Fighting Fires with a 4H Queen in Colorado (S4E22)

Wildfires, a huge growing concern to those in western states. As the climate changes it’s getting more important to mitigate the problem. La Plata County Commissioner Marsha Porter Norton helps lead a program that does just that, it’s good government, just listen.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Marsha Porter Norton: I love to talk about La Plata County. There are 64 counties in Colorado. We are in the southwest corner. So anybody listening? If you’ve ever been to Mesa Verde National Park, if you’ve ever seen where the four states come together, how to better address wildfire from a multi-jurisdictional perspective in La Plata County, it’s after the fire that is usually as devastating as the fire.

I know climate change is a charged issue, but I do need to say it that we in southwest Colorado, we’re in a 22 year drought, and our forecast is to have a third less water coming from our rivers. We are living in such polarizing times that we need to find common ground, and we need to find what actually helps people’s lives and is not ideological.

I believe we need to harness the government not to do for people, but to do with people.

David Martin: Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m your host, Dave Martin, on this episode of The Good Government Show. We’re heading west to Durango, Colorado. My guest is Marcia Porter, Norton, county commissioner from La Plata County. La Plata County is in southwest Colorado, high up in the mountains. I had a great conversation with Commissioner Porter Norton at a recent National Association of Counties conference, and we talked a lot about fires, wildfires and fire resiliency, a huge issue for the Western states.

What she did was to help create a program called it’s a mouthful Cross-Boundary Multi-jurisdictional Planning and Mitigation. You should explain what that means. But it’s a lot of diverse agencies and governments working together. It’s a great example of governments working together for the greater good. It sounds like good government to me. So what, you think there’s a lot going on in La Plata County?

Quick history note. La Plata means the silver and the silver mines are long gone. But there’s the little gold prospecting you can do up there. There’s a national forest, a Southern Ute Native American reservation, and the city of Durango. It’s not as wild as it once was, but it’s still the West, with hiking trails, a historic train system, and old West Coast towns.

Marcia grew up in a ranch. She drove her tractor at the age of five and did her morning farm chores before school. Of course, she joined the local federation Youth development organization and she told me she was the local forage queen. Important stuff in La Plata County, Colorado. I had a really good conversation with her about an area of the country.

I just don’t know that well, that led me to a lot of questions and a good discussion before we started talking. Marcia said, she talks too much. maybe I do. Well, listen, I was interested. You will be too. And that talk with La Plata County Commissioner Marcia Porter Norton is coming up next.

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So we’d like to welcome to the Good Government Show, Marcia Porter Norton of La Plata County, Colorado. I said that right.

Marsha Porter Norton: You did. You got it right the first time. Thank you.

David Martin: Is that a problem?

Marsha Porter Norton: Sometimes it is a problem sometimes just with my name and my county. But you got it right. So very, very thankful for that.

David Martin: Well, welcome to the show.

Marsha Porter Norton: Thank you very much.

David Martin: So, tell me about, La Plata County. Where is it? What does it happen? What’s going on there? What do you do that?

Marsha Porter Norton: Well, I love to talk about La Plata County. There are 64 counties in Colorado. Okay, we are in the southwest corner. So anybody listening, if you’ve ever been to Mesa Verde National Park, if you’ve ever seen where the four states come together, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, Colorado, we stood.

David Martin: In four.

Marsha Porter Norton: States. I actually started that when I was a kid. So we have been in now pictures. Okay. You know, when I was a kid, but, we’re about an hour and 45 minutes from where this four states come together on the New Mexico border. Okay.

David Martin: And what’s your favorite state?

Marsha Porter Norton: Colorado, of course. My second favorite. Oh, gosh. I’m going to have a bunch of people here. we spend a ton of time in Utah hiking, so. Sorry. New Mexico and Arizona friends. so, La Plata County is, we are, within our borders. There’s a sovereign nation of the Southern Ute Indian tribe. That is a very special part of La Plata County.

We also have a long history of mining. some logging, but not that much. Of course, farming and ranching.

David Martin: There’s there’s still mining going on.

Marsha Porter Norton: some not too much gold.

David Martin: Silver? What are we getting now?

Marsha Porter Norton: It’s, you know, there’s there’s prospecting around, gold at this time, but the mines have largely gone away, and we have farming and ranching, and then tourism is really huge. And then a lot of small businesses. And so during Covid, we have 57,000 people, as I said, beautiful landscape. If you Google it, you’ll see alpine mountains, you’ll see deserts, you’ll see open vistas.

It’s a very unique county.

David Martin: Let’s go back to the gold rush.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yes. Right.

David Martin: Can you pan for gold to the rivers, or is it more as they take it out of the mountain?

Marsha Porter Norton: Yeah, they’re doing test. Test wells in one of one of the mountain ranges very near my home for gold. you know, technically you can pan, but you really have to look at whose land you’re on. And do you have a permit to do that and all that kind? It’s not like the Old West. No, that was that was kind of back in the days.

But that’s okay. But we have a mining, history. We are a railroad town. Okay. and so it’s a, it’s a great place. This is Durango. This is. I live in Durango, Colorado. Yes, yes. And I’m one of three county commissioners. Right. And, yeah, here at Naco and just happy to be on your show.

David Martin: And thank you. I’m happy to have you. how long have you been a kind of commissioner?

Marsha Porter Norton: I’ve been a county commissioner for three years.

David Martin: How’s it.

Marsha Porter Norton: Going? It’s going great. I love my job. And it’s, you know, we our local, market. Well, we have a number of them called City Market, and I love being in City Market, believe it or not, and having people come up and say, when are you going to plow my road? Better? And what are you going to do with broadband?

And, you know, those kinds of things because it’s I feel like counties are what are closest to the people. Okay. And and that is something that really, brought me into serving and I am running for reelection. So I will be on I hope to be on the ballot this November again. For another, we have two can do two four year terms, two.

David Martin: Four year terms. Yes. So you’re so if you are reelected this will be the end of your fourth.

Marsha Porter Norton: So yeah. Yeah I would go into my, my second four years.

David Martin: Were you in government before this.

Marsha Porter Norton: I was not in government per se, but I was actually a mediator and I, you know, I had my own business, and I’m a mediator and facilitator of public meetings and a lawyer as well. No, no, I’m not. I’m actually a social worker. Okay. And I, I fell into it long story. And I started, my clientele.

David Martin: But you have to use, like, your mom voice like, now, let’s now let’s all sit down to talk. Let’s down. Let’s just hold hands for a moment.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yeah. It actually is amazing to me. When you do some of that, I call it just ground rules. And can we, can we talk about this in a civil way? But I used to work on a lot of natural resource issues, okay. And and worked on big, thorny public issues and did that for a long time and, and, and through a mediation, stakeholder groups sort of, format.

And I thought one day I’m a little burned out on this. Where should I go next? And so I do use those skills as a county commissioner. But you also have to you do you have to use a lot of other skills like advocacy and, you know, not talking and all kinds of other skills, but.

David Martin: What’s the makeup of your, of your, of your county commission? Men, women? Boys?

Marsha Porter Norton: Yes. we have, I am the only woman and there’s two other men.

David Martin: So that you do have to be, you.

Marsha Porter Norton: Know, boys. Yeah, yeah. two other men, Commissioner Clay church and Commissioner Matt Salka, who is at this conference now. Okay. And, yeah, we work well. We work really well as a team. we’re three Democrats, but we’re, I think very, how shall I say this? We are. We’re about serving everybody, okay? We we don’t we don’t serve one party.

We serve everybody. And we’ve we’ve gotten a lot done.

David Martin: Okay, now, this is why I wanted to talk with you. Because you told me about something that I thought was pretty exciting. Yeah. When we speak, before we turn the the microphones on here, you’ve created a position to mitigate fire. That’s right. And fire prevention. That’s right. Tell me how this started, where the idea came from.

Marsha Porter Norton: All right, well, I’ll apply to County like most counties in the West that have any kind of forested land. But my goodness, we’re now seeing wildfires. If anybody remembers the Marshall Filer fire in Boulder that was on grassland, it was absolutely devastating. And so now we pretty much see fire all over the west. So a couple of years ago and it came about out of a long process of studying how to better address wildfire from a multi-jurisdictional perspective.

In La Plata County, we have BLM lands. We have a lot of forested land. We have, tribal land. We have, parks and wildlife land. alert our local government, the city of Durango has a lot of open space surrounding the city. Durango is in a canyon, and it’s surrounded by a lot of open space. The city is purchased, so we start putting our heads together with our.

David Martin: Local, we’re all of those individual entities, for lack of a better word, sort of coming up with our own fire.

Marsha Porter Norton: That’s exactly right. They were doing their own, own planning and their own, and we talked to each other a lot. It isn’t like we weren’t collaborating, but a couple of his sat down, and there had been a process to try to do this, and it ended up being too aggressive and too expensive. So, and so kind of taking the idea of doing it’s called cross-boundary multi-jurisdictional planning and mitigation.

Say that again. Yeah. Cross-Boundary meeting. It doesn’t matter. Our fire chief used to like to say it doesn’t matter where the fire starts. It can start in my backyard and go into the city land. It could start on federal lands and come into the city. so what we did is we sat down and we said, okay, this idea didn’t work, but where do we go?

And so it was two city councilors, councilor, then, Barbara Noseworthy and council, and now the current mayor of Durango, Melissa Yusef, our fire chief, who just retired, Hal Dowdy and myself and, and we sat down and we said, what can we do? So we formed an intergovernmental agreement with the city and county fund, a coordinator. And that’s unique in Colorado.

It’s not grant funded. And what that.

David Martin: Does that matter?

Marsha Porter Norton: we all agree grants are awesome and we are awash in grants right now. Always appreciate them. much.

David Martin: I am not saying that about Grant.

Marsha Porter Norton: No, I’m not going to say anything bad about grants. However, they run out. And so we wanted to immediately get to work and not have this coordinator tied to one funding source.

David Martin: Or be two years down the road and the funds dry.

Marsha Porter Norton: Up, and then you’re stuck with it again. So we fund a coordinator, pay her a good salary. She actually was a land use planner, but she has, fire science and fire mitigation. She has a master’s in it. Oh, okay. And so what she does.

David Martin: She is volunteer fire burned.

Marsha Porter Norton: Herself. And no, she isn’t actually. But she’s amazing. And and then we also have we operated, through an intergovernmental agreement, and it operates under the county’s office of an emergency of emergency Management. And what we did is we said, okay, la Plata County has hundreds of thousands of acres that we need to treat. How do we focus and prioritize?

So we focused on the lands in and around Durango. It’s the major regional center. It doesn’t mean that I mean, we work all over the county, but we’re really focusing on the lands in and around Durango and also the city’s water source, which is a beautiful river watershed called the Florida River.

David Martin: And so all of those, you know, entities you mentioned before, Bureau of Land Management, the local reservation, they all have a seat at the table for the coordinators.

Marsha Porter Norton: coordinator. They, we actually the seat, the actual seat of the governing. That committee that looks over it has two seats from Durango, the city two seats from the county, two from the local fire district. And then we have one At-Large position. But we started something in November of every year called a meta meeting. And that brings literally last time we had our meta meeting, we had 45 people sitting in a big horseshoe talking about this concept of where can we prioritize fire mitigation?

We’ve created a map and it allows people to go in and people meaning all the entities to go in and say where they’re doing it. And in one case, what we’re really excited about is the as our local Forest Service, it’s the San Juan National Forest has prioritized. This is exactly what we want, right? Is we if we’re working on the private side with landowners, which is what we’re doing, we need the feds and or the state and or the city to work on the other side because the it doesn’t.

David Martin: Together call.

Marsha Porter Norton: Together because back in the day, people did buckshot mitigation. So you do this house is mitigated. This house is this house is mitigated. This house isn’t. What you want is continual mitigation that is healthier for landscapes and watersheds and creates firebreaks. And for that reason we have to coordinate. And that’s what we’re doing.

David Martin: And has all of this streamlined. The, I guess, fire response and fire preparedness process.

Marsha Porter Norton: You know, that’s a process. Very good question. we hope so. And I think that, this this thing the Forest Service currently is doing where they’re saying, okay, we also have a big landscape to work in, but we know this is where the f it’s the Wildfire and Watershed Protection Fund is what it’s called. So they’re working here.

We can go across the fence and prioritize that project. You know, on federal lands. And so, in terms of, you know, we don’t have any kind of jurisdiction or authority over the local fire districts, but they’re very engaged in participating because the what the fire department, our fire district brings to the table is person power. And so they win there.

they have a bunch of, you know, firefighters that are trained in mitigation. They’re not always on fires. And so they can come do in-kind mitigation and or paid mitigation. We’ve paid Southwest Conservation Corps, that’s through a course, AmeriCorps. And so we and then we paid private mitigation companies. And so our what we do is this coordinator, brings all this together.

We do cost share arrangements with, local landowners to give them grants. We have teamed up with the state of Colorado and, and between that and a federal grant called when we brought in, initially $2 million, which we know will be spent. And so we’re going to we need our current vision is to find a sustainable source of funding so that every year we have X amount of funding that can leverage, private landowners, of course, upon their request, we don’t we don’t enter anybody’s property without permission as has.

David Martin: As I’ve read, just walked.

Marsha Porter Norton: By this and actually, he’s one of our, Naco public lands advocates and works on wildfire.

David Martin: So good.

Marsha Porter Norton: Fellow Commissioner.

David Martin: Yes. has this been is this a success?

Marsha Porter Norton: You know, that is a great question. we have metrics for success, which is the number of acres and so we’ve done over we’ve only been around about a year and a half over the actual IGA. we I believe that we are engaging more and more landowners each year. We now have water quality testing stations, two that have been funded in this watershed because when when a fire happens and most people know this, if you live in an area that doesn’t have wildfire just to do a bit of education here, it’s after the fire that is usually as devastating as the fire.

And it is because of floods and the impacts to water quality and the impacts to county roads and the impacts to any drainage. once you have a burn scar, what comes off of that burn scar is a lot of ash, and a lot of debris goes right into a river. And so what we’ve done is put up two water quality monitoring stations in this watershed.

So we can say if there’s a fire, where are we at with water quality? Where I have done over 100 acres, this is.

David Martin: Allow you to get to the cleanup process.

Marsha Porter Norton: Faster. Yes. And also to know, what resources can be mobilized, where when you know, like if there if a fire happens and the water quality reduces, we can know have a, have a measurement there. We also I think one of our biggest successes is the map. We have it online and you can and it looks like a plate of spaghetti.

I’ll be honest, because you, you, you can turn off different layers, but you.

David Martin: Can tell where can people look if they want to.

Marsha Porter Norton: just Google, the Google La Plata County Office of Emergency Management and you can go from there. Yep. You can wildfire and go to the left and look for wildfire. It’s on.

David Martin: You want to tell folks before they take a look at it? you just said it looks like spaghetti.

Marsha Porter Norton: It looks like spaghetti. So you have to go in. And if you’ve ever used arcview, you can turn off and on layers. Okay. And so you can say, well, where’s the county working. So they.

David Martin: Check up on you.

Marsha Porter Norton: They can check up and they say, where’s this? Where’s the where is which is our Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Where are they working? And so that’s that’s a big success. We of course, want to do more than over 100 acres. We have 22 acres in the at 22,000, excuse me, acres in this landscape. And then we’re further prioritizing 22,000 is a lot.

It would cost, you know, millions to get all that mitigated. So we’re continually refining where do we do the mitigation work.

David Martin: And as we’ve all read from reading the papers and other places, sources, this is not going to this is I know wildfire situation is not going to get easier anytime soon.

Marsha Porter Norton: It’s is absolutely not. And I know climate change is a charged issue, but I do need to say it that we in southwest Colorado, we’re in a 22 year drought, and our forecast is to have a third less water coming from our rivers. And our rivers are what this water is life. And so we have to be more resilient and we have to create communities not that are avoiding wildfire, but that are resilient and prepared because we’re going to see more of them.

We had and.

David Martin: This is really a way to get ahead of the problem that is certainly headed your.

Marsha Porter Norton: Way. It’s been headed our way. In 22. We had six major fires, okay. And all around Durango it was just, you know, and again, Durango sits in a canyon, but it is the regional city. It is where we have regional governments. We have many federal governments that are that that are located there. We have utilities. We have, you know, not only we have an economy there.

And all of the cities and towns and counties in southwest Colorado are important. But Durango is the regional center. And so we we don’t.

David Martin: To make it a little bit more.

Marsha Porter Norton: Important. Yeah, it you.

David Martin: Know, we have other places in Colorado like, you know, look at what you’re.

Marsha Porter Norton: Doing. They absolutely have. And and what is really neat is we.

David Martin: Like to share best practices.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yes.

David Martin: Good government.

Marsha Porter Norton: Show. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me today. absolutely. And we also learn from other communities, we have a somewhat of a Cowdray informal through our, county organization. Both, we have two county organizations, lobbying organizations and all the wildfire commissioners we call ourselves. We meet, we talk, we look at, what are you doing?

What are you doing? And, then Colorado, that’s good. Government is very good government also, I have to give a big shout out to Colorado and our Department of Natural Resources. They have funded something called Co swap. And these are strategic investments from the Colorado state government into seven communities in Colorado. And we are one of them. And by the way, I could get into acronyms here, but we have CFR is a designation the Forest Service gives that brings additional wildfire money.

We are a CFR community. The idea is to take the most at risk communities and leverage federal resources. And where I’m so proud of what we’re doing is that we’ve leveraged local general fund dollars. So that’s unique. We’re again with the city of Durango.

David Martin: You mentioned you do a little bit of hiking.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yes, I do when.

David Martin: You’re walking in the mountains. What do you think?

Marsha Porter Norton: I actually, look at wildfire all the time and think about it all the time. And so the first thing I think is, how would I get out if there was a fire? The second thing I think is, we’re watching. We’re watching a drying climate right in front of us. So areas, one area in my previous job, I worked very hard with many, many other people on a bill that was successful in 2015 called the Hermoso Creek Watershed Protection Out.

It protected over 57,000 acres and set up a new wilderness area. In addition, a couple years later, 37% of it burned. And this is a watershed right outside Durango. It’s a it’s a tribute. The tributary Terry goes into the major river that goes through Durango. And so I’ve lived firsthand. I used to hike on all those trails, and I still do.

I’ve lived firsthand now part of it is a charred landscape. And I was sort.

David Martin: Of thinking you’d walk through the woods, you go, look what I did.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I know you do, but all you.

David Martin: Do is look at.

Marsha Porter Norton: I like, how do.

David Martin: I fix this? Make this.

Marsha Porter Norton: Better? Yeah. How do I make it better? And, I just know we have so much work to do. And, that is why I just sat in a session yesterday here at Naco of hearing about a report that came out as part of the Federal Infrastructure Act. And it, you know, over 100 consensus recommendations from people of all political stripes.

We need to get on this. And we are we are. There’s a lot happening.

David Martin: What did you know about firefighting prior to becoming a county commissioner?

Marsha Porter Norton: Well, I actually have been very involved in it through my, mediation and facilitation business. helped get the mediator. Yeah. yeah. And meeting, just professional meeting facilitator and consultant was, one of the things I helped get started in the early days, right after about right after we had our first big fire was a national Firewise chapter.

And so, you know, help get that going. So I am I’m not an expert. I’m not I’m not a firefighter. I’m not a biologist. I’m not a Forest Service personnel. But I care about landscapes. I grew up on a ranch. And when you grew up on a ranch and farm, you’re very tied to the forests around you and the water around you.

And so I have that in my DNA to care about what’s going on on the landscape of a ranch. It was a cattle ranch, okay. And we had a farm and, grew actually, we grew barley for Coors. Okay. This was back in the day. not to date myself too much, right? We had alfalfa and a in a Angus cattle ranch.

Oh, wow. And still have part of the family farm intact today.

David Martin: Did you do you did you or do you still work on the farm?

Marsha Porter Norton: I don’t work on it. We we lease the farm that we have. We lease out. But, I did it as a as a kid. Oh, yeah. I started driving a tractor when I was five years old. For real? For real. I’m not kidding. Now, it was under some very limited circumstances, but, Yeah, I helped my dad and my my mom feed in the morning.

All right? Yeah, if I, you know, 5:00 before school, I was in forage for ten years. I raised horses and, cattle, and so I. What do you look at?

David Martin: A horse?

Marsha Porter Norton: Quarter Horse, actually. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, when you grow up that way, I care so much about agriculture because they are the first, first people on the ground, you know, it’s it’s in our country. They, we we pay attention to droughts in water because that that’s our that’s our, livelihood. And so, growing up that way, I just and, you know, I grew up back in the day when you, you know, you went on four wheel drive trips every weekend and horseback trips.

And so I really care about Western landscapes. And this is there’s so much we need to do. But this is this is what drives me.

David Martin: To like Remington paintings that you’re.

Marsha Porter Norton: You’re. Oh, yeah. Well, no, but some of my family members do. Oh. Yeah. I, I’m a Georgia O’Keeffe fan, actually. So, but, yeah, I like pairs of.

David Martin: Boots at home.

Marsha Porter Norton: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Couple hats. Yeah. And, yeah, I have my my belt buckle. I was A4H queen back in the day, but, forage queen. Yeah.

David Martin: What is it for?

Marsha Porter Norton: Well, you know what for each is right. Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. So I live in Brooklyn. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, there’s, there’s royalty and for each and for each, by the way. And. Yeah. But yeah, many years ago I won’t tell you how many, but, you know, four H is awesome. I, I, I always say I’m on our local, extension advisory group that oversees forage.

And I always say I wouldn’t be a commissioner without forage. We started having to talk in public when we were eight years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. You do you you are required to do something called demonstrations. And so, came to Washington, DC as part of a leadership program when I was 16. So and, and I encourage anybody listening from, urban areas for isn’t just for rural kids.

I mean, they have all kinds of stuff you can learn.

David Martin: I don’t think we have any for H in Brooklyn.

Marsha Porter Norton: Oh, really? Oh, that’s too bad.

David Martin: But maybe, I don’t know, I just never came across it.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yeah, yeah. So that’s a little bit about my background and I, that’s how how I got involved in wildfire.

David Martin: This can’t be the only thing that’s going on there. What else is what else are you dealing with there.

Marsha Porter Norton: one of the things we’re doing is we deployed, over 11 million of American Rescue Plan Act money, and we had a premise that we were going to deploy it to help our businesses and our people and our students specifically, rebound from the pandemic. So we spent it on youth mental health, and we spent it on many, many programs because we know youth are behind in school.

We know there’s really a mental health crisis in youth based on the pandemic. We deployed it to affordable housing and broadband. So those were our three areas. And we’ve done some really neat things with our Arpa dollars. the second thing we’re working on substance abuse. It is a problem all over America, the opioid crisis. We are working with, so wiser, the attorney general in Colorado, who is the, executor, if you will, of state of National Opioid Settlements and the he and his office and staff, they’re awesome.

Have set up, 19 different councils in Colorado, and we’re looking to get more treatment in place and are very well on our way to doing that. broadband is a big issue in our community. So we’ve deployed, just recently signed an agreement with the, Southern Ute Indian Tribe, our electric co-op and a neighboring county and an economic development group to put mental mile broadband in.

And so we’re super psyched about that. And then just running government, we care a lot about everything, right? You know, running government, everything from the jail, our county roads, all this stuff that county commissioners do all the time that our focus is on good jobs and a healthy community. So that is our our basically our mission statement.

David Martin: Which you mentioned this a few times now, you have you said it’s a Ute, tribe.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yes. We do.

David Martin: Reservation. Yes. It’s in your county.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yes we do. They are obviously a sovereign nation. Yes, they are the within the borders of La Plata County.

David Martin: So tell me how it is to sort of manage that relationship.

Marsha Porter Norton: oh. You are asking a really, question that is very near and dear to my heart. first of all, I consider it a very high honor. We are one of, three. We, they’re the the headquarters of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe is in a place called Ignacio, which is in La Plata County. And then the neighboring county of Montezuma has a different band of the Ute tribe called the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

So how it is is that we, as a county, work extremely hard to keep good communication open. We work, we meet quarterly for dinners, and it’s a time to go over specific agenda items. Tribal council, the tribal, the tribal council members, and then the county commissioners and our managers. what is really, really important is to understand, first of all, their sovereignty.

It is very important to understand that we do have in our community many cultures. But but we have a strong Latinx culture. We have a very strong indigenous culture, not only from, Southern Utes and Ute Mountain Utes, but their, the college in Durango has 141 tribes represented at the college. Wow. They offer free tuition much, Fort Lewis College.

So big shout out. And they have embraced that. And they have, taken that on as one of the, extremely special things about Southwest Colorado is we have a tribe that offer, excuse me, a college that offers free tuition. So what I believe is important in working with, sovereign nations that are indigenous governments is to be patient and to realize we do things differently, to realize we’re different.

You are different peoples that what we really focus on is that while we are different cultures and different peoples, we have many of the same goals. They care about housing, they care about substance abuse services. They we have a tribe that has been extremely successful with their economy. Okay, one of the most successful tribes in the country.

David Martin: What was then what?

Marsha Porter Norton: it’s oil and gas. Okay. And they have a casino and oil and gas, and they have, been extremely strategic and good at investing. And so, but but we we and we have agreements with them. We have a global right of way agreement for roads. and, I really want to give a shout out to our county attorney’s office here and specifically our county attorney.

it takes, you know, many of these things immediately become legal. Not legal like we’re in court, but legal that you have to understand the legal environment and what they’re operating under. And then you have to understand what we’re operating under. And so we have, we’re working on a gaming agreement with them. We just again, solidified a historic broadband agreement.

David Martin: They are all I mean, I know that in some places it can get contentious. Is this all?

Marsha Porter Norton: You know, I would it is all good in my opinion. I think that over the years, these agreements have been, some of them have taken years and years to work out. And so I think it just takes what I call diplomacy. It takes patience. It takes a true understanding of the fact that we’re we’re different governments.

And just like any government, us and a European government or whatever, us and Mexico, you know, speaking about the United States, you have to have people that will be patient and look for have their eye on the prize, which is that we are operating in the same community and we’re operating in the same county, and they are a sovereign nation.

They have their they have their own departments for everything. They have a separate, fire fighting for service, separate natural resources, separate human services. And so we work on things of mutual benefit. And we also talk and, and.

David Martin: and that’s the important thing.

Marsha Porter Norton: That’s the important thing. And I, I love working with the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Indian tribes, I really do. It’s a very special part of my job.

David Martin: Well, I’m sure and, do members of the community go on the rez? Is it?

Marsha Porter Norton: yeah. It’s a it’s called, a checkerboard. Yeah, it’s completely open and it’s called what is called a checkerboard reservation. So, the exterior or boundary of the reservation is very big. And then the actual reservation that are in trust lands that people typically call the reservation is, is checkerboard because of, because, a lot of interesting history.

And I also think that we are, I hope as a culture learning to have a reckoning with our past. what has gone on with indigenous cultures in the southwest has not always been healthy. And it hasn’t, I mean to say, the least. And, we all, really have a responsibility to understand that history and not sweep it under a rug.

La Plata County, actually on February 10th, turned 150 years old. Oh, so we’re pretty psyched about that. But we also understand that that history hasn’t always been, beautiful.

David Martin: Or he says, you talk too much. I can’t believe that.

Marsha Porter Norton: I do think I talk too much sometimes. Hopefully, hopefully people are still listening. but.

David Martin: But it’s a good relationship.

Marsha Porter Norton: It’s a very good relationship. And I think we also need to have a common understanding as people who are non-Indigenous, about the history and be real about it and, and celebrate the good history and understand there’s been some history that really affected some people in really devastating ways.

David Martin: All right. Well, now let’s get to the.

Marsha Porter Norton: Okay. Yes.

David Martin: Why do you do the things you do.

Marsha Porter Norton: Yes. Thank you.

David Martin: After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City. Former mayors Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts.

So three, almost four years in as county commissioner to find good government.

Marsha Porter Norton: I believe there’s three pillars of good government. The first pillar is that we represent everyone. I am a Democrat, but I feel extremely strongly that I don’t look at someone’s party when they walk in my door and when they send me an email and all of that. We are living in such polarizing times that we need to find common ground, and we need to find what actually helps people’s lives and is not ideological.

So that’s my number one premise. I am here to serve everybody. and I know that some people who are not in my party may not like some of my decisions. It doesn’t mean we have to hate each other. It means we can disagree. second premise is that we need to be extremely trust. We need to build trust.

We are at a time when trust in local government is high. But we know that trust in federal government is very low, and we often get the backwash of that. So we need to build trust. the other day I got somebody writing in about, well, you know, when was the last time your road and bridge budget was audited?

It’s like, here it is. Here’s the audit we wanted. And every year we account for every penny. If something comes out in our audit, we need to improve upon. It’s right there. So we need to always be very open to the hard questions about government, because we’re spending people’s tax very hard in earned money. And then the third promise I have is good government can get good things done.

And I believe in sometimes I drive our staff crazy with ideas and things we need to do, but it’s because I believe we need to harness the government not to do for people, but to do with people. And the wildfire example I talked to is a great example. So I believe in transparency. I believe in a time that we need to depolarize and turn down our rhetoric, and we need to work for everybody and we need to get things done.

We need to get things done to renew people’s faith in government.

David Martin: So in November, you’re up for reelection. And, that will be one indicator as to how you’re doing prior to the elections. How do you judge your success or, you know, your lack of success?

Marsha Porter Norton: I judge success by, is, first of all, am I am I following my own premises of being, non-ideological and getting things done and being transparent? So that’s one thing. We have a lot of success measures out La Plata County. You know, how many people how many senior meals are we serving? How many roads are we paving?

Those kinds of success measures that hopefully many good governments have. And then I personally have been working on the wildfire issue, the substance abuse issue and the housing issue. And so for all of those three things, we can have measures of success. Now, am I happy with those measures? No. We are going to need to treat thousands of more acres.

We’re going to need to bring in substance abuse services to a much higher level than we are now, and we’re going to need to put in many more housing units. But we’re making progress. And so, and how.

David Martin: Do you know if you’re making progress?

Marsha Porter Norton: I know I’m if I’m making progress, we need to measured and I know if I’m making progress is when I when we are building partnerships and I’m getting feedback about those partnerships. And so, I, you know, I’m very much a numbers person, so I like, well, how many housing units have we gotten done? How many are needed.

So I look at those kind of big, big giant measures of success. But then I also look at people coming up to me on the street and going, wow, I use some of your, WPF money to mitigate my property. Thank you. So it’s a little bit of art and science, I think, in terms of measuring success. But,

David Martin: And if the people aren’t seeing the success they want from you, how should they hold you accountable? What should they what should they use as their yardstick for your success?

Marsha Porter Norton: I first of all want to know where are they perceiving that either myself or my government is falling short? So instead of, you know, ranting and raving on Facebook like, let’s meet and let’s hear what your concern is, I find that, people track on government, but they don’t always, you know, I get it. They’re picking their kids up from soccer.

They’re taking care of their aging parent. They’re recreating whatever they’re doing. They don’t always track things like, like, obviously, some people do, but so first of all, let’s have a conversation. Where are we not meeting the mark? Yeah. And is there an opportunity to do that? That’s really important. I’ve had my best days. Or when somebody tells me maybe something that I may not want to hear, or I didn’t think I wanted to hear or I didn’t even know about, you know, and then, so we can always think we’re successful, but you have a good point that we need to continually stay in touch with people to see if that’s true.

David Martin: And what should those people do?

Marsha Porter Norton: I think, first of all, they need to not be afraid to call us. They need to not be afraid to come to a meeting. They need to. I ask people on any issue they maybe they only have a couple hours of time, read a set of minutes, read a report, come talk to us. If they’re a verbal learner, we’ll sit down and talk to them.

If they’re somebody that’s like, send me a report on that, I’ll do that. You know, we people have different learning styles. I think they need to speak out. And and there’s so many ways to speak out now. They’re angry and that’s fine. We have free speech in this country, but speak out in a way that says what is your specific concern?

Where are am I or the county falling short, and is there an opportunity to work together? So, you know, this is an overused word, but democracy is not a spectator sport. I mean, it is a, you know, it’s not a spectator sport. You don’t just sit in the stands right. You you need to delve in and say, like, if somebody comes to me and says, well, I need the county to do more on wildfire, it’s like, can we can I talk for three minutes on what we’re already doing?

Yeah. And and then where else do you perceive we need to go? this happens to us all the time with our county roads, because we are very short on funding for roads. I could go into that forever. And, once people understand, wow, you have a structural deficit in your road budget, but they take the time to learn.

David Martin: Do people you said earlier that, you know, county government you felt was closest to the people. obviously you have to be out in the public. are you, do people approach you? Are you out everywhere? Do they stop you at the supermarket?

Marsha Porter Norton: Oh, they stop me in the supermarket. They stop me. We just had a big carnival event that’s sort of a cabin fever event in Durango called Snow Down. And, you know, you just can’t go anywhere as an elected official in La Plata County without people saying, I’m so sorry, Marcia, but I’m going to talk about this. And I say, you don’t need to be sorry.

That’s my job. Yeah. And I try to get out as much as I can. I am a full time commissioner, okay? And my first responsibility is to read the packets and make good decisions. And that’s, office. That’s office based. but any time I can. I just went to, business improvement district in Durango meeting. I tried to get up to the fort, and, Fort Lewis College is in our community.

Go to their graduation. Okay, you know, try to try to do things that both show people sometimes.

David Martin: Said your husband out to get the. Why did Scott sure.

Marsha Porter Norton: My husband is a trooper. Thank you. Thank you to him. He, he asked to put up with many dinners that he cooks himself. And, it is a sacrifice for family, for sure. Yeah. but I love my job. Anybody out there that wants to run for a county commissioner position be prepared to, really immerse yourself in ten issues at once.

Okay? And, and, and I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to, to use our gifts, whatever those gifts are.

David Martin: And you’re starting to get into a little bit with this is my, my next question. Three, almost four years in as county commissioner, what would you like people to know about government, about being county commissioner, about what government’s like on the inside?

Marsha Porter Norton: Oh my goodness. You have some great questions. Thank you. I first of all, I want people to know that things are and I don’t say this in a sarcastic way. Any issue out there is, and I’ve learned, is about ten times more complex than you think it is.

David Martin: Okay.

Marsha Porter Norton: It’s easy for like, let me just give in our community, we have an absolute crisis in affordable and workforce housing. So it would be very easy for a citizen. And we have we’re about 700 units a year short, 700 units. We’re about ten years behind. So let’s do the math there. Right. Well, it would be easy to say, how come you guys just don’t go out and build housing?

And and that is happening. But it it’s ten times more complicated. There are always laws. There are always and I don’t look at constraints solely, but let’s be honest, there are sometimes constraints in our area. We have a workforce shortage of people that can just build the homes. Right, right. And there’s, costs, you know, there’s costs, there’s I have a Rubik’s Cube on my desk and people say, oh, how cute that you have a Rubik’s Cube.

And I say, well, the reason I have a Rubik’s Cube is everything we do. You turn it different ways. sometimes the, facts. Well, always the facts are important. But then the facts. According to who? the law, the public sentiment. what we can actually do. So that’s one thing I want people to know is that if it looks, government is sometimes very slow.

Marsha Porter Norton: It makes people really crazy, but they’re so oftentimes a really good reason for that. We are kicking off this year a radar project. We were in a black hole. Guess what? To understand what the weather was like in Southwest Colorado. Oh, our National Weather Service in Grand Junction, Colorado would call people and go, can you go look outside?

Can you go look up? We finally are going to get a radar station that will add to the Doppler weather radar. Oh so excited. Guess how long that is taken. It is taken six years. And so people are critical like oh my goodness, how hard was it? Well, let me start going in. So just to understand we’re not being obstructionist or anything like that.

It’s just things are complicated. Secondly, I want people to know they can make it. They can make a difference. I have had people, citizens come to me and talk to me with very different views, and I have changed or altered my vote or changed or altered my perspective because people came to me in good faith. They have set up coffee with me.

There’s a couple people I our county’s big, it’s really big. And so, you know, it’s like about two hours to get from one corner the other. So I will drive all over the county and meet with people. And and people have changed, you know, please don’t be afraid to call an elected official and give your view. and we always say you can come to a meeting, you can send an email, you can send a voicemail.

We have office hours once a month, our office hours or every day. But we can have it. We have office hours where we get out to coffee shops and stuff like that, and people can make a difference. I have story after story where it’s like, wow, I didn’t know about this, and you just brought it to my attention and let me go back and talk about it.

But it doesn’t happen quickly and it doesn’t happen overnight.

David Martin: So who inspired you to public service to run for office? you know who, who’s your hero?

Marsha Porter Norton: And my hero is, my family. My grandfather was a state senator, in Colorado. Okay. And he was a farmer. And, back then was very different. The district was different, and he, was a state senator in the in the 50s. my own father is very, very involved in water in Colorado and, served on all kinds of state boards and, ran a, federal water project and was also a farmer and rancher.

And so, my mom was a teacher and, and was involved in pretty much any, any good thing in my community. So my family very much taught me that this is this is like in your DNA. You go out and help people. It’s either through your civic club or, you know, a church or whatever. So, and then I was very, very inspired, as I said earlier, by my four leaders and, you know, just like that for each had a giant impact on me and, and, but and, and, you know, I’m a person that, you know, wants to change the world.

And so that’s what did.

David Martin: You want to be president of the United States with your kids? Did you want to be governor of Colorado? I mean.

Marsha Porter Norton: I never got my sights quite that high. I always thought, I mean, yeah, I don’t know about that. I, I love, policy, I love legislation. I, I’m very happy to be, like, here at Naco, where we can give our voice to to federal issues. but I, you know, people that that don’t just complain and want to change the world and are actually doing it are the ones that inspire me.

David Martin: I have never been to Durango. Oh, yes, I’ve been to Denver.

Marsha Porter Norton: Great.

David Martin: Yeah. And Colorado Springs. I think that’s the extent of it.

Marsha Porter Norton: Oh, wow. Okay.

David Martin: Travels. if I’m coming down to Durango, we’re going to go out and have dinner.

Marsha Porter Norton: Where? Yes, we are. What are we.

David Martin: Having? What’s the weather when we got some fresh bison? What do we have? It’s.

Marsha Porter Norton: Oh, my gosh, that’s that’s a great question. first of all, I will brag a little bit on, Southwest Colorado in general, and Durango has has per capita has some of the highest number of restaurants, I think maybe in the country, something some stat like that. We, we’re we’re a small town. I live in Durango, but we have, a lot of great restaurants.

We have a lot of fun things to do. We have great hotels.

David Martin: What’s the typical, local dish?

Marsha Porter Norton: You know, we, interestingly, we feel a lot of affinity with New Mexico. We’re on the New Mexico border. You can get great Mexican food. Of course. Steaks. but there’s all kinds of fare on the cattle ranch. Yeah, yeah, steak.

David Martin: Three days a.

Marsha Porter Norton: Week. I don’t actually, I, but I and and interestingly, I just sat in a session this morning with Secretary Tom Vilsack talking about local food. And so a lot of our restaurants in, in Durango and the region again, I serve also, the towns of Bayfield and Ignacio, they serve local food. And so you can it’s like, what’s local?

local is, definitely beef. Definitely. You know, chickens, things like that. Eggs. And then a lot of produce. We of course, have winter, sometimes up to fight when we have a good winter. Winters a good, you know, October through, April. But we’re having more and more greenhouses. So locals food. We have pretty much all kinds of food.

But I would say there’s a big southwest influence. I mean, it’s only from where I live. It’s 32 minutes to get into New Mexico, which is a wonderful state. Love New Mexico. I would love to have you come to Durango, especially being from Brooklyn. We could show you, you know, show you around. Yeah.

David Martin: well, this is a good government show. And while you certainly talked about some good government projects, we want to bring it back to good government. Tell me about a project you’re working on now that you’re really excited about.

Marsha Porter Norton: One thing I’m really excited about, in addition to the wildfire and Watershed Protection Fund, is, we have a five county, 17 jurisdictions, actually, intergovernmental agreement that is with the state of Colorado AG around bringing more opioid services, opioid, a substance abuse disorder, services into Southwest Colorado. Can you imagine how hard it is anywhere in the country to get consensus in agreement with 17 jurisdictions?

We just did it, and we have decided.

David Martin: That’s your mediators skills coming back.

Marsha Porter Norton: Well, mine and I got to give a big, giant shout out to a ton of people. But we worked really hard. We used congressionally directed spending for a study because how do you know? Again, back to measurement. How do you know what you want to do if you don’t know where you are? So we did a big study, on, the dearth of substance abuse services in our region, how it is affecting people and what we should do.

We’re doing three things. We are, first of all, going to bring up to five recovery residences. We don’t have inpatient treatment. So if somebody needs inpatient, they have to go four hours, let alone seven, and sometimes have to be transported. It’s very expensive. What an inpatient was a bridge too far financially and for all kinds of other reasons.

We are going to bring five recovery residences to our region, and so people can go to treatment someplace else and come back and have a like a stepping stone down, if you will. We are also going to be supporting grants to people in recovery to help them further their lives. And we’re also going to be doing some local projects because we, we are in a region that includes five counties, San Juan, these, these are, Spanish names, if you will, Spanish, from that era are Tulare County, Montezuma and Dolores.

And so and then La Plata, my county. So we’re all coming together and saying, how can we work together? There’s limited funding, but, we have a very, very serious problem, and we’re tackling it again. You don’t you don’t get there overnight. It’s taken a long time, but I’m really proud of that. And then the third thing I’m working on is housing.

I’m on our regional housing alliance, and we started a catalyst fund with, private money. We just had 900,000 be infused into that fund this week. And what we do is do pre-development costs for people that are looking to do low market housing. It’s a very innovative model, and we’re doing it with partners, economic development folks. housing folks, other governments.

David Martin: So you’re staying busy.

Marsha Porter Norton: I imagine. What do you do for fun? I go there, we go hiking, I go hiking, we love going around the four corners. If people want to come to the four corners there, you will. You will never run out of stuff to do. I read I spent time with my family. My mom is 91. She just turned 91.

Happy birthday. Mom, if you ever listen to this show, love you dearly. And, you know.

David Martin: Really, mother doesn’t suffer.

Marsha Porter Norton: You know she doesn’t. Oh my goodness.

David Martin: I have trouble explaining what a podcast.

Marsha Porter Norton: Is to her. You know, she.

David Martin: Grew up listening to.

Marsha Porter Norton: Radio. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it’s it is a very taxing job in terms of the hours. Sometimes I just need to go on a 25 minute walk and and do some meditation and get my head back on.

David Martin: Guys when I first.

Marsha Porter Norton: Got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that works too, but, yeah, I, I just love it in anybody in government. It is it is a true honor during this time that we’re living in where we need to work on keeping our institutions intact. and we need we need people of all political stripes that want to work across the aisle and put aside differences and get things done.

That’s what we need.

David Martin: Well, I have learned a lot about how to set up a fire, prevention and coordination program. I hope other people did, too. fascinating conversation. This is Marcia Porter Norton of La Plata County, Colorado. It was great to meet you.

Marsha Porter Norton: Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. Glad I ran into you at your booth.

David Martin: Glad. I’m glad you did, too. Thank you very much. We’ll see you at Durango.

Marsha Porter Norton: All right. Thank you. Bye. But.

David Martin: I want to tell you what our friends at the LA Academy of Science are doing. The City Academy is a national association for local health department data collectors. Through the Academy of Science, County health directors are coming together to measure their county health issues the same way. Here’s the problem. There are over 3000 counties in the U.S. and they all count differently.

We live in a data driven world. We need all the public health data to be counted the same. Let’s say you want to see if your community is overweight or vaping, or in other ways, less healthy than your neighboring counties. To determine this, you’ll need to measure these problems the same. You also have to ask the same questions, different results, but same data points.

LHCDAcademy is working with a National Center for Disease Control, creating a standard to count and collect data. The same way you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, they create the process and make sure everyone is looking at the information the same way. This means a county in Connecticut can compare their data with a county in California, it’s apples to apples.

Now with the Academy, counties and other governments are pooling resources and sharing data and creating a huge database library that means lower costs, more accurate results, and better information for everyone. Sound like a government, right? If this sounds like something you want to get for your county or your city, check them out at LA Academy of science.org. That’s LHD Academy of science.org.

What is it the county government does? That’s the question county commissioners get asked the most. And the simple answer is everything on the good government show. We’re so lucky to have talked with so many county commissioners and other county officials that have shown us how effective county government is. County government dates back to get this 1634, making it one of the oldest forms of government in the United States.

Think about it. Roads. Highways. Hospitals. Schools. Recycling, law enforcement. Water, sewers, and most of the county. Those services are maintained by the county that’s county government. The National Association of Counties represents all 3069 counties across the USA. Naco helps county government work better together through things like sharing best practices. When county government works well, well, that’s just good government.

I really enjoyed the conversation and I learned a lot. Good government is certainly alive and well in La Plata County, Colorado. I like 2 or 3 pillars of good government serve everyone no matter what their political affiliation is. Elected leaders are there to serve all the people. I agree, if you build trust, she says, you can get things done and that, she says is good government.

Couldn’t agree more. Being on the New Mexico border sounds like good Mexican food is on the menu. That and a good steak. Well, that’s our show. Please like us and share this with your friends or interview us right here. We’re listening and check out our website. Good government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling the stories of good government in action everywhere.

Join us again for another episode right here where you’re listening. I’m Dave Martin and this is a good government show.

The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe, then share and like us and review us. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

Then listen to the next episode of The Good Government Show.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.