Article Contributed on: 10/8/2008 12:12:03 PM
Natalie Menten is running for Senate District 21 and answered a questionnaire for YourHub.com. To read all of the candidate questionnaires,
click here.
My name: Natalie Menten
My family: Married 18 years to Tom
What I do: Work and taking legal courses to further complement my legislative knowledge so I can effectively create good public policy and eliminate bad policy. Most of my spare time is spent helping citizens.
My favorite place in town to hang out: In our xeric front yard pulling weedlings and tending the vegetables.
What I like most about living here: The beauty and low humidity
My interests and hobbies: Protecting and helping regular people fight for their property rights. I like to keep government responsible and in it's proper place so this a constant battle.
My favorite thing to cook: I've been waiting years to state that this is the silliest question I have ever seen asked of someone running for an elected position.
People who inspire me (and how): Penn Pfiffner (former State Representative) because he never stops volunteering for the citizens in protecting their Constitutional rights and pocketbooks.
How I have contributed to the community: Led and personally financed the citizen petition which forced the legislative repeal of the Lakewood sales tax on groceries. January 1st, 2009 this becomes effective and will put another week of groceries on a family table. A grocery tax is a regressive tax hitting those on a low income the hardest.
Saved taxpayers close to $800,000 by eliminating inefficient government spending. Once I make it to the Capitol I hope to continue saving taxpayers money.
Prevented a dog breed ban in Lakewood along with a group of activists, which would have caused unnecessary euthanization of family dogs and/or forced good citizens to move out of Lakewood.
Helped Lakewood's small businesses be treated fairly by preventing a special tax exemption that would have only been available to the three largest developers. The food tax repeal will also help Lakewood businesses because they won't lose as many customers to neighboring areas which don't charge a city sales tax on groceries.
Helped enact stronger property protections especially relating to urban renewal and blighting of properties within all of Colorado.
Helped enact state statutes to eliminate stealth tax elections by requiring governments to provide a ballot to all voters when a tax increase is proposed.
The biggest issues facing us now: Water, unlimited government growth because of Amendment 59's possible passage and a bureaucratic government/educational system.
Why I am running: I want to enact transparency in government spending. A group of activists and myself have spent hundreds of dollars of our own money retrieving public spending records. We have no transparency now unless you know what to ask for and pay to get it. When hundreds and thousands of our public money is spent on baby showers, bowling, gift cards, meals at Simms Landing and 240 Union, customized M&M candies, on and on, etc. we have no clue unless we see the check register for the government. At this point, the baby showers and gift cards, for example, are categorized under "miscellaneous" and customized M&M candies are categorized under "economic development" then included in a generic spending pie graph and the government seems to think this is transparency. Most citizens do not have any clue what we are really spending money on and when we share the public records with citizens they are very upset. We need transparency in how our public money is spent now.
Transparency with a check register posted online will also increase competitive bidding and save taxpayers money.
Businesses would be able to bid for the services and supplies our tax money buys. At this point, government only seeks bids on some very large purchases. Who knows how many companies may want to bid on a $2000 dollar order for promotional chapstick or the $5000 in holiday cards for one government department, the thousands we spend on flower arrangements or better yet the legitimate expenditures for services government is supposed to provide.
We need more protections for property owners, we need to completely eliminate eminent domain abuse and ensure that property owners receive fair market value without a battle. As it stands now the government plays a game, offering people .50 cents on the dollar hoping they don't know any better, this is wrong and immoral.
In 2005, RTD got a law passed allowing them to only pay .50 on a dollar for condemned properties, my opponent voted for this law. I want to revise that statute and prevent any other ridiculous policy like this.