Candidates for the District 2 County Commissioner seat share sentiments on housing and property taxes
The District 2 seat on the Summit Board of County Commissioners is up for grabs this election season as incumbent Tamara Pogue’s term comes to a close.
Pogue, a Democrat, has held the District 2 seat — which represents areas of Summit County including Dillon, Keystone and Montezuma — for four years and is running to keep the position. Attorney Bob Cottrell, a Republican, is running against her. Both candidates are longtime residents of Summit County and have prioritized housing and reducing property taxes as key issues in their campaigns.
Here’s what the candidates had to say about those two topics.
Housing
Pogue said she considers housing to be among her top two priorities. She said the issue is one she and her fellow commissioners worked to address during her first term, and she plans to continue working to ensure locals can access housing they can afford.
She pointed to her role in revising the county’s building code as a crucial effort to boost affordable housing since it made it the process easier for private developers.
Pogue said she recognizes Summit’s housing issues are not ones that the local governments can tackle on their own, and she will continue to advocate for support from the state and federal governments so that the county can make the progress it wants.
She said while sitting on the state’s Affordable Housing Task Force, she advocated for increasing the eligibility for locals to be able to access county funds related to housing.
“By advocating at the state and the federal level for more flexibility in those funding streams, it lets us leverage federal and state money in addition to local dollars that our public have supported through elections,” she said.
Pogue thinks more can be done to leverage private equity for affordable housing as well and that is something she plans to focus on if elected.
Pogue declined to comment on her stance on short-term rental regulations due to ongoing litigation against the county. In February 2023, she voted to implement license caps for short-term rental properties and to limit short-term bookings, which included some exceptions for certain residents.
Cottrell has said he doesn’t feel the county can build its way out of its housing shortage and is in favor of letting the free market dictate the housing scene.
“I believe there is a big free market out there of owners who would be very happy to put people in their home long term,” he said.
“I think we can do more of that with an inducement that might help pay those landlords,” he said, noting he believes this is a more feasible way of providing affordable housing for locals.
He said he understands while there can be value in the government supporting affordable housing efforts, there’s limitations on how effective it can be. For example, he thinks the county and towns putting deed restrictions with appreciation caps on properties causes people to not have equity in their homes.
Cottrell said Summit County isn’t experiencing an atypical situation in that locals are being priced out of the community. He said he believes another way the county could support its working class is by improving transportation to the “bedroom” communities, where many locals find themselves living, near Summit.
He said while some short-term rental regulations may be needed for public safety reasons, he is against them at large.
“If we start to lose some of that available lodging space, because the county doesn’t have a lot of hotels, we’re going to have businesses (that rely on tourism) that will go away,” he said, noting that it could impact small, locally owned businesses such as cleaning services.
He said regulations that are too heavy could also impact homeowner’s property values near resort areas.
Property taxes
Cottrell said issues related to property taxes are what largely compelled him to run for the District 2 seat.
“I just think our regular people need relief from something that was so far out of their control,” he said. “I think the county should have done that, and they chose not to.”
He said he would be in favor of lowering the mill levy to lessen the amount of taxes the county government collects. He said he questions how property taxes can continue to rise and how “there was no room for some of that money to come back to citizens.”
Pogue said she has supported reducing the mill levy because she understood an increase in property taxes for many people “felt like the nail in the coffin — and that it was one more way in which Summit County was becoming more unaffordable.”
She said she seeks to balance preserving affordability and also ensuring the county government is adequately funded to keep up with crucial operations like maintaining roads.
She said she plans to make “prudent choices as it relates to (the county’s budget) moving forward.”
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