Gunnison County rancher touts knowledge of water issues

Three months after launching her House District 58 campaign, Democrat Kathleen Curry made her first official appearance in Ouray County on Nov. 16, hosting prospective voters at The Burro in Ridgway.

A Gunnison County rancher who represented House District 61 from 2005 to 2011, Curry said her platform focuses on energy production, public education, affordable housing, reproductive rights and gun rights.

However, water issues, particularly agricultural irrigation, are her top priority. Curry currently serves as a board member on the Colorado River District, a position she was appointed to in 2021. She also has a graduate degree in water resources management and planning and formerly chaired the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources for five years.

Her decision to run was a slow burn, with the tipping point happening when Curry realized current House District 58 Rep. Marc Catlin (R-Montrose) couldn’t run again next year.

“[Catlin] really has been a go-to person at the Capitol on water and agriculture,” Curry told the Plaindealer. “When I realized that he was term-limited, and that we were going to lose that water and ag voice that I’ve got, it sealed the deal for me.”

Curry faces a challenging race in a somewhat unfamiliar district encompassing Dolores, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel counties and parts of Delta and Montezuma counties. She previously represented Gunnison, Hinsdale and Pitkin counties and parts of Eagle and Garfield counties.

Analysis from Colorado Politics shows House District 58 has a 12.8% Republican lean. Despite that rating, Curry said she thinks she can win over unaffiliated voters and moderate Republicans, painting herself as an independent voice who would hit the ground running and build coalitions to tackle the issues she’s prioritized.

“I think that this district has folks that are willing to give me a chance. And then there’s a crew that probably I won’t be able to convince even though they should vote for me. And I would get a lot more done than whoever they think they want to send,” she said.

Since she’s never represented Ouray County before, there are questions about her familiarity with the area and the issues residents face.

Curry told the Plaindealer she’s familiar with water issues, especially in the Dallas Divide area and with agricultural lands, due to lobbying for the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association. She’s also the vice chair of the Gunnison Basin Roundtable and a former general manager for the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District.

Curry also said she’s familiarizing herself with other issues, including affordable housing, by virtually attending local government meetings and meeting with elected officials.

Among the first questions attendees asked Curry was about her decision to leave and rejoin the Democratic Party. Curry said her reason for becoming an unaffiliated voter in 2009 after nearly 30 years as a registered Democrat boiled down to differences in health care legislation before Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

“I was trying to keep our premiums from going up so fast,” Curry said. “The Denver [Democrats] said, ‘No, our main donors for our campaigns are the insurance companies, and they want your bill to die.’ So, I basically had a hissy fit.”

Attendees’ attention then turned toward social issues, including gun rights and a woman’s right to abortion access, which Curry said she supported.

Despite running as a Democrat, Curry told attendees she generally supported gun rights due to her background as a rancher. She and her husband operate a cow-calf operation in eastern Gunnison County. However, her approach to gun rights included several caveats and acknowledged gun violence has an impact on communities across Colorado and the United States.

“I put [gun rights] in the same category as reproductive freedoms, and it needs to be within reason. I’m a gun owner, and my husband’s actually hunting right now. But there’s a problem in this country, and there’s some steps that need to be taken,” Curry said. “I’ll do what I think is right for the district, what I think is morally and ethically right. And there really is no reason to have an [AR-15].”

When attendees asked about Proposition HH’s failure to pass earlier this month, Curry agreed with voters’ decision to suspend the Colorado Constitution’s Gallagher Amendment in 2020.

“We had an imbalance before when Dennis Gallagher put the burden of property taxes more heavily on the commercial sector,” she said. “We had a couple of years where we could have maybe ramped up to this instead of having the 40% increase in one cycle. We did see this coming, and we didn’t take it up at the general assembly. And now look at the mess we have. We have real hardship on the property owners.”

Curry also opposed Proposition 114, commonly known as the Gray Wolf Reintroduction Initiative. That ballot measure passed by 1.8% in 2020, with the vast majority of Western Slope counties, including Ouray County, voting against the initiative. Since then, her opinion about wolf reintroduction hasn’t changed.

“I worked for the Gunnison County Stock Growers Association and as a livestock producer, I was really concerned as a livestock producer about mortality,” Curry told the Plaindealer. “But I understand that the people voted and that it’s a done deal. It’s going to happen, and we need to manage it now in a way that, hopefully, the livestock producers don’t experience too much predation.”

After the meet and greet ended, Ridgway residents Dan and Emma Kigar told the Plaindealer they were impressed with Curry and believed her policy positions could allow her to win in a relatively conservative district.

“She seems like a very well-experienced candidate who’s been around the block a few times. Kind of a moderate [who] appeals to the Western Slope mentality,” Dan said.

“She’s a powerhouse,” Emma added.

The Kigars said they also liked what Curry said about property taxes and her pre-existing knowledge of the legislative process. The only unresolved question they walked away with was what Curry considered the biggest threat to the area’s agricultural water supply.

Daniel Schmidt is a journalist with Report for America, a national service program which helps boost reporting resources in underserved areas. To make a tax-deductible donation to fund his work, contact erin@ouraynews. com.