Colorado redrew its legislative maps in 2021. Senate District 5 now includes all municipalities between Aspen and Parachute, annexing southeast Garfield County and moving the majority of Eagle County into Senate District 8.
The change allows Democrat Cole Buerger of Glenwood Springs to run against Republican Marc Catlin of Montrose to represent the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys in the state Senate, in addition to all or parts of Delta, Montrose, Gunnison, and Hinsdale counties.
Buerger has not previously held public office, but he has a master’s in public policy and started his own consulting firm, focusing on policy, design, and communication. He argues that he can get more done as a member of the majority party than his opponent.
Securing housing, healthcare and childcare affordability in Senate District 5 are some of Buerger’s biggest goals. His platform also focuses on protecting water and public lands, and diversifying local economies.
Catlin was first appointed to the House District 58 seat when Don Coram resigned in 2017. He was elected in 2018 as the incumbent, and touts his relationships at the state capitol as a tool for legislative efficiency.
Water conservation, transportation safety and local government autonomy remain some of Catlin’s core issues. He’s also a proponent of school choice.
Youth Mental Health Care
According to Healthy Kids Colorado Survey data from 2023, 21.4% of Colorado students in grades 6-12 reported that their stress was unmanageable most days. Over 13% of students said they purposely hurt themselves in the past year, and 5.5% reported attempting suicide. Counties within Senate District 5 saw similar statistics.
Democrat Cole Buerger has campaigned on health care reform, saying he will work to help small businesses pool costs and share risk so they can offer better healthcare benefits for their workers, including mental healthcare. He also wants to streamline reporting requirements for mental health providers.
“We have added a lot of reporting requirements and regulations around mental health just so that we can understand what's going on,” Buerger said. “The unintended consequence of that has been we are taking away minutes out of every hour that we're actually treating. … So just by being overly additive about the steps that we're trying to do, I think that we are eating away at the amount of care that can be provided, but also putting greater burdens on providers themselves.”
In September, the Roaring Fork School District reported decreased revenue from mental health funding sources, including tobacco taxes.
As a result, the school district expects to cut back its mental health offerings in the coming years.
Republican Marc Catlin wants to dedicate more state funding to school mental health resources. He wasn’t specific about where the money would come from, but he sees opportunities to cut the state budget elsewhere.
“We're spreading so many dollars over so many areas,” Catlin said. “You see the news every night. There are places where we're putting money that maybe we shouldn't be putting that much money, and we should be trying to do something for the people that are here. You know, kids are number one with me.”
Catlin co-sponsored legislation regulating the sale of sodium nitrate, a substance used in some youth suicide attempts.
Construction of Affordable Housing
New housing legislation in Colorado establishes more eviction protections for renters, updates housing codes and sets new rules for homeowners associations. Western Slope lawmakers, however, are often focused on boosting the number of affordable and attainable units in the region.
Democrat Cole Buerger said a lot of state legislation is developed to serve front range communities, and he wants to be at the capitol to ensure rural Colorado is considered.
“We've had examples where there’s a top-down bill or they're designed to incentivize certain movements for affordable housing or housing density in Denver or on the front range, and they have unintended consequences on this side,” Buerger said.
He specifically referenced failed Senate Bill 213, which many Western Slope legislators argued would have stripped some local municipalities of their autonomy when considering affordable housing projects.
Buerger also sees opportunities to diversify the regional economy with small manufacturing operations that increase the affordable housing supply, such as Habitat for Humanity Roaring Fork Valley’s project to train people how to manufacture modular housing in Rifle.
Republican Marc Catlin wants to see regional governments and organizations collaborating on the affordable housing shortage, and that state funding could support coalition work after its underway. He described a scenario where some of these entities worked together to build a housing complex.
“The school district has some land,” Catlin said. “The city could cut the prices of building permits and water taps and sewer taps, and the county could help on the inspections and all of these kinds of things. Everybody gets into the game. Then, bring in the local contractors and say, ‘What can we do?’ After that's done, then the state may be able to help with some grant funding to get it started.”
The West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition, funded by counties and municipalities between Aspen and Glenwood Springs, has collected data on the state of affordable housing in the region and started a new program to convert free-market units into deed-restricted housing. However, they do not have any construction projects underway.
Shelters for New Immigrants
The city of Denver saw an increase in immigration from Venezuela last year. In January, the Colorado Sun reported over 30,000 new immigrants had recently arrived in Colorado. While some have stayed in Denver, others have traveled to other parts of the state and region, including the town of Carbondale.
Many of these newcomers are unhoused or living in vehicles. State funding from the Department of Labor Affairs supported a temporary winter shelter in Carbondale between January and April 2024, however, this one-time emergency funding was not enough to cover ongoing operations.
Republican Marc Catlin said during these emergency situations, the state should step in and support small communities to address these concerns.
“When it's an emergency like that, that's part of the purpose of the state dollar,” Catlin said.
However, he said local voters may have to decide whether or not they’re willing to fund ongoing support services themselves with new taxes or other initiatives.
“If it's the community's will, and they're willing to do that, then I agree,” Catlin said. “But to continue to fund on just an emergency basis, I don't think we're going to be able to keep doing that.”
Democrat Cole Buerger commended the Town of Carbondale’s response and emphasized the need for Colorado communities to take care of vulnerable populations. He also echoed Catlin’s points, citing a need for long-term shelter solutions.
“The best way to do that, I think, is to create long-term partnerships and long-term infrastructure, rather than responding to this every single time with bubble gum and popsicle sticks,” Buerger said. “We should be looking ahead, planning ahead and having some resources available on a long-term timeline.”
Transportation Infrastructure
Colorado's I-70 in Glenwood Canyon shuts down regularly due to accidents, fires, and mudslides. The bridge over Blue Mesa Reservoir on Highway 50 closed in April after inspectors found a crack in a steel beam. When major roadways on the Western Slope close, the ripple effects go beyond traffic, forcing motorists to go on three-hour detours and disrupting economies and emergency services.
These accidents stress local businesses, whose employees use these roads to commute. Many end up receiving late shipments from suppliers.
“When a road goes out in Denver, it's a 20-minute detour,” Democrat Cole Buerger said. “Here, it can be five, six hours.”
Buerger wants to see federal funding in Western Colorado support infrastructure resiliency from several common threats. “We have got to be laser-focused on resiliency from a wildfire perspective, from a climate perspective, … making sure that we have what we need in these rural communities to get from point A to point B and access really important services.”
Buerger also emphasizes the need to be proactive about maintaining and expanding transportation infrastructure. At a Sept. 21 debate in Grand Junction, Buerger said if a crack in a bridge over Blue Mesa Reservoir had been caught earlier, it could have been fixed without shutting down Highway 50, a major regional thoroughfare.
Republican Marc Catlin represents House District 58, which includes Blue Mesa Reservoir, and he refuted the idea that inspectors could have discovered the defect earlier, referencing the age of the bridge and some of the construction practices that shortened its lifespan.
In a rebuttal, Buerger cited Catlin’s service on the Transportation, Housing and Local Government committee, saying he was “shirking responsibility.”
On the committee, Catlin said he works to hold the Colorado Department of Transportation accountable for funding rural paving projects.
