Naomi Riess answered the Denver Post’s House District 59 candidate Q&A, laying out her background and her plans for Southwest Colorado if elected. A Durango resident, Naomi is a small-business owner, land-use consultant, mediator, and farmer with 33 years of experience working with families, businesses, agriculture, and local government.
Asked for her top three priorities, Naomi pointed to making Colorado more affordable, strengthening rural communities, and protecting public safety. She said she would work to reduce regulations and mandates that drive up housing, energy, and small-business costs, expand attainable housing while protecting local decision-making, water, agriculture, and property rights, and support reliable, affordable energy. For rural communities, she highlighted protecting rural healthcare services and expanding workforce, vocational, and educational opportunities. On public safety, she cited support for law enforcement, addressing fentanyl, and holding repeat and violent offenders accountable.
On affordability, Naomi said Colorado must address government-driven costs by cutting unnecessary regulations and permitting delays, limiting excessive fees and mandates, and making housing more attainable through private enterprise, greater supply, and modernized zoning, while local communities keep flexibility over land use. Asked about common ground with the opposing party, she named water, rural healthcare, workforce and vocational education, roads and infrastructure, agriculture, housing, and fentanyl as issues that should not be partisan. She pointed to her work as a land-use consultant and as a divorce and parenting-plan mediator bringing people together to solve difficult problems.
Looking ahead to a new governor taking office next year, Naomi said a new administration is an opportunity to reconsider policies that have raised costs or shifted too much authority from local communities to the state. She called for renewed focus on regulatory reform, local control, housing attainability, reliable energy, and a stronger rural economy, along with common-sense, nonpartisan, science- and evidence-based management of state boards and commissions.
Read the full Q&A at The Denver Post.
Learn more about Naomi’s priorities for Southwest Colorado.