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Warner: It's hard to call oil and gas clean when it contributes to climate change.

Ganahl: I think we all care about clean air, land and water, and if we have the strictest regulations for producing it and we need it to live our lives. It affects the poorest in our economy right now; If they can't afford to drive to work or drive to their childcare facility, drive to see their parents in a nursing home. These are the day-to-day issues that folks are facing. We are not ready to go all-renewable right now.

Warner: You've heard over and over again that people are concerned about the price of gas. And your answer to that is, let's get more reliant on this thing whose price fluctuates?

Ganahl: I believe we should have an all-of-the-above approach. I think it's too far, too fast to stop energy production in Colorado and I think the steps that have been taken that have decimated our energy industry here are not appropriate for our state, for our smaller communities, and honestly, for the people of Colorado. I hear loud and clear that they are not okay with what's happening to the energy industry here.

Warner: It is a global commodity, though. The price of oil and gas is dependent upon more than what happens in Colorado. Would you say that's true?

Ganahl: I agree, but I don't think it's an either/or. I think it's an and/both.

Warner: Tell me what else you've been hearing about inflation. You said the price of gas. What else?

Ganahl: We just traveled 19 counties in six days across the Western Slope, and I heard loud and clear that affordable housing is a huge issue, whether it's finding employees or just being able to live their lives. The folks that have lived in these small towns for a long time and can't afford the property taxes, can't afford the rising cost of living in those small towns.

One-fourth of the cost of new housing is due to regulations, fees and permits, so that's a way that I can help being governor: by leading a charge to reduce those and make it more enticing for developers to produce affordable housing in these smaller markets, but also in the Denver metro area.

Editors note: A 2021 report by the National Homebuilders Association placed the average national price of a new home at $394,000, with $93,870 of that spent to comply with regulations during development and construction phases.

Warner: Do you have a sense of what specifically you would remove in terms of those costs or that regulation?

Ganahl: Well, let's look at the Marshall fire and what happened up there. I moved out of Superior, down to Douglas County, a few years ago. I used to live in Rock Creek, which was affected. A dear friend of mine lost her house in the Marshall fire in Spanish Hills. The cost to rebuild is so much more expensive because of the new building codes. I get they have great intentions: they're very green, they want people developing houses that will last into the future and be good for our environment.

Warner: And won't burn down again.

Ganahl: Right, yes. But it's not OK if they can't afford to rebuild and right now people that lost their homes are really struggling in Superior, Louisville, Boulder County, and a lot of them can't rebuild. They're either under-insured or they can't afford the new prices for building again. That's an example of a way that we can take pause and think maybe we're going too far, too fast and we can be more conservative about our approach.

Warner: You have called for two big changes in state finances. You promised to eliminate the state income tax, which you would phase out during your four-year term, and you vowed to cut the state gas tax in half. You've said you can do that and still build roads and provide other services. The state income tax brings in about $9 billion a year, and the gas tax raises $600 million a year. What would you cut to make up for that loss of revenue?

Ganahl: The state budget has doubled in the last decade to $36 billion. The size of our government has grown by almost 25 percent in [Gov. Polis] term, adding over 4,000 full-time employees to the agencies.

Government has grown too much. I think one of the most important things we can do is reduce the size of our bureaucracies, our agencies, and put decision-making over people's lives, businesses and families back in the hands of Coloradans. I think that we can attack fraud and waste and also look at the return on investment in the dollars that we are spending. A lot of folks talk about zero-based budgeting and I'm not saying that we should go there, but we can certainly take that approach and say, What do we need to get done through our state government? What do we need to provide as far as services and care for the people of Colorado? and then back it out and see if there are ways that we could cut the spending.

Editors note: The states budget has almost but not quite doubled over the last decade. The 2011-12 budget was $19.75 billion, including all funds. The 2021-22 budget is $36.6 billion, a 185 percent increase. A similar trend holds up when looking at general funds only.

As for Polis term, the overall budget from 2017-18, the year before he took office, was $28.8 billion, its now $36.6 billion. Thats about a quarter. The states general fund, or operating budget, has also grown by more than 25 percent.

While the states payroll has grown by roughly 4,000 people, that is not a 25 percent increase. The state has more than 60,000 employees.

Warner: Government has grown too much, you say. Give me an example.

Ganahl: Yes. Well, I think if you talk to the moms and dads that dealt with the quarantines and mandates that came down from the public health departments through COVID, many are very uncomfortable with the power that [those] departments and those agencies had.

Warner: I mean economically. Where has the government grown too much that you think it's eating up people's dollars?

Ganahl: I believe the transportation department has become overreaching, and it's doing more urban planning and development and more oversight over small business owners, which I don't think is the appropriate role for that department.

I believe that small business owners are being suffocated right now by lots of regulations and taxes. Take the bag fee, the delivery fee. The delivery fee just came through: it's 27 cents additional to deliver someone food. I don't think the restaurant owners knew that was coming. Obviously, our family has some barbecue restaurants and we're pretty involved in that industry, and it was a shocker. It was done through the transportation bill, actually, and those fees get passed on to customers. Right now our customers, the people of Colorado, need to be able to afford to buy groceries and buy gas and get housing, and anything that we can do to reduce fees and taxes and regulations so that prices go down is going to be my priority.

Warner: I hear you talking about growth and oversight and regulation. I don't hear where you would get $9 billion and another $600 million in savings.

Ganahl: It's reducing waste, reducing the size of government, the agencies, the spending that we're doing right now those 4,000 full-time employees that were added. It's eliminating any pork or pet projects in the budget right now. It's also competitive bidding, and making sure that when we build roads and create projects that we have to pay for through our state government funding, we're making sure we're getting the best prices. It's also cutting loopholes and corporate favors and then moving TABOR refunds to income-tax reductions and doing that in a permanent way so that we can slowly reduce the income tax over time.

This isn't something that's going to happen on day one. It's going to take time to do this. But if you look at the other states that have done this, they attract tremendous amounts of business, far more than states without zero income tax. And that tends to make up for a lot of the revenue lost.

Warner: Just to name a few of the areas the government has grown: transportation, behavioral health, new preschool and free kindergarten programs. You've invoked transportation, but in terms of the mental health investments and the expansion of early childhood education, do you agree that spending should have increased in those areas?

Ganahl: I have been doing tons of meetings and tours and trying to figure out how we fix our broken mental health system in Colorado. There are so many good-intentioned people and organizations trying to fix this, but right now we have one of the highest suicide rates for children in our country. It is broken.

It's very complicated. It's something we have to do through our schools, through our families, through the mental health system. Right now, it takes four or five months for a child to get in for an introductory appointment. I talked to one of the heads of Children's Hospital and they said they have never seen numbers like this. Honestly there's a couple things that are high priority: No. 1 is getting more workers here in the mental health space; They have a huge shortage.

Warner: How would you do that?

Ganahl: Well, you can incentivize folks. As a regent at the University of Colorado, I can create more programs and certificates and avenues for folks to get the ability to help that way, especially in rural Colorado. Also, accessibility to mental health [care] is a huge thing that I'm hearing right now. It's very difficult, it's not affordable, even with your insurance. So lots of things to fix on that front and I'm working

Warner: I hear you describing a problem that has been well-described and I would love to hear more about how you get there while you're shrinking, presumably, state funding.

Ganahl: I don't think we need to spend more money, per se, on the mental health issue. I think it's very siloed and segmented right now. There's not a lot of efficiency, there's not a lot of collaboration. Thats how I approach things as a CEO and a business leader: bring people together and talk about how we work together. That's something that's happening a lot in education, specifically higher education where we've got lots of different nursing programs competing with each other, when we need to work together to make sure that we're not duplicating efforts. I think that's happening in mental health care, also. Then you look at the homelessness issue: That plays into the mental health conversation, as well.

Warner: That's a tough one. Do you want to share an idea you have towards combating homelessness?

Ganahl: Well, we've got to have compassion. This is a really tough issue and there are folks going through really difficult times right now. But, I also think we have to have some tough love and clean up our streets. Right now, small businesses are shuttering in Denver, people aren't going to Rockies games or going out to dinner in Denver because of the homelessness issue and the tents, the needles, etcetera. What can we do to have those folks go to shelters, instead? There are a lot of organizations ready and willing to help.

And then getting tough on fentanyl and drugs. My dad was a police officer; I'm a law and order girl. From talking to law enforcement in our state, we've got to get back to keeping bad guys in jail and getting them off the streets and keeping them in jail if they're going to repeat offend.

Warner: Betty Bullard, a listener from Colorado Springs, submitted a question about fentanyl. She said, What kind of plans do you have to try to get this under control? What do you think will work? It's not under control. What are you going to do to get it under control: To work with the legislature and come up with something that will work?

Heidi, let me just add that the legislature did pass fentanyl legislation in the last session. Did it go far enough?

Ganahl: No. In fact, it made things worse, according to the law enforcement officials I'm talking to. Because it makes it more difficult to prosecute dealers and distributors of fentanyl. Also I think we should have zero tolerance for fentanyl possession. It's so dangerous to our community, to our state, to our families.

One of the most impactful moments on the campaign trail was when I was at an event and a mom came up to me, put in my hand a little wood ornament with a picture of her daughter, who was probably 15 or 16, and said, This is my daughter. She was having a bad day. A friend of hers gave her a Xanax and it was laced with fentanyl and she died that day. It had just been a few months before that. I'm hearing those stories over and over again.

Editors note: The bill includes a defense for people who dont knowingly possess the drug. But they can only use that defense if they go to trial, and it can only be used to downgrade the felony conviction to a misdemeanor not to beat the charge altogether.

Warner: But wouldn't her daughter have been prosecuted under your zero tolerance policy? There are a lot of people who have fentanyl who don't know that they possess it.

Ganahl: No. There's the ability to have common sense, but also the ability to be tough, and our law enforcement doesn't want to put 16-year-olds or their friends in jail. They want to put the guys that are on the street dealing drugs in jail and they're having a very difficult time doing that. We've got to back our law enforcement, we've got to back the ability for them to have some tough love for some of these folks on the streets that may not have bad intentions. But it's flowing into our schools and communities, whether they like it or not.

Warner: On the subject of crime, what do you think can be done to reduce the number of mass shootings?

Ganahl: Oh, it's heartbreaking. I can't stand watching one more TV program highlighting another shooting. It's terrible. And it goes deep, right? This isn't an easy fix. We've got to look at the cultural underpinnings: what's happening to society around mental health and why these people feel the need to do this and get attention this way. We need to have a serious conversation about how to keep our kids safe when they're at school, or if you're at the grocery store or at a concert. That may mean taking some tougher measures on hardening up our facilities and making sure that we have [school resource officers, or SROs,] in schools. I don't think it was appropriate to take SROs out of schools. It means preventing gun violence, but respecting rights and respecting the Second Amendment rights.

Warner: You've floated a few ideas there. One is that you want to bring school resource officers back. In Uvalde, TX, we saw 13 police officers in the school, having responded to the shooting there, and it didn't do anything. Is that really a solution?

Ganahl: Well, what I know from being on Gov. Hickenloopers School Safety and Youth in Crisis Committee, is that school resource officers aren't just police officers that stand in the building; They build relationships with those kids. They have an eye and ear to the ground about what's happening in the school and which kids are having trouble and struggling. I think we probably had 50 different school resource officers talk to us on that committee and it really just warmed my heart, the relationship that they had with those kids.

What happened in Texas was terrible. That is not what we learned from Columbine and some of the other shootings: You've got to go in right away and deal with it. We also learned that on the school safety committee. But one of the most important things I learned from that committee, and why I created a school safety pilot program, was that every school is different and we have to go in and assess each school. It could be a cultural problem, it could be a facility problem, it could be a training problem. We can't just pick one solution to affect all schools.

Warner: On the subject of school resource officers, children of color receive that police presence in a very different way, often, than white students. Theres a big concern about the school-to-prison pipeline and that putting more law enforcement in school criminalizes childlike behavior. Is that a concern of yours?

Ganahl: From the conversations that I had on the school safety committee and with parents who have lost children or been involved in schools that have school shootings: that is not the message I hear. They are terrified, they want more protection, they want more policing and more support. And they want attention paid to this issue for more than a couple days after a shooting.

We've got to keep this conversation alive, so I've created a five-point plan that I will institute as governor. One of those things is an accountability dashboard. One for the schools in the district, so that parents know what they're up against and what's happening in the schools. Right now, that's not very transparent.

Warner: Do you mean in terms of security, or in terms of behavioral health?

Ganahl: Like incidents, violent incidents things that are happening in the school that parents would want to know about related to crime and disruptions and any trends that are going on. A dad in Parkland who lost his son at the Parkland shooting started this in Florida. It's a desire for transparency so we know what we're dealing with, because you can't manage what you don't measure.

On the flip side, as governor I've got to be accountable and transparent with the people of Colorado. This has to be one of my top issues: making sure our kids are safe. So, I'm going to talk about it once a month in a press conference. I'm going to have specific metrics that I will track to make sure we're moving the needle. We'll talk about the funding that we're providing, the programs that we're implementing and the ways that we are going to make this a top priority and keep our kids safe at school.

Warner: You mentioned guns and the Second Amendment. As we sit here today recording this, Congress is considering a package of bills to reduce mass shootings. Among other things, it would encourage states to adopt red flag gun laws. Colorado already has a law like that: With a judge's approval, firearms can be temporarily removed from people who are a threat to themselves or others. Do you think Colorado's red flag law should remain on the books?

Ganahl: I do have a question about the constitutionality of it and I do think there's room for some shenanigans that can go on with that law, like if people are falsely accusing someone of having issues that they shouldn't have a gun. We have to be very careful about Second Amendment rights.

Warner: Do you have evidence of shenanigans or is that just a fear you have?

Ganahl: I've heard stories. Yeah, it's one of our conversations.

Warner: But that's why a judge is involved, right? A judge would get involved if there are shenanigans.

Ganahl: Hopefully. Yes. I think that it's a bigger issue about what we are going to do to make sure that gun rights are preserved, but we also are being safe and keeping weapons out of the hands of mentally ill folks.

Warner: Those with mental illness are much more likely to be violent against themselves if they're violent at all. I think there are some who would hear that and say youre scapegoating people with mental illness in talking about mass shootings when the problem is that an 18-year-old can go in with an AR-15 and do a lot of damage in a little bit of time. How would you answer that?

Ganahl: To your point, most of the damage done is to themselves, if a person is having mental health issues. That goes to the rising suicide rates that we have in this country and something that we have to address here in Colorado, especially around our kids. Again, this is a bigger issue. It's about mental health; It's about connection; It's about isolation; It's about what's happening in society overall. And I don't think COVID helped that. Thats nobody's fault. It's just a tragedy that's come in the last couple years.

Warner: Is it about the AR-15 and being in the hands of young people?

Ganahl: Well, folks have been able to buy long guns for a very, very long time even 18-year-olds and this is a burgeoning issue so I dont

Warner: Would you put an age limit on certain guns? Beyond the ones that exist already, as you've acknowledged.

Ganahl: Yeah. I'd have to consider that. I think it's more an issue of society and what's happening. Again, we've got to be really careful about protecting Second Amendment rights in this country.

Warner: Several Republican voters we spoke to believe strongly in school choice. Are there options parents don't have today in Colorado that you would like them to have if you were elected governor?

Ganahl: Absolutely. Sixty percent of our kids in Colorado can't read, write or do math at grade level right now. And I'm sure you saw the report that came out of Denver Public Schools that five percent of African American and Hispanic kids can read at grade level. That is a tragedy and that should not be happening in Colorado or anywhere in this country, so we've got to do whatever we can to fix this problem. We've got wonderful teachers. We've got some funding issues. The way education finance works in our state is wonky, at best.

Warner: Some of it is locked into the state constitution, by the way.

Ganahl: I think the most important thing we can do is give power back to parents to make good decisions for each child. I have four kids: They each learn very differently and one of them has dyslexia and we could not get the help we needed in the public schools.I did have the ability to get tutoring and put her in a different situation that was better for her, and she's thriving. I want every parent to have that opportunity and be able to have access to funding, to do different things for their children if they need to.

Warner: Charter schools, vouchers what would the Ganahl Administration bring in?

Ganahl: I've been a huge advocate of charter schools. I was on the founding board of Golden View Classical Academy, I helped launch Ascent Classical and I tried to open one up in Boulder Valley School District. It wasn't successful, even though we had 700 kids signed up for that school. So I think charters are a very important part of the conversation and we need to make it much easier to start charter schools in this state.

Warner: Do you think they're held accountable enough when they don't succeed?

Ganahl: Oh goodness, yes. I mean, people are going to walk with their feet. If someone puts their child in a charter school, they're being very selective and intentional about where they want their student to go to school. They're going to be the first ones to leave that school if they're not doing the right things for the kids.

Warner: Last year, as CU regent, you sponsored a resolution that would have banned discriminatory or prejudicial attitudes at CU: that an individual because of their own race or gender is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. Now, this measure failed, but reading the language of it made me wonder if in the wake of George Floyd's murder, you, Heidi Ganahl, have done any thinking about your own unconscious biases or racism.

Ganahl: Absolutely. That's a huge conversation at the University of Colorado and in my role in education.

Warner: What epiphanies have you had, personally?

Ganahl: My epiphany is that Martin Luther King [Jr.] was a really smart guy and I honor his words and that's what I was trying to do in that resolution: that we should judge people on their character and not the color of their skin.

Warner: What would you say to folks who think that the resolution was a way of shutting down the conversation that Martin Luther King Jr. wanted the country to have, though?

Ganahl: I would say it's the exact opposite. I was encouraging the conversation and making sure that we're making good decisions for our students and our faculty at CU.

Warner: So, there is no aspect that was meant to shut down discussions of race?

Ganahl: Absolutely not.

Warner: I'd like to talk a little bit about elections and votes. First off, do you believe Joe Biden was duly elected the president of the United States? I ask this because some Republican voters still dispute that.

Ganahl: Joe Biden is our president and Jared Polis is our governor. But, here's the question that I think we need to be asking: why do so many people feel uncomfortable about that election? Why are so many people unsure that their vote matters?

Warner: Well, because they had a former president who kept saying it over and over and over again, despite it not being true.

Ganahl: But, so did Stacey Abrams and so did a lot of Democrats for four years saying, Russia, Russia, Russia, and Trump is not legitimate. There is a lack of voter confidence on both sides, depending on who wins the election. Voting is one of the most important pieces keeping our country together, so whatever I can do as a leader to provide transparency and reassurance and help people understand the process so we can get back to feeling confident that our vote matters, that is what I will do.

Warner: Now, you've made a comparison there between Russian interference in the election and President Trump's false claims of election fraud. Our own intelligence agencies told us there was Russian meddling. That's true. The claims of election fraud from Mr. Trump are not true, court after court after court and his own people have disputed it. That feels like an unfair comparison to me.

Ganahl: So, I think it's both sides and this is how we get into trouble and why people don't trust the media right now, because it's important to listen to all sides of the conversation.

Editor's note: For the past 11 months, a committee of House representatives have been investigating the unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that President Trump made that led to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection on the Capitol. The committee has been releasing their findings in a series of public hearings, which you can find here.

Warner: Russian meddling happened. Widespread election fraud did not. As a journalist, it's very important to me to say one of those things is a fact and one of those isn't.

Ganahl: What I'm concerned about is, how do we move forward? How do we move forward as a country and as a state? And in order to move forward, we have to understand that people on both sides feel uncomfortable about some aspects of our election.

Warner: So how do you answer that?

Ganahl: Transparency, transparency, transparency, and get people engaged in the process.

Warner: Is there enough transparency in Colorado?

Ganahl: No. Now granted, I wouldn't be running if I didn't think I could win, but we can always do better. We can always provide more transparency. We can always get people more engaged by being election judges, poll watchers, teaching them how it works. So this is not a conversation that's over. It's one that's just beginning. And my hope is to get to a point where we all feel really good about our elections again.

Warner: Was the January 6th, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol wrong?

Ganahl: It was a really bad day for our country, and those that broke the law should be prosecuted and those that were simply protesting should not.

Warner: Several Coloradans have been charged in connection with the events of that day. Some of those charges include impeding officers with a violent weapon and inflicting bodily injury. Do you think that they felt they were working at the behest of President Trump?

Read more from the original source:
Heidi Ganahl, GOP candidate for Governor, would restrict abortion, expand charter schools and get oil and gas 'back to work` - Colorado Public Radio