Unaffiliated Ouray County commissioner candidate Jacob Torrey is dropping out of the District 1 race, leaving voters to choose between Democrat incumbent Commissioner Lynn Padgett and Republican challenger Mike Perkovich.
In an interview Monday, Torrey said he decided to withdraw because he felt like the difference between his views and those of the other candidates narrowed on some issues, and because he doubted he could pull enough votes away from both of them to win.
The Log Hill Mesa resident said he submitted petitions containing more than 100 signatures to the Clerk and Recorder’s Office — he was required to submit 79 — but notified the county on Monday he was ending his bid. Clerk Cristy Lynn would have had until Aug. 1 to certify the signatures.
Torrey, 34, jumped into the race in May, citing his dissatisfaction with the fact that county leaders used a property tax windfall to add administrative staff rather than provide a temporary mill levy credit. He also criticized the commissioners’ decision last year to reclassify county elected officials’ pay grade and award themselves and other elected officials raises after the next election.
At the same time, he pushed for the county to allocate funding to increase the capacity for child care, advocated for finding ways to shift more of the burden for maintaining county roads to tourists and argued for making the county’s Land Use Department more transparent and efficient.
He said at the time he decided to try to petition onto the ballot he felt like Padgett and Perkovich had revealed little about their platforms or where they stood on issues. In the last couple of months, though, he said, “I was basically watching the difference between my vision and the vision of the other candidates narrow on some of those issues.”
He said he met with Padgett a few weeks ago, visited with her about issues facing the county and learned more about where she stands. He said she did not ask him to drop out, though her supporters have done so publicly, claiming Torrey would split the vote and cause Perkovich to have an advantage in the race.
Torrey also noted he would have to overcome the challenge of not having the backing of a major political party — or the funding that comes with that.
Though unaffiliated voters outnumber those registered as Democrats and Republicans in Ouray County combined, “I don’t know If I would be able to pull enough (votes) from both of the candidates,” he said.
Several Ouray County elected officials are not affiliated with any political party: Clerk and Recorder Lynn, Commissioner Michelle Nauer, Sheriff Justin Perry, Assessor Susie Mayfield and Coroner Glenn Boyd. But unlike Torrey, all of them ran unopposed when they were elected or re-elected in 2022. Perry won a recall election in 2020 over Republican Ted Wolfe to replace unaffiliated Sheriff Lance FitzGerald.
In retrospect, Torrey said, he should have declared his intention to run earlier, staked out his vision for the county and placed pressure on the other candidates to determine whether they were going to go forward with their campaigns and, if so, identify what they would bring to the table as a commissioner.
Torrey, who works in computer security and volunteers as a firefighter with the Log Hill Volunteer Fire Department and as an emergency medical technician with Ouray County Emergency Medical Services, said he intends to keep his finger on the pulse of county government and the community and advocate for the things he believes are important.
“I think this has definitely got me more involved,” he said. “It has helped me see more parts of the operations, not just at the citizen level, but see how the sausage is made.”
He said it’s possible he will run again in four years, when either Padgett would be term-limited or Perkovich would have completed his first four-year term. He is not endorsing either candidate — only the idea that everyone should vote in November. He pointed out the threevote difference between the Republican candidates for House District 58, Larry Don Suckla and Mark Roeber, which has triggered an automatic recount, as evidence that every vote counts.
