Meet the candidates
Durango City Council hopefuls square off

City Council candidates: Doug Lyon, Christina Rinderle Thompson, Paul Broderick, Aaron Tucson

This week the Durango Telegraph put questions to the four candidates for Durango City Council. Their responses are printed in the order they were received. Mail-in ballots are due back by next Fri., April 3.

Name: Christina Rinderle Thompson

Years in Durango: 10

The tape/CD/MP3 you’d want stuck in your stereo: “Times Like These” by Jack Johnson

Favorite local restaurant: Cyprus Café, I love the cozy atmosphere and all the great local and organic ingredients.

Your dream vacation: Something along the lines of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat Pray Love. A year of soul searching, adventure and travel – three different countries, four months each. Being truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey happens for a reason, and trying to accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher. Red wine and beach time definitely are included, as well.

Last book you read: When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Favorite guilty pleasure: Walking up the big hill on my morning run

Type of car you drive: My Trek Wasabi cruiser bicycle gets me to work every day, but my ’98 Toyota pickup serves me well as backup when needed.

Is growth still the leading challenge facing the Durango City Council? Why or why not? Yes. I grew up in a Midwest town that had a zero growth rate, and I saw Main Avenue businesses boarded up one by one as lack of jobs and pressures from outside development made the soul of its downtown crumble. People left (myself included) the town, seeking job opportunities, values like sustainability and a real sense of community.

Growth doesn’t just mean new buildings and more people; growth is also new jobs, higher wages and increased sales tax revenue. It means enhancing our downtown, connecting it to the river trail, and reinforcing it as the core of our community. It means continuing to buy local and support downtown merchants. It means increasing trails, open space and parks for us and our kids. It means growing small businesses through the college’s Small Business Development Center. It means galvanizing our community’s existing strengths to provide a foundation for responsible growth.

Smart growth means embracing environmental stewardship as a catalyst for our economic maturity. Our region is poised to become the leader in the New Energy Economy. Our friends and neighbors are doing their part to create sustainable jobs right here in Durango. Ecological companies like SolarWorx, Shaw Solar, San Juan Bio Energy and Phoenix Recycling are making a commitment to our future every day. Innovative companies like Mercury Payment Systems, StoneAge Tools, and Syndicom are advancing technologies and expanding opportunities.

The time is now to work collaboratively, focus on sustainability, recognizing that the economy and the environment go hand in hand.

Name: Aaron Tucson

Years in Durango: 28 years. I was born and raised in Durango and am a sixth-generation resident of La Plata County.

The tape/CD/MP3 you’d want stuck in your stereo: I have three. “One Day at a Time” by the late, great local punk legends The Dugouts, and any album by the Jedi Mind Tricks or Sublime.

Favorite local restaurant: Gazpacho on Taco Tuesdays!

Your dream vacation: A South American vacation with my girlfriend. I would start by visiting Machu Picchu in Peru, trek the rain forest in Brazil, play soccer with kids in the streets of Buenos Aires, snowboard in Chile and end the vacation by camping in Patagonia.

Last book you read: The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

Favorite guilty pleasure: Tubing with friends down the Animas River on a lazy summer afternoon with a six pack of Pinstripe.

Type of car you drive: 1995 Isuzu Rodeo. I hardly drive because I live downtown, so I am able to walk or long board nearly everywhere I need to go.

Is growth still the leading challenge facing the Durango City Council? Why or why not? Protecting our quality of life in Durango is the paramount issue we face as a community. Growth puts great pressure on maintaining our unique Durango lifestyle. In the near future, when the economy rebounds, growth will wake up its sleepy head and once again dominate the local political scene. Since growth is not currently breathing down our neck, we have a golden opportunity to reexamine city growth policies. We need our growth policies to promote sustainability and to protect Durango’s unique small town character. Sustainable growth protects open space, uses green building techniques and promotes walkable, mixed-use development, with a wide variety of housing types, so people of all income levels can live close to where they work. This approach cuts down long, unsustainable commutes and sprawl.

The answer is not to build a fence around Durango and say, “no more growth,” unless as a community we are prepared to pay Aspen and Telluride prices. This approach will turn Durango into the haves vs. the have-nots. Young people should be able stay, work and establish themselves in the community where they were born. Durango, since its inception, has always been a place where working-class people of all ages could live in a mountain paradise. I would like to keep it that way.

Since this is such a limited space, I would like to invite everybody to visit my website: aarontucson.com to find out my positions on: core city services, infrastructure, health care, sustainability, the community park and chickens.

Name: Paul Broderick

Years in Durango: 15

The tape/CD/MP3 you’d want stuck in your stereo: Something by Willie Nelson

Favorite local restaurant: J Bo’s, good food, good service and a family atmosphere.

Your dream vacation: I already did it, a week of backcountry skiing in the Selkirks, British Columbia.

Last book you read: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey

Favorite guilty pleasure: Chocolate and bacon. Together – yes. Guilty – no.

Type of car you drive: Truck with a camper.

Is growth still the leading challenge facing the Durango City Council? Why or why not? No, growth has slowed significantly in the current economy. I believe the silver lining is that we now have some breathing room to better plan for the next wave of growth. Past planning has been reactionary; I believe we now have an opportunity to be proactive.

The 2007 Comprehensive Plan has 12 chapters, and not one of them is dedicated to addressing the future demand for business and commercial space. We have incredible entrepreneurs in Durango and a steady stream of well-qualified Fort Lewis graduates eager to enter the workforce. If the city does not provide new areas as well as avenues for businesses to grow, we may lose current major employers and encourage others to locate elsewhere by not accommodating their needs. A 13th chapter to the comprehensive plan addressing future areas for commercial growth could serve us well into the future by helping keep the Durango economy healthy with well-paying jobs.

I define a real town as one that has a functioning diverse economy in which its citizens rely on the local economy for their livelihood. This creates a citizenry with a vested interest in their community, which in turn creates a healthier community. Let us not forget that quality of life is more than a mountain bike, a kayak and a pair of skis. It is also a home, a well-paying job, health care and a healthy community. Let’s keep Durango real.

Name: Doug Lyon

Years in Durango: 1982-87 and 2000-09

The tape/CD/MP3 you’d want stuck in your stereo: It would be something owned by my daughters. Who is Akon?

Favorite local restaurant: Welcome back Seasons!

Your dream vacation: Anyplace with my wife and daughters

Last book you read: Right now I am reading Cold Mountain.

Favorite guilty pleasure: I like to cook, and I like to eat.

Type of car you drive: 2000 Volvo, 1999 Expedition

Is growth still the leading challenge facing the Durango City Council? Why or why not? Our biggest challenge right now is preserving the core city services that form the building blocks of our quality of life, things like trash collection, water service, sewer service, police, fire and emergency services protection, road maintenance, etc. I have been concerned for the last two years that our assumptions regarding growth in sales tax receipts were not tenable. Unfortunately, my concerns have been justified by recent data. If we annualize the 3.5 percent decline that we saw in January, we will experience a $400,000 shortfall for 2009. We can absorb that without dramatic adverse effect on any particular area of the budget. In the unlikely event that we experience a deeper or a more prolonged decline in City revenues, my first priority would be to protect the core city services upon which we depend.

We are using this period of slower growth to rewrite the Land Use and Development Code in order to help us effectively manage growth when those pressures return. In addition, we have recently completed the update of the Comprehensive Plan. We are also continually working with the Board of County Commissioners to manage growth at the interface of the city limits and the rest of the county. If I am reelected, I will continue to keep a close eye on the fiscal health of the City, protect our core city services, manage growth, and maintain and expand our good relations with our partners in La Plata County. Thank you for your support. •