Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
City Council Candidate Maryah Lauer talks about her ideas for Colorado Springs
Engaging with the importance of local politics, Maryah Lauer shares her journey and insights as a candidate for city council in Colorado Springs. She addresses the lack of representation and the need for meaningful democratic engagement within civic life. Through her firsthand experiences, we uncover how local decisions affect our daily lives.
• Introduction of Maryah Lauer and her background
• Motivation for running for city council amid anti-democratic measures
• Discussion of the challenges in local governance structures
• Advocacy for fair pay among city council members and equitable representation
• Importance of using tax revenue for community programs
• Call to action for citizen engagement in upcoming elections
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Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face. My name is Adam Gillard. I am your co-host along with Dick Wilkinson. How you doing, Dick?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great, Adam. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, today we have Mariah Lauer with us. She is a city council candidate for District 3 here in Colorado Springs. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about yourself, Like how did you land here in Colorado Springs?
Speaker 3:So tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you land here in Colorado Springs? So I decided to move out to Colorado. I grew up mostly in Texas and then came out here for college and just really fell in love with Colorado Springs. I ended up graduating from UCCS and went to grad school abroad and then, after my husband and I were deciding where we really wanted to end up, we realized that Colorado Springs was home, and this is where we've stuck around and where we plan to make our long-term home.
Speaker 2:Okay, I've got to ask what part of Texas Because I'm from Texas.
Speaker 3:It's a new place.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 3:Well, I did. I mean that's. I lived in Corpus Christi, in Austin, san Antonio and Houston, but grew up. I consider San Antonio like my hometown. That's where I spent the most time. All right, that'll work, yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the biggest San Antonio stereotype that you hear? Oh, San Antonio stereotype I mean.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, this is where the Air Force base.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah that's right.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, I don't know if a San Antonio stereotype?
Speaker 2:really no. I mean the Alamo's there and I just remember the Alamo. It's a really weird thing in Texas history because everybody died and we got our asses handed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, davy Crockett or Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone died there. Both of them, both of them.
Speaker 2:They killed each other there.
Speaker 1:Oh really, yeah, Horrific, horrific, friendly fire, first practice. I in that war.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for joining us had to take us around the block. Yeah, absolutely yeah, I'm one of those Texans that moved here that everybody likes to complain about.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I am too now Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're all transplants now. So what made you want to run for city council? Just increasingly anti-democratic measures, most recently with the recreational weed sales issue, but also, you know, just the way that they've been really trying to like thwart the will of the voters, and it felt like a really important time. Also, just the need to invest in local politics. There is such disaffection with what is happening nationally and I think it's really important that we are investing in local politics because it's also just that's what really touches our lives in a really material way on a daily basis, and I think a lot of people aren't aware about that. And so, yeah, I thought it was like you know what People have been encouraging me to run for office for years and I have always been like, absolutely not, this is not something I have any interest in, but it really felt like the best way that I could show up and serve my community.
Speaker 1:So yeah, the city council has definitely been troublesome, you know, for a bunch of different views for a long time. You know, if you get elected to a position like this, some of those folks are still going to be up there. How do you work across the aisle with some folks that you just diametrically oppose each other?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be a real challenge. There are a lot of impediments to, I think, real functioning democracy, like within city council and the way it actually operates, like some of this gets into kind of niche procedural stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 3:So I think one of the things that we really need to be pursuing um, because, yeah, just recognizing I'm like I'm going to be, you know, I'm probably going to be one of a very slim minority, and so our ability to actually affect a lot of change is going to be like we're going to meet a lot of blockades from from the jump. But one of the things I really think we ought to pursue is changing how, how even issues get to a like city council general meeting. So in the state legislature, their operating rules are that every single legislator gets to introduce a certain number of bills every session and they all have to have their day in a hearing, a committee, yeah, a committee hearing, and that way it provides opportunity for public input. But with city council, it requires a majority of five, and so, I think, really changing that rule so that way we have, you know, more opportunity to actually receive feedback and, you know, shine some light on what's actually happening and the kind of ordinances that different city counselors are, you know, trying to put forward.
Speaker 3:I think changing that procedure, rule, rule will have a huge impact and even just making people aware of, like, the work that people are trying to do, but I honestly I think a lot of what I'm going to end up having to do on city council is actually just like working with the public on ballot initiatives and trying to get those, you know, get those on the ballot so people can actually have like direct input. Um, because, yeah, otherwise it's like it's so structurally undemocratic and that's one of the things that we really need to change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in this last council, you know, it was a seven to two, every vote, exactly. So there's just no way for you know, a good chunk of our population to be heard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the agenda is totally one side as well.
Speaker 1:Right heard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the agenda is totally one-sided as well. Right, Absolutely the way things make it to the agenda right. It's. The minority seat holders are just not able to get things on the agenda.
Speaker 1:One thing I saw on your website is about trying to get fair pay for city council members, and that's something that is such a roadblock.
Speaker 2:It's a weird debate that happens at different levels all over the country, right there's different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I moved here from New Mexico recently and the New Mexico state legislature is unpaid, it's a volunteer workforce and they are not full time and that is the kind of thing that they work with. Is that, hey, you're in session for two months in one year and one month in the other year and you get per diem on committee days. Well, as what you I think your campaign mentions is that that excludes a significant amount of citizens because they have to be full-time workers that earn some kind of wage, yeah, and they can't participate in government that way if they're not independently wealthy or don't have some sort of pension or some. You know right, there's a few categories of people that get to participate and there's a lot of categories that don't, and that's at the state legislature level. You also get a lot of mixed conflict of interest. That's just blaring, you know, right in your face Cannabis lawyer that's in the state legislature making rules about the cannabis industry and then taking cases to court.
Speaker 1:You know, that happens all day down there at the state Senate, you know so yeah.
Speaker 2:I can see how you're on that same. I think the same bend is open up the category of people who can participate. Is that kind of what you're?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely yeah. I mean, if you look at other similarly sized US cities, I mean it's a huge disparity. I mean Atlanta pays, atlanta is considered part-time city council and they are still paid over $70,000 a year. In Minneapolis, which is a smaller city than like a population size than Colorado Springs, they pay over $100,000 a year. And you know Denver pays over $100,000 a year to their city council. And I was also even looking at other municipalities in Colorado, and Durango, which has a population of 20,000 people, still pays and it's a truly part-time job, not full-time like here in Colorado Springs, but it still pays over $10,000 a year. Plus they get medical, vision and dental benefits and even there we need to increase the pay because it doesn't really work for working class people. So the fact that even in a tiny town like that they are realizing the limitations of pay and how it allows or doesn't allow for actual diverse representation on city council.
Speaker 1:Because it's just over like 6,000 here.
Speaker 3:It's $6,250.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for like half a million people almost.
Speaker 3:And that's taxed, it's still6,250. Yeah, for like half a million people almost, and that's taxed it's still taxed.
Speaker 2:Well, luckily you're in the poverty bracket, so it's pretty low it's a low tax bracket Right, get a little return at the end of the year. Yeah, that $6,000 is actually $8,000 once you get your federal money.
Speaker 3:You're so broke. Yeah, I mean I'm fortunate that the person who I work with so I'm currently actually working as, like a landscaper because the job market is so rough out there, and I'm just really lucky that the person who I work with and who able to do the job as much as I really want to do that and really be engaging, you know, engaging citizens, engaging the community, and also be able to just survive and pay my bills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, cause I mean every Tuesday. Those meetings run for eight to 12 hours every week, and then there's always action items coming out of those meetings.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So, so, yeah, it's an absolute full-time plus job. So, yeah, yeah, that pay is just ridiculous for us here.
Speaker 3:And also not even like we also have the really kind of unique situation of city council being the governing board for the utilities, which is also, like you know, a billion dollar enterprise, and so it's like they're doing two full-time jobs really. That's actually a separate commission altogether, exactly, yeah, so it's like really two full-time jobs that city council is expected to do for PITNs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they've been talking about, like you know, bringing nuclear in and stuff like that. So they're having to dive into some pretty technical things too and understand a whole other enterprise.
Speaker 2:That body of people is not really qualified for those types of decisions, or whatever, right, yeah, so yeah, hopefully we can get some changes there.
Speaker 1:And we do have money coming in to the city now thanks to the cannabis legalization for recreational. We'll be getting some tax money and keeping jobs here and things like that, so we're going to have some more revenue coming to the cannabis legalization for recreational. We'll be getting some tax money and keeping jobs here and things like that, so we're going to have some more revenue coming to the city. Hopefully we can put something towards something like that. But as a city council member, you'll also have a large play in where that tax money goes. What are some of your ideas on what we can do with that money to help vets, help homelessness? Just address the issues around our city.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, first, I want to say that one of the things I really am strongly in favor of is actually introducing participatory budgeting, like some kind of mechanism for that within our city. I think that would mean we had real meaningful democracy, because we should be able to have like some kind of influence in the way our tax dollars are sent, are spent, before the budget is totally baked in. You know, being able to show it to a budget hearing when it's already like pretty much set in stone is not really meaningful input. So I'm all in favor of implementing something like that because I think we really, I think citizens deserve to have the ability to really have a say in where their tax dollars are spent.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, I think the money coming in from recreational marijuana sales it needs. I think we need to really be prioritizing it for mental health programs and especially like support for veterans. You know, asking those communities or asking mental health people who are in the mental health profession, who are, you know, responsible for programs. You know the fire department just started a whole new opioid response team. So looking at initiatives like that and how we can really kind of be expanding the really important like crisis response work that we need in this city, I think, is what should be a priority work that we need in this city, I think, is what should be a priority.
Speaker 1:I think the sheriff's office here has a crisis response team that you know when you call, except I've had you know people call me up where I'd have to make phone calls and they would send out. You know an officer, a social worker and you know somebody to talk to and just make sure that you know they didn't have their guns and things like that. But those programs are always the first things to get cut when there's budget restraint. So hopefully this influx of money will keep feeding those programs because they definitely get used out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know I'll make a little bit of a suggestion or a statement as someone who you know is a customer of some of those services. The handoff, I think, is where what we call wraparound services, right, when somebody makes contact with medical or justice, you know, whether it be law enforcement or whatever they get that hit of Narcan, they survive the night, they get taken back to wherever they were found and maybe there's one phone call sometime in the next few days from somebody in that stack of agencies that was in contact with that person maybe maybe not, and odds are maybe not, yeah, and then it's only a matter of time before that person is going to be right back in the same situation, maybe even days before they're back in the same hospital with the same police officer, sheriff, you know deputy standing there going.
Speaker 2:I know this guy. I did, we just did this, yeah, right. And so the bridge to services. There's a lot of groups out there that are designed to do that, but somehow there's still just massive cracks. So if there's any way for the city to use some of that money to ensure that those wraparound services really come to bear for that person, I feel like that's one spot that a little bit, a large return on investment for a little bit of effort and a little bit of funding, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think we need to look at using some of this funding for, like, the police academy, instead of building that out. That's something that the mayor keeps pushing, and the mayor obviously is against the cannabis legalization things. But we can help you build a police academy Like go do it.
Speaker 2:If you want to address a lot of these things and train this generation of first responders on how to you know help with the handoff it's not their job to do the handoff, but they're there you know so there's no harm in, you know, if you had to do this type of case and respond with Narcan.
Speaker 3:This is the next step you know, and I'm sure that probably doesn't exist right now. See, I will say I actually disagree, um, specifically too, about the the police academy. So actually, pikes Peak state college has a number of programs for like for different first responders, but they the fire department and the police department won't hire them because they only do training in house. But it means that we have all these especially younger people who are locals to Colorado Springs who want to serve their community, but they can't actually get hired after they go through these programs.
Speaker 3:So I think that's something we need to actually be working with Pikes Peak State College and making sure that there is a pathway from those who are learning how to become medics, emts and all this stuff and and really yeah, provide an actual like pathway to employment for them, and I think that would have a much better, I think that would have a much better impact, um, or efficacy rate than, you know, just relying so much on the police department to meet all these like needs.
Speaker 2:Cause I mean that's, that's the whole thing is like we.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've seen, you know, I've seen interviews with police from across the country and they're they say themselves that they're like we're not equipped to meet all the demands. Yeah, and so I think it's important that we really have that we invest in alternative response teams for crises that don't include police, because I mean, frankly, like who's the best person to deal with a mental health crisis? A mental health professional or a social worker? Like that's who we really need. And when we look at other cities who've implemented those kinds of programs, like the STAR program in Denver it has saved the city millions of dollars. Like it's, it's far more effective. And then there's not the potential for use of force, civil lawsuits against the city, which is a huge issue We've had yeah, tens of millions of dollars have been paid out from those just since 2020.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I really think those are the kinds of things that we need to be doing instead and just realizing that, yeah, like you said, the scope of what the police are, the scope of duty for police, is unreasonable and that there are other people who are better equipped to do that, and also looking at as an opportunity for to really create good jobs for for a lot of people in the community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can definitely do that too, but with the police they're short, like 80 uniformed officers right now, 80, okay.
Speaker 1:And that's going.
Speaker 1:That's why we don't have a huge police presence anywhere.
Speaker 1:Really, you don't really have them until they come there, and the only way that you like fix manning numbers is by being able to train more here locally, or be able to bring people in or generate yeah, you have to generate your own, and the current situation is they have like four or five places around the city where they have to go out and train and that doesn't allow them to put the throughput that they need to keep up with the numbers, so it just affects everything. So now, instead of having a properly man-pleased force, you have people who are working double overtime shifts, getting just PTSD situations stacked on top of PTSD situations, and then they do something stupid. All these things feed into each other. We can't just ignore our police force. They need help, they need a place to train, they need a place to bring people in and actually just help serve the city better, because, at the end of the day, they've raised their hand to serve the community. I think we need to give some back to them too.
Speaker 3:I mean I will say, though, if you look at funding, if you look at the city budget for the past years, I mean we've seen every year it's like police funding goes up and up and up and up. I mean the breakdown for spending, for salary spending, it's almost half of it goes to police. So that means the other half is split between all these other really like essential services, like fire, like parks and public works and all these other things that would really help serve our community. So I think it's time that we actually try a new approach, because we've been doing the same thing and yet we continue to have these problems. We continue to have a crisis of homelessness, we continue to have communities that have been have really haven't been properly invested in, and yeah, so I think that's why it's it's really important to me that we actually we stopped doing the thing that we've been doing. That clearly isn't working, because all of these problems continue to exist, no matter how much money we've been throwing at the police department.
Speaker 2:So this is where I give my plug for how great Colorado Springs is, because I moved here from Albuquerque and so I just was there. And I'm not throwing Albuquerque under the bus, but I was there in January and, um, and I remember I was quickly reminded that when I lived in Albuquerque and I would come to Colorado, there was always this feeling of like other than there's grass and trees which has an impact on you. Down there there's not Albuquerque.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And but other than green. Um, it was the like. I'm not going to get harassed, panhandled, threatened, assaulted. I'm not going to see anybody openly using drugs or have it to explain to my child what is it, what I? Why is that?
Speaker 2:in that dude's neck In Albuquerque. That's every day, I mean, and just living life, you're going to run into that more than once every single day. And so this is my plug for Colorado Springs, to say problems are relative and the problems here are actually in pretty freaking good shape compared to some other places.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's always keep working to improve Right, but I want to, I just like to. There's a breath of fresh air around here sometimes and other places there's not.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, yeah, growing up going down to Detroit, yeah, there's definitely some worse places to walk around at night.
Speaker 3:I mean I will say, though, I think definitely the approach or the way I look at it is like if there's a single person who's homeless, like that is a policy failure and that really points to a failure of elected leadership.
Speaker 3:So I mean, yeah, I know there are places that are worse, but there's also places that are better.
Speaker 3:And you know, we could be adopting something like housing first policy that, you know, just puts people in housing that provides those wraparound services that you were talking about earlier, because that is the only way that people really can deal with mental health problems. Also, you know, avoids the mental health problems that homelessness causes, because it's incredibly traumatic and would just make our not to mention, it's the more compassionate option, it's the more cost-effective one over $31,000 per person because the cost of emergency response, emergency treatments, incarceration, is so much more than just, like you know, getting somebody into an apartment and making sure that they have substance abuse support, mental health support, maybe some vocational training. So, yeah, I think there's like really good options out there that we haven't really effectively tried and we know from other places that they work really well, and so it's like, yeah, there's essentially like a ton of money on the table that we could be saving to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. And, yeah, I think we need to be investing in those kinds of solutions as a city.
Speaker 1:The elections April 1st, you get sworn in. What's the first thing that you're looking to do as a city council member?
Speaker 2:Well, I want to pause there. Hey everybody, there's an election coming up.
Speaker 1:I wanted to make sure you'd say that in this episode.
Speaker 2:People are going to be like what are they talking about? Is she running?
Speaker 1:next year. What is this? Oh yeah, April 1st.
Speaker 3:April 1st.
Speaker 2:no joke, You're going to need to vote and this woman's name is going to be there we're good.
Speaker 1:Thanks, so day one. What do you want to do?
Speaker 3:Day one. I really I think, as I was speaking to you earlier, like we need to be really trying to institutionalize democracy in a meaningful way and the way that city council operates. So that will absolutely be one of my first, I think one of the first big battles I'm going to pick. I also think we need to just be as I said on my website. We need to actually have council meeting times at when working class people can actually attend and show up, like you shouldn't have to take off work to go provide feedback to what the decisions that your city council is making. You know it's.
Speaker 3:I think it's a very rare thing that there's not very many cities that have it on like a Tuesday at 9am.
Speaker 3:You know most people work a lot of people work in nine to five.
Speaker 3:So I think that's probably one of the going to be the first things that I really agitate around, but I'm going to be relentlessly focused on actually being Not just like waiting for people to come talk to me, but going out and asking people, like actively seeking their input, because I think people are kind of a lot of people have sort of thrown their hands up because they're like well, I can't do anything about this anyway, because the city council doesn't listen, it doesn't care, it's so clearly captured by developers and corporate interests so, like, why bother?
Speaker 3:And I want to make it really clear to people that no, I mean, I will grab coffee with you. I want to hear about your life, I want to hear about what you need, I want to hear about the things that you wish the city was doing, or also maybe help connect you with resources that do currently exist and are available, because there's a lot of good legislation that's happening at the state capitol that I think a lot of in, like programs that I think a lot of people like aren't even aware of, like mediation for, like, pre-eviction mediation to help people, you know, to work with their landlords and hopefully prevents eviction and then possibly homelessness. So, yeah, I think really both connecting people with resources and actually just getting a better understanding of what they are really seeking in their representation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for listeners out there, for vets locally Rocky Mountain Human Services provide pre-eviction, post-eviction lawyer services and things like that. So, yeah, any vets out there can always reach out to Rocky Mountain Human Services too. But yeah, making sure that gets extended to everybody will be huge. You know you talk about trying to bring democracy back to the city council. Members of the city council have been on hot mics saying that this isn't a democracy, it's a constitutional republic. Sure, which that's an interesting take on what we have going on here.
Speaker 2:They're city councilors anyway. Like we're not talking, you know like that's a federal, you know construct.
Speaker 1:Well, it's still here because they still have a constitution and they are elected officials. But, like you're still on the guide rails of that constitution, when you step out of that, you get caught. It's what happened with the cannabis thing. You know, like you clearly violated your constitution. You, you have to listen. Yeah, um, they're doing it again with the, the e-bike thing. The e-bike thing should go to a ballot initiative. It shouldn't be decided by them. But they're clearly ignoring that. What are some of the just? What are your thoughts on trying to work around that? Where you see deliberate violations within your own council, how do you stop that when you're the minority?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah, that's where I'm like I don't, it won't be because I have a background doing like community work. I know it's it's not I. I'm not capable of just stopping it by myself, and that's why I'm going to be doing everything I can to really open the doors to the residents of this city so that they can fight back with me, because, yeah, I'm like a single person, we can't do anything alone, but together we can do a lot.
Speaker 3:And so I think, really taking that approach and making it clear that I am not somebody who thinks that it's okay to look down on the same voters who elected you and make those kinds of claims like, oh well, we're a constitutional republic, so therefore you don't get real democracy I think that is absolutely absurd and, quite frankly, the audacity of them to say that after people put them there and voted for them, it's maddening.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, I think that's definitely going to be my approach is just like, hey, I'm in this fight with you, like let's you know, let's really do this together and even just trying to. I think calling that out, calling out that behavior from the dais, is going to be really important and making sure that people are at least aware of what is going on behind the scenes, because I think there's going to. I think there's a lot of stuff that we don't even know about. That is, quite frankly, incredibly nefarious, and so I think, really, just again trying to shine a light on what is happening and using my position on city council to make sure that people are as aware as possible and then, you know, bringing them in so we can really push back against all that together, cool All right?
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for joining us today. Uh, we're about to head out for our progressive vets lunch. Uh, you're going to be joining us there so you get to meet some of the? Uh, the vets in the community. Um, but we look forward to hearing more from you. Uh, what was your website that people can go to?
Speaker 3:Mariahfordistrict3.com.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so go there. There's a donate link on the bottom. These local races they're won by not many votes, so every dollar that you can give really matters and it'll go to good use. So if you can donate, if you knock on doors, help out. Just reach out through our website.
Speaker 2:And, most of all, open your ballot. Put a bubble on it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah because these elections have like a 40% turnout rate.
Speaker 2:And even it's lower in some districts and it's a broad field of candidates, so your margin to win is totally different than when it's a head-to-head race. So, man talking about every vote counts when you're splitting that up against a broad field. It really does, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so every dollar counts, every phone call vote type situation yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And if I can just plug as well to make it clear, kind of my politics is that I have been endorsed by the El Paso County Democratic Party.
Speaker 1:So yeah, because these are unaffiliated races.
Speaker 3:They are.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that our bylaws have changed, that we can actually talk about candidates and actually help the community make decisions. That's what the party is here to do is help the community make decisions. So I'm glad that they took that restraint off themselves. So congratulations on your endorsement from the El Paso. County Democratic Party.
Speaker 3:I was going to say. And then, as of last night, well, I might be a little early to be announcing it because I don't know if it's publicly official, but I was also endorsed by the Pikes Peak Area Labor Council. Oh sweet, yeah, really loving all the union support that I've been getting as well.
Speaker 1:That's a good deal Cool, all right. Well, thanks everybody for joining us Again. This was Left Face. I'm Adam Gillard here with Dick Wilkinson. Tune in next week. Bye.
