Ron Gallegos held the Ward III seat on Longmont City Council from 1995 to 1999. He wants to run again and use his experience to enact changes in Longmont.
Gallegos is a consultant at a financial services company in Longmont. Over the years he has also owned his own business. As a business owner, he said he understands the concerns of many Longmont businesses but it has also helped him understand budgets and piecing complex issues together.
Gallegos is seeking the Ward III seat again but this time he wants to focus on recreation services and housing. Although a ballot measure has been approved by city council for a new recreation center, Gallegos said he has discovered confusion among residents concerning where the facility will be built.
Gallegos proposes using a city-owned plot of land near Garden Acres in the northeast part of town. He believes this area has established residential neighborhoods to support the facility. He also proposes reducing the costs by building up instead of out.
“We as a community need to decide that we are going to adopt a vertical and not a horizontal footprint. The cheapest way to build is to always go up,” he said.
During his previous tenure on the council, Gallegos said he worked with other council members to pass bonds that allowed the current Longmont Recreation Center to be built along with the Longmont Museum. He hopes to use this experience to bring new options to Longmont.
Building up is also a solution Gallegos wants to promote for increasing affordable housing in Longmont.
“We have priced ourselves out of the market in terms of providing single-family affordable residences … We are going to have to increasingly look to some consolidation and some height if we are going to have affordable housing,” Gallegos said.
Gallegos remembers a time when most of the people living in Longmont lived within the city. He believes that has changed where more people either work elsewhere or travel to Longmont. He would like to change that so that more people live where they work in hopes of reducing traffic and the need for cars.
“What we need to have (on council) is people who — when elected — can hit the ground running which means that they understand the budgets and the number of departments … what kinds of policy and procedures the council should be adopting,” Gallegos said.
Gallegos is now in the running for the Ward III seat against Gary Hodges, Spencer Adams and incumbent Susie Hidalgo-Fahring.
