Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you are in HD twenty five, that is House
District twenty five, and you've not voted yet, perhaps you
will want to vote for my next guest, George.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Mama, he wants your vote. George, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Thanks many thanks for having me. Well.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
First of all, give my audience a little bit of
info about where HD twenty five is, just in case
they don't know their house district understood.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
HD twenty five runs from I seventy south Deckers and
from a roughly pine junction east to Wadsworth. It jig
jogs around down in the air Ken Carroll a little
bit up the bold with a little finger as a
result of the redistrict team. But and then he goes
right back down the deckers from there.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So when's we're really looking at West jeff Coo area,
right Western jeff.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Co Yes, Now, okay, George, Why in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Would you want to go into the House of Representatives
where Republicans are so outnumbered?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
What inspired you to run?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, I'm running the state representative because of the current
representative doesn't represent all the people in my district. I
grew up here, so I'm very big on making sure
that the people here get a voice, and we haven't
really had that up here. The current representative is align
yourself with the far left. She's been an activist and
(01:17):
a majority of her decisions are not really in the
interest of the constituents.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Up here in what respect. Give me some examples.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, the crime and economy are the biggest ones that
constituents are calling me about. Followed why they want some
choice for the schooling. You know, they're complaining about the
fact that the school district is thinking they've got really
good scores of c's and d's they're academics, which the
parents say, if I can't get my kids educated the
(01:45):
way I want, I want to be able to take
them somewhere else. I get it. The other big one
right now is can't get insurance in the mountains for
their homes because of the fire problem. And the roads
are terrible, and we've got a governor who's decided to
get sixty back powered buses but not maintain our existing
roads or do anything to further our infrastructure. So the
(02:06):
folks in the mountains are calling me, going, how am
I going to get out of the hills if we're
not going to maintain the existing roads, Well, you're preaching
to acquire on all those things.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I mean that those are things that I am extremely
concerned about.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I'd like to kind of touch on that.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Homeowner's insurance situation because I think we are perilously close
to having a home insurance crisis along the lines that
they have in Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I'd love to know what ideas you have or.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Avenues you would pursue to manage homeowners insurance as we've
had some really bad natural disasters here over the last
few years.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well, you're right many and one of the things I've
been making phone calls myself. I've met with the insurance folks,
both in the hills and out here on the flat,
and one of the biggest things is we have a
third party group that determines whether or not you get
insurance in the fire, and it's based on whether you've
got mitigation done and a big one is whether the
(03:06):
county's done their part in the mitigation. So the third
party group flies drones around and determines whether you do
or don't get in the insurance. Interestingly, with a number
of these insurance folks I met with, they showed me
pictures of a house that's in the forest. You can
barely see it. They got insurance. The guy out on
the flat that has nothing around his own didn't get insurance.
(03:27):
So there's a paragon problem there with how it's determined,
and so we've got to work together to do with that.
The other thing I'm finding is the insurance companies are
flat walking out of Colorado. Yeah, and that's even a
bigger problem. I had a family call me this past week.
They're an older couple. One they're having enough problems paying
(03:47):
their taxes, property taxes, but the house is paid off,
and they they're not going to carry insurance at all
because they can't afford it because they were denied four
times with insurance.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Oh wow, that stinks. I mean, that really stinks big time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Oh that's awful. Okay, So that is not very heartening.
And I do think, George, that this is a serious problem.
What are some of the other issues that you've heard
as you've walked around the district that people are concerned
about in Colorado right now?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Well, you know, Anny, I'm calling the criminal problem or
crime problem with the economy, and the easiest way to
relate it is the folks down here near my home.
At the Safeway store are concerned about the fact that
they're not allowed to pursue the guy who walks in
and walks off with a grocery cart full of groceries, right,
(04:46):
So then they call law enforcement. Law enforcement says, well,
that's been dumbed down by the legislature to a misdemeanor crime.
It's no longer a felony, so we can make a
death report. The clerk then says, well, I don't have
the time for that, so the report goes unreported. The
district attorney then says, well, crime's down, but it really
isn't down, it just hasn't been reported. And to go
(05:09):
along with the same thing, the legislature took qualified immunity
for law enforcement. Right, so law enforcement officers no longer
do proactive police work. They wait for a call to
come in.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So the complaint from my constituency is I never see
a police part and I get it having been a
cop for forty five years. This is going to be
the biggest problem for law enforcement in the state of
Colorado in the future, because if we're not going to
do proactive work, we're not going to solve the crime problem.
Thus the cost of living goes up because the corporate
(05:40):
folks raise the prices because they're not getting reimbursed for
the folks and there's no consequences for the person who
commissed the crime.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You know that. I just went to a.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Public safety forum in Douglas County, and Douglas County is
in a much better situation because they don't.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Have staff issues. The citizens love them.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Nobody in Douglas County is talking about defund the police.
What could you do at the state level to help
restore the respect and dignity of that job and to
make it an attractive profession for people who want to
serve Again.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well, one of the biggest things I lobby down there
in two seventeen was built, so to speak, by my
opponent being one of those folks. When they took qualified
immunity away, a number of things happened. The folks that
did good law enforcement blessed, and now we can't get
officers to apply for the job. So what ends up
(06:38):
happening is we lowered the standard. When you lower the standard,
you get a bigger problem because those folks are going
to be more inclined to cause a problem down the
road or have a problem, which now we end up
paying out that and so the public then sees, oh,
the cops really are bad when they weren't bad to
start with, right, thing on stuff that happened outside of Colorado.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So what do we do to fix that?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Well, we've got to get qualified immunity number one install back. Now,
if we're to play the qualified immunity game, then should
we take qualified immunity from the judges and the district
attorneys and nurses and anybody else that could cause the problem? Right,
it's just not right. And you're putting these folks on
the front line making and they have to make a
(07:24):
decision to do something right away, and then you're going
to punish them for whatever the decision is. So until
we can back that off a little bit and boost
the crime level back up, you know, get it to
where we had it, so there's consequences for the crime,
we're not going to solve this.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, George.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I know it's the last day, but I'm reminding people
it's not too late to vote. If you're in HD
twenty five, you could give George your vote.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
George, why should people vote for you? Make your pitch.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Well right now. Many. My whole deal is to be
the voice of this community. I've been there voice for
forty five years. My whole career in law enforcement was
in Jefferson County, and I built the juvenile Assessment Center
that took people who didn't ever want to talk together.
We came together, built the Juvenile Assessment Center, became a
federal model. We dealt with our juvenile issues in a
(08:16):
positive way, and we had positive results. We became the
federal model for assessment centers across the country. I want
to bring that back to my constituents in twenty five
and make sure that they can feel that they can
pick up the phone and call me. Interestingly enough, the
phone number that I have is the same phone number
I started as a policeman with and talk to any
(08:38):
of those cops. You can still pick up my phone
and I still answer it.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, George, Mama, I appreciate your time. Best of luck
to you Tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have some good news, because
if we don't do something about these super majorities the
Democrats have in the House and the Senate, the state
is just going to keep having issues that are all
related to policies that have been passed by that same legislature.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
George, Mama, thanks for your time today, thanks for having
all right, have a great day.
If you are in HD twenty five, that is House
District twenty five, and you've not voted yet, perhaps you
will want to vote for my next guest, George.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Mama, he wants your vote. George, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Thanks many thanks for having me. Well.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
First of all, give my audience a little bit of
info about where HD twenty five is, just in case
they don't know their house district understood.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
HD twenty five runs from I seventy south Deckers and
from a roughly pine junction east to Wadsworth. It jig
jogs around down in the air Ken Carroll a little
bit up the bold with a little finger as a
result of the redistrict team. But and then he goes
right back down the deckers from there.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So when's we're really looking at West jeff Coo area,
right Western jeff.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Co Yes, Now, okay, George, Why in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Would you want to go into the House of Representatives
where Republicans are so outnumbered?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
What inspired you to run?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, I'm running the state representative because of the current
representative doesn't represent all the people in my district. I
grew up here, so I'm very big on making sure
that the people here get a voice, and we haven't
really had that up here. The current representative is align
yourself with the far left. She's been an activist and
(01:17):
a majority of her decisions are not really in the
interest of the constituents.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Up here in what respect. Give me some examples.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, the crime and economy are the biggest ones that
constituents are calling me about. Followed why they want some
choice for the schooling. You know, they're complaining about the
fact that the school district is thinking they've got really
good scores of c's and d's they're academics, which the
parents say, if I can't get my kids educated the
(01:45):
way I want, I want to be able to take
them somewhere else. I get it. The other big one
right now is can't get insurance in the mountains for
their homes because of the fire problem. And the roads
are terrible, and we've got a governor who's decided to
get sixty back powered buses but not maintain our existing
roads or do anything to further our infrastructure. So the
(02:06):
folks in the mountains are calling me, going, how am
I going to get out of the hills if we're
not going to maintain the existing roads, Well, you're preaching
to acquire on all those things.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I mean that those are things that I am extremely
concerned about.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I'd like to kind of touch on that.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Homeowner's insurance situation because I think we are perilously close
to having a home insurance crisis along the lines that
they have in Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I'd love to know what ideas you have or.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Avenues you would pursue to manage homeowners insurance as we've
had some really bad natural disasters here over the last
few years.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well, you're right many and one of the things I've
been making phone calls myself. I've met with the insurance folks,
both in the hills and out here on the flat,
and one of the biggest things is we have a
third party group that determines whether or not you get
insurance in the fire, and it's based on whether you've
got mitigation done and a big one is whether the
(03:06):
county's done their part in the mitigation. So the third
party group flies drones around and determines whether you do
or don't get in the insurance. Interestingly, with a number
of these insurance folks I met with, they showed me
pictures of a house that's in the forest. You can
barely see it. They got insurance. The guy out on
the flat that has nothing around his own didn't get insurance.
(03:27):
So there's a paragon problem there with how it's determined,
and so we've got to work together to do with that.
The other thing I'm finding is the insurance companies are
flat walking out of Colorado. Yeah, and that's even a
bigger problem. I had a family call me this past week.
They're an older couple. One they're having enough problems paying
(03:47):
their taxes, property taxes, but the house is paid off,
and they they're not going to carry insurance at all
because they can't afford it because they were denied four
times with insurance.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Oh wow, that stinks. I mean, that really stinks big time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Oh that's awful. Okay, So that is not very heartening.
And I do think, George, that this is a serious problem.
What are some of the other issues that you've heard
as you've walked around the district that people are concerned
about in Colorado right now?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Well, you know, Anny, I'm calling the criminal problem or
crime problem with the economy, and the easiest way to
relate it is the folks down here near my home.
At the Safeway store are concerned about the fact that
they're not allowed to pursue the guy who walks in
and walks off with a grocery cart full of groceries, right,
(04:46):
So then they call law enforcement. Law enforcement says, well,
that's been dumbed down by the legislature to a misdemeanor crime.
It's no longer a felony, so we can make a
death report. The clerk then says, well, I don't have
the time for that, so the report goes unreported. The
district attorney then says, well, crime's down, but it really
isn't down, it just hasn't been reported. And to go
(05:09):
along with the same thing, the legislature took qualified immunity
for law enforcement. Right, so law enforcement officers no longer
do proactive police work. They wait for a call to
come in.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So the complaint from my constituency is I never see
a police part and I get it having been a
cop for forty five years. This is going to be
the biggest problem for law enforcement in the state of
Colorado in the future, because if we're not going to
do proactive work, we're not going to solve the crime problem.
Thus the cost of living goes up because the corporate
(05:40):
folks raise the prices because they're not getting reimbursed for
the folks and there's no consequences for the person who
commissed the crime.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You know that. I just went to a.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Public safety forum in Douglas County, and Douglas County is
in a much better situation because they don't.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Have staff issues. The citizens love them.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Nobody in Douglas County is talking about defund the police.
What could you do at the state level to help
restore the respect and dignity of that job and to
make it an attractive profession for people who want to
serve Again.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well, one of the biggest things I lobby down there
in two seventeen was built, so to speak, by my
opponent being one of those folks. When they took qualified
immunity away, a number of things happened. The folks that
did good law enforcement blessed, and now we can't get
officers to apply for the job. So what ends up
(06:38):
happening is we lowered the standard. When you lower the standard,
you get a bigger problem because those folks are going
to be more inclined to cause a problem down the
road or have a problem, which now we end up
paying out that and so the public then sees, oh,
the cops really are bad when they weren't bad to
start with, right, thing on stuff that happened outside of Colorado.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So what do we do to fix that?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Well, we've got to get qualified immunity number one install back. Now,
if we're to play the qualified immunity game, then should
we take qualified immunity from the judges and the district
attorneys and nurses and anybody else that could cause the problem? Right,
it's just not right. And you're putting these folks on
the front line making and they have to make a
(07:24):
decision to do something right away, and then you're going
to punish them for whatever the decision is. So until
we can back that off a little bit and boost
the crime level back up, you know, get it to
where we had it, so there's consequences for the crime,
we're not going to solve this.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, George.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I know it's the last day, but I'm reminding people
it's not too late to vote. If you're in HD
twenty five, you could give George your vote.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
George, why should people vote for you? Make your pitch.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Well right now. Many. My whole deal is to be
the voice of this community. I've been there voice for
forty five years. My whole career in law enforcement was
in Jefferson County, and I built the juvenile Assessment Center
that took people who didn't ever want to talk together.
We came together, built the Juvenile Assessment Center, became a
federal model. We dealt with our juvenile issues in a
(08:16):
positive way, and we had positive results. We became the
federal model for assessment centers across the country. I want
to bring that back to my constituents in twenty five
and make sure that they can feel that they can
pick up the phone and call me. Interestingly enough, the
phone number that I have is the same phone number
I started as a policeman with and talk to any
(08:38):
of those cops. You can still pick up my phone
and I still answer it.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, George, Mama, I appreciate your time. Best of luck
to you Tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have some good news, because
if we don't do something about these super majorities the
Democrats have in the House and the Senate, the state
is just going to keep having issues that are all
related to policies that have been passed by that same legislature.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
George, Mama, thanks for your time today, thanks for having
all right, have a great day.
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.