A woman running for Durango City Council says establishing transitional housing for the unhoused and doing more for Durango’s youths are among her goals for the city.
Gilda Yazzie, 67, signed a candidate affidavit with the city clerk’s office and is making her bid for a seat on City Council along with candidates Carter Rogers, Douglas Snow, Herrison Wendt and David Woodruff. The candidates are vying for two open seats on the council that will be vacated by Mayor Barbara Noseworthy and Councilor Kim Baxter at the end of their four-year terms in April.
Yazzie, a Navajo American Indian originally from the Hesperus Mountain area in Montezuma County, said she moved to Durango in 1997 to pursue a business degree at Fort Lewis College. Over the years, she built a background in housing through independent contract work with the federal government for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and she spent time with Habitat for Humanity of La Plata County and the Durango Historic Preservation board.
She said she also served on the La Plata County Weed and Rodent Committee where she worked on projects geared toward protecting hay and alfalfa from noxious weeds that could hurt livestock, as well as shielding watersheds from pesticides.
She said she is familiar with the principles of grant funding and knows how to “follow the money stream” to secure grant funding, and her unique life experience can contribute to city leaderships’ conversations.
“I’ve always had an interest in trying to foster a sense of community for people and segments of the population who don’t have the means to support themselves,” she said.
Through her time at Habitat for Humanity, which provides mortgage assistance and guidance on homeownership to low- and moderate-income families and aims to build more affordable housing, she learned that children can “fall through the cracks” in society when they are raised in poorly structured environments, including exposure to substance abuse and even the hardships brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
She said she would like to see the city provide more educational opportunities for school children of all ages and suggested that councilors could play a larger role in that.
“Having more councilors out there at the schools to talk to the kids, to make sure everybody’s doing OK, (and) check in on them to make sure we don’t have any outliers, where we’re going to have any kind of situation, that’s going to be hard to handle,” she said.
She added there is value to having interactions between local leadership and school children and said civics isn’t taught in school like it used to be.
On homelessness and housing, she said the unhoused population will increase this spring, and the subject is a “comprehensive” local, county, state and federal issue. Although the city won’t solve the issue by itself, it can contribute to a solution.
She said access to transitional housing will “help people who desire to learn how to provide for themselves get that opportunity.”
She said the efforts by state agencies, local organizations and residents to save the Westside Mobile Home Park community to purchase the park is something the city can learn from in regard to affordable and workforce housing.
“A lot of the people who live in affordable housing who are barely scraping by are the people who are working in our local businesses. We do need those businesses to have employees,” she said.
Yazzie said she wants to revisit and revamp studies the city has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for to see if they were ultimately fruitful and if the city followed up on information and recommendations presented through them.
And, she said keeping the historic culture and character of downtown Durango intact is a priority. She said Durango doesn’t need a pedestrian mall – a concept suggested by some residents one year ago in a city survey about the future of downtown – and bump-outs emerged as a subsidy granted to businesses during the pandemic that is likely no longer needed.
“I’m a firm believer in not changing the character of downtown,” she said. “There may be options to make it more pedestrian-friendly. I think the addition of a center turn lane is a good idea.”
She said downtown, Fort Lewis College and the many modes of outdoor recreation available to residents and tourists all contribute to making Durango the special place it is.
“It’s unique. I don’t think having a walking mall down on Main Street is what Durango needs,” she said.
cburney@durangoherald.com
