Candidates for the Mancos Board of Trustees shared their goals for the town with The Journal as they vie for three open positions.
Mancos residents will vote by mail in the regular municipal election April 5.
Terms are up for Mayor pro Tem Fred Brooks, Betsy Harrison and Brent McWhirter.
Brooks and Harrison are running again, and two new candidates join them: Nicholas Manning and Richard Tokar.
Mayor Queenie Barz remains in her position with two years left. Trustees Janice Bryan, Ed Hallam and Cindy Simpson also remain in their positions for two years.
Brooks did not respond to The Journal’s request for comment Thursday.
Before retiring in 2014, he worked for a physician radiology group for 17 years, the past 10 managing business and finance, and has served on various local and regional boards.
Harrison is running for the same reason she did four years ago.
“I care a lot about community, and I thought I could have some sort of impact to make it a friendly, inclusive town,” she said.
Harrison is retired, and channels much of her time into the Mancos Common Press and the board of the Mancos Creative District and Mount Lookout Grange.
Mancos is moving in a “very healthy” direction, she said.
That includes government and its collaboration with organizations like the Mancos Valley Chamber of Commerce and Mancos Creative District, she said.
Harrison would like to cater to the needs of youths.
“We have a lot of new, young people in town and they’re getting involved,” she said.
“I feel a lot of responsibility and care for the town and I want to see it grow,” Manning said.
Manning is the CEO of New Life Property Management.
He doesn’t want to resist growth already occurring, he said, but he wants to embrace and enhance it in a way that is “equitable for everybody.”
“I can see it changing,” he said.
Among his goals for the town are attracting more young people, respecting the natural environment with consideration for factors like water and sewage plants, adequately planning and allocating funds and facilitating an overall “vibrant” community.
Tokar said he’s “just trying to help the community.”
He’s a supervisor for Colorado Department of Transportation and has been with CDOT for more than 25 years.
His goals for the future of the town are growth, more people, affordable housing and better streets, he told The Journal.
The Board of Trustees meets at Mancos Town Hall at 7 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month. Workshops take place the hour before the regular board meeting the second Wednesday of each month.
