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Former businesswoman announces bid for City Council

Melissa Youssef promises community collaboration, infrastructure investment

Melissa Youssef announced Wednesday she’s running for a Durango City Council seat, and she promised to invest in Durango’s infrastructure, provide transparent fiscal oversight and work with the community to determine where growth should occur.

“Service has been an important part of my life in Durango for the last decade-and-a-half. I have been involved because I care,” she said.

City voters will choose three councilors in the April 4 election. Mayor Christina Rinderle is term-limited, and Councilor Keith Brant does not intend to run for re-election. Councilor Dean Brookie has indicated he likely will seek re-election.

Youssef is the first to start campaigning. She has lived in Durango for 20 years and has been involved in many community boards, including the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, the Trails 2000 board and the Durango School District 9-R school board.

“Always, my primary mission through my years of service has been to include the community, encourage dialogue and affect positive change together,” she said.

She said she has demonstrated her ability to make tough choices and plan for the future.

The community is at a critical juncture in its growth, and she wants to involve the community in preserving the town’s character, creating affordable housing, ensuring safe options exist to commute and other priorities.

“We have to have meaningful community dialog talking about where and how we want to grow,” she said.

She also emphasized the importance of investing infrastructure such as Durango’s mass transit system, safe roads for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, and the Durango-La Plata County Airport.

“These are the very elements that hold us together, our core stability,” she said.

She promised as a fiscal conservative that she would dive into the budgetary process and communicate her findings.

Youssef, 51, has a Master of Business Administration in Finance and International Business, and she is the founder and former CEO of Pyramid Billing Inc., a medical billing practice she ran in Durango for 15 years.

She is married to Dr. Jim Youssef, a spine surgeon at Spine Colorado. They have raised three children in Durango; two are college students and one is a junior at Durango High School.

Youssef is also a writer, and she launched her blog, “Your Front Row Seat,” in 2016. She writes about education, infrastructure, the economy and outdoor recreation. It will become a campaign site soon.

mshinn@durangoherald.com



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