January 9, 2025 • 8 mins
JOIN KATHLEEN'S CITIZENRY CLASS AT THE INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE Click here to find out more and rsvp for the class January 14th!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kathleen Chandler's class that is coming up at the Independence Institute.
It's not at the Independence Institute. It is a zoom class,
to be clear. So you could sit in your jammi's
at home and take this wonderful class about how to
get involved as a citizen. It's part of their Citizen
Involvement project, and Kathleen is here to talk about it.
First of all, Kathleen, how did you dip your toe
(00:21):
in the first time? Like what brought you to be
the civic involved minded person that you are now?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, at age eighteen, I got involved in my first
campaign in Colorado Springs. Back in the day. Someone was
running for mayor and I thought, Mayor, I can help
with that, and so I got involved with her campaign.
And ever since then, I've just been keeping my self
abreast of what's happening in my community. I got a
degree in political science. I'm a Colorado native, like, I
(00:53):
want my state to be good. I want my state
to be what did they say, Colorado again? Yeah, make
Colorado Colorado again. And so over time, John Caldera about
eight years ago now sat down and said, hey, we
want to try to figure out how to start taking
back Colorado one little bit at a time, because we
(01:14):
didn't get here overnight, and we're not going to get
out of this overnight. So we set out a strategy
of trying to help people understand that they are the
actual reason and way to stop the overreach of government.
And so I came up with a way to kind
of infiltrate these boards and commissions and help people to
(01:35):
understand that they can actually have an effect on government
without being elected. And I've been placing people and strategically
around the state in you know, in very specific places,
with the hopes that maybe one of them would be
lit on fire and decide to run for office, because
not everybody should, not everybody can run for office. And
(01:58):
in the end, it's not really the be all and
all be all. It's about cultural change. And so what
we really want to do is have a cultural change
of citizenship is really important, and running for office happens
to be an outgrowth of that citizenship. But it's really
about just realizing, you me, all of us really need
to be good citizens and be involved.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
You know what's funny is that when citizens do show up,
it has a powerful effect on what happens. We just
saw this happen in Littleton where there was zoning changes
that were going to be put through and the citizens
showed up in force. And now they've tabled to measure indefinitely,
and it really had looked like it was going to
coast a passage, no problem. So what you're doing is
(02:40):
critically important, especially in an era where I feel like
there are in the metro area a variety of different
levels of government that are really working double hard to
obfuscate everything. They're doing, the legislature exempting themselves from certain
aspects of KORA, you know, the school boards creating policies
(03:02):
to be between parents and their children. So we need
people to be paying attention. We need people to be
pushing back and be engaged. So what can people expect
from this class? How long does it last? Give me
all the details first?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Sure, Well the details are. It's going to be held
on Tuesday, January fourteenth at six thirty pm. As you mentioned,
it is by zoom. There's a link on our website.
Go to thinkfreedom dot org. Think Freedom dot org and
at the very top there's a little thing for the
Citizen Involvement Project and there's a how to register for
the class. There is a ten dollars fee that'll give
(03:36):
you the link to the class. It just helps us
to kind of keep track of who's in the class
so that I can do some follow up. But this
is an opportunity for a couple of hours for you
to get step one. Like what do I do? I
find most people just don't realize what step one is.
They want to do step five. But I'm going to
help you get to step one. And if you can
(03:56):
get to step one, and I'll coach you in two
and three and four. And if you want to get
step five and run for office, fantastic, I will be
happy to help you there too. But the point is,
we need good people on the Water Commission, the Citizen
Advisory Commission, the Fair Commission. We need good people on
all levels of government in all areas helping advise so
(04:17):
that the best happens for the most people.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
You know, Kathleen, one of the things you don't talk
about is actual like partisan politics.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Here.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I noticed there's not any mention of that.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No, we really aren't about partisanship, right. This is about freedom.
This is about the best ideas for the most and
that obviously means that some people are inadvertently left behind.
But that's where we believe charity picks up a lot
of that. But once we let government in, we are
less charitable. So our idea here is government needs to
(04:47):
be small so that charity and people are big. So
if we can get good people in there that always
are asking is this the role of government? Should government
be doing this or that? Then it allows people to go,
you know, maybe government shouldn't do that. Maybe government can
do this and do this well, but the rest should
be left up to charity. And that's not a right
or left issue. It's not a blue or red. It's
(05:10):
an issue that makes people good at heart and allows
people to flourish in their God given capacity.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So when do people have to sign up by to
do this? January fourteen zoom call.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It is unlimited number of people. It's a statewide obviously
even nationwide. I have people that have attended from California.
Because of the format, zoom is available for all, so
there's really no sign up time. I usually cut it
up about three o'clock on Tuesday, just because I want
to get a roster together. But you're more than welcome
to sign up as late as the link is available
on the website till about three o'clock on Tuesday, January fourteenth,
(05:46):
and the classes at six point thirty that evening. I'd
love to have you attend just so that you can
see why should I be involved? How do I get involved?
Kind of the nuts and the bolts and the why.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Well, I think it's the one way to put it,
says like if you're involvement curious, like you're not ready
to take the leap, you think maybe there's some issues
that you might want to engage it the do the
class because it's it's not very much time. It's it's
a measly ten bucks, which at this point is you know,
a cup of coffee at the rate we're going. But
(06:18):
do the class and at least then you'll have a
clear picture. Because the reason I'm encouraging that, Kathleen is
twofold one. I think that people don't realize that there
are things you can do without a ton of effort,
okay without without a you don't have to like commit
forty hours a week right away. There's there's ways to
make a difference that are kind of low barrier, and
(06:40):
I want people to know about that. To do what
you can do you know, maybe you're never going to
run for office? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Isn't your freedom worth two hours a month or four
hours every couple of weeks? I mean I look at
it that way. Yes, I'm not going to run for office.
I may, I may not. But isn't my freedom worth
sitting in and listening to a meeting? We don't have
enough reporters, local reports, hyper local stuff, and so when
you hear something weird going on, nobody knows about it.
(07:09):
So why don't you know about it and then be
nosy if you want? Put it on next door, but
at least have an opportunity instead of waiting until it
becomes a problem. I guess that's when people tend to
get involved.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yep, I just got this text message. I took this
class last year, even though I didn't put it to
work as much as I had hoped. This year, I
got step one covered and know what to expect and
look for when I get my kids into school and
I have a little more time.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Great class, excellent, Yay, Okay, success story. See that's it.
I mean, I think just educating citizens on what their
responsibility is. I mean, because we cannot have a civil
society without the citizen being involved and holding accountable each
other and the elected officials. Right, thank you for attending
my class. Tell your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Kathleen Chandler is wonderful. She's doing a great job at II,
and we'll be doing a great job on the RTD board.
Newly elected rt D Board member. So the class is
January fourteenth, Kathleen, thank you for making time for us
to talk about it today.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Mandy all right, that is Kathleen Chandler from the Independence Institute.
Kathleen Chandler's class that is coming up at the Independence Institute.
It's not at the Independence Institute. It is a zoom class,
to be clear. So you could sit in your jammi's
at home and take this wonderful class about how to
get involved as a citizen. It's part of their Citizen
Involvement project, and Kathleen is here to talk about it.
First of all, Kathleen, how did you dip your toe
(00:21):
in the first time? Like what brought you to be
the civic involved minded person that you are now?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, at age eighteen, I got involved in my first
campaign in Colorado Springs. Back in the day. Someone was
running for mayor and I thought, Mayor, I can help
with that, and so I got involved with her campaign.
And ever since then, I've just been keeping my self
abreast of what's happening in my community. I got a
degree in political science. I'm a Colorado native, like, I
(00:53):
want my state to be good. I want my state
to be what did they say, Colorado again? Yeah, make
Colorado Colorado again. And so over time, John Caldera about
eight years ago now sat down and said, hey, we
want to try to figure out how to start taking
back Colorado one little bit at a time, because we
(01:14):
didn't get here overnight, and we're not going to get
out of this overnight. So we set out a strategy
of trying to help people understand that they are the
actual reason and way to stop the overreach of government.
And so I came up with a way to kind
of infiltrate these boards and commissions and help people to
(01:35):
understand that they can actually have an effect on government
without being elected. And I've been placing people and strategically
around the state in you know, in very specific places,
with the hopes that maybe one of them would be
lit on fire and decide to run for office, because
not everybody should, not everybody can run for office. And
(01:58):
in the end, it's not really the be all and
all be all. It's about cultural change. And so what
we really want to do is have a cultural change
of citizenship is really important, and running for office happens
to be an outgrowth of that citizenship. But it's really
about just realizing, you me, all of us really need
to be good citizens and be involved.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
You know what's funny is that when citizens do show up,
it has a powerful effect on what happens. We just
saw this happen in Littleton where there was zoning changes
that were going to be put through and the citizens
showed up in force. And now they've tabled to measure indefinitely,
and it really had looked like it was going to
coast a passage, no problem. So what you're doing is
(02:40):
critically important, especially in an era where I feel like
there are in the metro area a variety of different
levels of government that are really working double hard to
obfuscate everything. They're doing, the legislature exempting themselves from certain
aspects of KORA, you know, the school boards creating policies
(03:02):
to be between parents and their children. So we need
people to be paying attention. We need people to be
pushing back and be engaged. So what can people expect
from this class? How long does it last? Give me
all the details first?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Sure, Well the details are. It's going to be held
on Tuesday, January fourteenth at six thirty pm. As you mentioned,
it is by zoom. There's a link on our website.
Go to thinkfreedom dot org. Think Freedom dot org and
at the very top there's a little thing for the
Citizen Involvement Project and there's a how to register for
the class. There is a ten dollars fee that'll give
(03:36):
you the link to the class. It just helps us
to kind of keep track of who's in the class
so that I can do some follow up. But this
is an opportunity for a couple of hours for you
to get step one. Like what do I do? I
find most people just don't realize what step one is.
They want to do step five. But I'm going to
help you get to step one. And if you can
(03:56):
get to step one, and I'll coach you in two
and three and four. And if you want to get
step five and run for office, fantastic, I will be
happy to help you there too. But the point is,
we need good people on the Water Commission, the Citizen
Advisory Commission, the Fair Commission. We need good people on
all levels of government in all areas helping advise so
(04:17):
that the best happens for the most people.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
You know, Kathleen, one of the things you don't talk
about is actual like partisan politics.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Here.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I noticed there's not any mention of that.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No, we really aren't about partisanship, right. This is about freedom.
This is about the best ideas for the most and
that obviously means that some people are inadvertently left behind.
But that's where we believe charity picks up a lot
of that. But once we let government in, we are
less charitable. So our idea here is government needs to
(04:47):
be small so that charity and people are big. So
if we can get good people in there that always
are asking is this the role of government? Should government
be doing this or that? Then it allows people to go,
you know, maybe government shouldn't do that. Maybe government can
do this and do this well, but the rest should
be left up to charity. And that's not a right
or left issue. It's not a blue or red. It's
(05:10):
an issue that makes people good at heart and allows
people to flourish in their God given capacity.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So when do people have to sign up by to
do this? January fourteen zoom call.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It is unlimited number of people. It's a statewide obviously
even nationwide. I have people that have attended from California.
Because of the format, zoom is available for all, so
there's really no sign up time. I usually cut it
up about three o'clock on Tuesday, just because I want
to get a roster together. But you're more than welcome
to sign up as late as the link is available
on the website till about three o'clock on Tuesday, January fourteenth,
(05:46):
and the classes at six point thirty that evening. I'd
love to have you attend just so that you can
see why should I be involved? How do I get involved?
Kind of the nuts and the bolts and the why.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Well, I think it's the one way to put it,
says like if you're involvement curious, like you're not ready
to take the leap, you think maybe there's some issues
that you might want to engage it the do the
class because it's it's not very much time. It's it's
a measly ten bucks, which at this point is you know,
a cup of coffee at the rate we're going. But
(06:18):
do the class and at least then you'll have a
clear picture. Because the reason I'm encouraging that, Kathleen is
twofold one. I think that people don't realize that there
are things you can do without a ton of effort,
okay without without a you don't have to like commit
forty hours a week right away. There's there's ways to
make a difference that are kind of low barrier, and
(06:40):
I want people to know about that. To do what
you can do you know, maybe you're never going to
run for office? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Isn't your freedom worth two hours a month or four
hours every couple of weeks? I mean I look at
it that way. Yes, I'm not going to run for office.
I may, I may not. But isn't my freedom worth
sitting in and listening to a meeting? We don't have
enough reporters, local reports, hyper local stuff, and so when
you hear something weird going on, nobody knows about it.
(07:09):
So why don't you know about it and then be
nosy if you want? Put it on next door, but
at least have an opportunity instead of waiting until it
becomes a problem. I guess that's when people tend to
get involved.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yep, I just got this text message. I took this
class last year, even though I didn't put it to
work as much as I had hoped. This year, I
got step one covered and know what to expect and
look for when I get my kids into school and
I have a little more time.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Great class, excellent, Yay, Okay, success story. See that's it.
I mean, I think just educating citizens on what their
responsibility is. I mean, because we cannot have a civil
society without the citizen being involved and holding accountable each
other and the elected officials. Right, thank you for attending
my class. Tell your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Kathleen Chandler is wonderful. She's doing a great job at II,
and we'll be doing a great job on the RTD board.
Newly elected rt D Board member. So the class is
January fourteenth, Kathleen, thank you for making time for us
to talk about it today.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Mandy all right, that is Kathleen Chandler from the Independence Institute.
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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