Past County Commissioner Returns to RSF

By Nancy Murray

Longinos Gonzalez, past County Commissioner for District 4, returned to RSF after completing his second and final term as County Commissioner. 

Mr. Gonzalez gave a brief update on the budget passed by the Commissioners. He said that it was much easier to pass the budget the last two years because the hard work of trimming the fat was already completed.

He said that the county has only added 5 employees to the new budget, where the State has added on average 1000 new employees every year. This really sounded excessive to everyone in the room. 

Another budgetary item at the State level was school lunches. It was previously opened to anyone that applied without any financial limitations. Now the State is running out of funds to cover the lunches.

He talked about Governor Polis running for president and this might influence his decision on a couple new bills expected to be passed, the Trans protection bill and the cooperating with ICE. Governor Polis may decide to veto one or both of these bills so he doesn’t look too extreme. In my opinion, it is too late for this!

He was not familiar with the Executive Order on Election Integrity and was not able to answer any questions related to elections.

We asked him if he had any knowledge of four election bills that Mr. Steve Schleiker mentioned the night before. There is concern that there is an effort to pass bills at the State level to protect one County Commissioner District position in El Paso County that is being vacated from being filled by an individual that is not supported by others in the Republican party.

Mr. Gonzalez was asked about his future plans. He said that running for Mayor is not feasible since he self-funded his campaigns in the past and some of the more recent elections approached $1 Million. He said that he has applied for positions at Colorado College and UCCS, with no success, most likely because of his political affiliations. For now, he is content with substitute teaching.

We appreciate Mr. Gonzalez’s strong stance against over development of Colorado Springs and standing up to the developers and wish him luck in the future.