Interview with April Randle, Candidate for Cortez City Council
By Valerie Maez
April Randle, a retired physician, is running for a seat on the Cortez City Council. On March 5th, she sat for a question-and-answer session with me.
Q. You are running for the Cortez City Council as a “conservative candidate”. Would you elaborate on that premise for our readers exactly how you define conservative?
A. The position is non-partisan which is what attracted me to run in the first place. We have a very varied population of older and a younger citizens demographic. I call myself a conservative because that is what I have been all my life. I believe in limited government. Looking at the city I think of services being water and roads as being essential. I do believe, however, that by putting a label on people, it can create barriers that lead to misunderstandings and unnecessary presumptions.
Q. Recently at a meet and greet you mentioned how you believe that when approaching a problem that needs solving, you try something and if it doesn’t work, scrap that approach and try something else. In regards, to the current situation of Cortez city policies, what in your mind, needs re-worked? What is your reason for running?
A. I believe the City has some good things. I believe the City is in good financial shape. I am not an anti candidate. It costs a million dollars to pave one mile and we need to plan for the future. Our water infrastructure needs to be planned for. These are things I see.
I think we are doing well with strong leadership in our police force and our garbage service has good leadership. I am in a position to be able to serve our citizens and have a strong sense of community.
Q. There is growing concern by some that local affordable housing is a segue into illegal immigrant housing. Your thoughts on this issue?
A. We have the Montezuma County Housing Authority that has approximately 134 units. Of those units only 5 are dedicated to senior citizens.
Number 1, it is not the job of the city to provide housing. However, our city can make policies that can affect housing investments. On February 23, a report was submitted to the City Council that projected a need for 285-536 units by 2028. Given that, in the general sense, the elderly, our veterans, and low-income citizens should be the priority. Anything we can do to help that effort should be done.
Q. Given your background in health care, what is your opinion of the affordable care act, that fundamentally changed the dynamic between a patient and the doctor to one of corporate care?
A. I believe that America had the best health care system in the world up until the last 15 or 20 years. Physicians and their relationships have been altered, affected, and interrupted by the changes that have occurred.
Q. Last thoughts on any issue that you want to address?
A. I believe as a community we need to come together to face challenges that we haven’t even thought of.
My priorities would be the citizens of Cortez. Promoting things that would make us safer and healthier. The elderly, veterans, and children are my priority.
During the session we had an interesting conversation about how the City of Cortez has changed over a period of time and as a matter of just good civics, I encourage all the citizens of Cortez to engage the candidates running for City Council.
Dr. Randle will be speaking at the March 14th Republican Women of Montezuma County luncheon. The RWMC holds their monthly luncheon at the Baymont Inn of Cortez. Reservations to attend are required, so if interested, RSVP to 970.560.9603 no later than Monday, March 11th.
Republican Congressional District 3 candidate Ron Hanks will also be attending and speaking at the luncheon.
All things considered, it will be an interesting gathering.
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