earnings and productivity.

Families who have secured a spot face another challenge: tuition. The federal government recommends that 7% of household income goes toward childcare. In the Valley, families making the median household income with two young children are budgeting nearly 37% of their monthly income toward childcare. In some cases, this surpasses their monthly housing budget.

Ali Cottle, founder and director of the Thompson Schoolhouse and a CECE volunteer, said childcare funding is a systemic problem. Providers have to charge more to maintain their business and employees in an expensive area, and families struggle to afford the tuition. 

“We just need money; that’s the big answer,” said Cottle. “This proposal is a way [visitors and second homeowners] can help build our small community.”

Sweeping support
Founded in 2017, CECE has been a leading voice in expanding access to childcare. When the ballot proposal was made public, it quickly garnered support from community leaders and organizations. The boards of county commissioners in each of the three counties unanimously supported the proposal, while former and current superintendents from Roaring Fork School District and Aspen School District have endorsed it. In May, CECE gathered over 1,000 registered voter signatures in support. 

“One thing that really grabbed me about this campaign is that it is a nonpartisan group trying to do something good for so many families in our valley,” said Kassidy Birdsong, another CECE volunteer. She added that with the number of overwhelming challenges worldwide – from healthcare to food insecurity –  opportunities for success can be limited. For her, this childcare tax is an actionable piece of the solution.

“Becoming a mom made me feel a sense of solidarity with other moms around the world and in my community,” said Birdsong. “I want to see parents and providers in my community thrive.”

Nominations for the Early Childhood Service District board of directors are open until Aug. 22. Visit www.strongstartbrightfuture.com to learn more about the ballot measure and board nominations.

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