courtesy SOCO Patriots
TRINIDAD — SOCO Patriots held a meet and greet with Colorado Republican candidate for governor Victor Mitchell on Saturday, February 10 at Buckets Brews & BBQ in Trinidad.
Mitchell has been an entrepreneur since youth, starting as a busboy and newsboy. He understands the value of hard work and sacrifice. He is a family man and through his business sense, has an innovative way of looking at the issues through the lense of common sense.
Through his innovative management strategies, he has founded several companies and or turned them around to a financial success, skills which will help Colorado. One of his companies was recognized by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce as “Colorado Small Business of the Year”, he’s been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and, among other accomplishments, was placed on The Denver Business Journal’s “top 40 under 40” list.
Serving as a legislator in Douglas and Teller counties from 2007-2009, Mitchell was instumental in passing an innovative program to track Alzheimer’s patients, saving law enforcement money and giving family members peace of mind.
Mitchell on the issues:
1. Small Business Regulations: Over 500 new rules were put into place in Colorado each year, translating into 120,000 pages of new laws since 2009. It’s speculated more than 5,000 small businesses closed their doors in Colorado because regulations made it difficult to open or maintain. Also, occupational licensing is so heavy, too many hoops have to be jumped through to create a small business, it’s difficult and expensive to create new businesses. Mitchell wants to make it easier for small family businesses to open and stay in business by reducing regulations in Colorado.
2. Health Care: Even with insurance, premiums are often unattainable. He wants to think different by offering something like Virginia is offering – a health wagon providing services to rural communities for $10 per visit with skilled nurse practitioners. These health wagons were also able to provide low-cost prescriptions to patients. He would like to explore those types of solutions for high quality health care for our families.
3. Education: His passion for education placed him in a teaching position in two major universities and while as a legislator, sat on the House Education Committee. “Education is not the foundation of life – education is life itself”. We only graduate one in four students from universities in Colorado. Mitchell’s plan is to take all state educational funding and earmark it for STEM. “We need to make STEM classes the least expensive of studies rather than the most expensive.” He believes Colorado needs greater funding for remediation since roughly 50% aren’t college ready.
4. Marijuana: Revenues are being ripped off. Colorado is receiving record income from pot sales but we don’t even know where it is going. He wants complete transparency as to where those tax dollars are going by implementing an initiative by which every dollar coming into the state and every dollar spent is displayed to all citizens. He would also like more education as to the effects of long term effects of marijuana – especially with children. “Voters have spoken and I don’t want to repeal it,” he says. “We just need to deal with it more effectively.”
For more information on Victor Mitchell for Governor, visit ww.vic4gov.com.
