[00:00:13] Speaker A: Welcome to We Are Chaffee's Looking Upstream, a conversational podcast of community, humanness and well being rooted in Chaffee County, Colorado. I'm Adam Williams, and today I'm talking with PT Wood. I could not help myself but to kick things off with showing some love for PT's iconic beard. You know, given I'm a beard man myself. To me, his lush white beard is emblematic of an adventurous outdoor life in the mountains. He tells us why he grew his distinctive handlebar mustache too, and I think his reasoning for that might well say as much about P.T. s grit and personality as anything else.
He grew up in Boulder in the 70s, skating and sketching around town. He came to the Arkansas valley in the 80s, like many drawn by the river and the skiing, and has been part of the scene here since. We talk about the need for being a chameleon to thrive in mountain town life, which PT Certainly has done. He's been a river guide and a kayak sales rep, a house builder and a pizza shop owner, and of course now is a whiskey distiller and entrepreneur, not to mention his public service locally for many years, including as mayor of Salida and currently as Chaffee County Commissioner. We talk about the rise of micro distilleries across the US and how the events of 911 influenced that. We talk about the art of whiskey and the spirit of storytelling. We also get into why PT got involved in local politics, which I'm always curious to understand about anyone who runs for elected office, given that so many of us, myself, most definitely included, do not choose to do so. I also ask him about the most pressing issues that we are facing here in Chaffee county right now, given his leadership role as a county commissioner.
The Looking Upstream podcast is supported by Chaffey County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority. Show notes with photos, links, and a transcript of the conversation, as always, are published at we are chafeepod.com and you can also subscribe to the newsletter there. You can see more photos and connect with the podcast at We Are Chaffee Pod on Instagram. All right, P.T. wood, here we go.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Well, not to start things in a weird way, PT but I love your beard.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: Thanks. You got a great one too.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Well, thank you. I. I feel like somehow you have found some sort of secrets that to have it come out better. I don't know if that's genetics or if you're doing something. I think the handlebar mustache really takes it to the next level. Right.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Yeah, that was, you know, I started doing the handlebar mustache back in double aughts at the when I owned Moonlight Pizza there. And then, you know, kind of the hipsters took it on and I decided I was going to outlive the hipsters with the handlebar mustache. So I held onto it.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Is that a spite move?
[00:03:04] Speaker C: A little bit, maybe.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: You told me the other day that it went white or gray when you got into politics locally here. And I don't know how much you were joking and how much there was seriousness in that.
[00:03:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pretty serious. It's, you know, I love, love, love local politics, but it can be kind of all consuming and it is stressful. We have, you know, as mayor, I had 6,000 people in town that I was responsible for taking care of. And now with the county commissioner level, there's 20,000 folks that my decisions can affect. And so, you know, you really wind up spending a lot of time thinking deeply about your decisions.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: I'm just going to call out what feels like an elephant in the room of the nation right now. And not all politicians think deeply and take that time. So I appreciate your investment.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: It's unfortunate, isn't it? Because it's a serious job.
The job requires serious people and we don't always get serious people running for public office.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: I think we're going to get into some of the politics and your work and your intentions here in a bit. I want to maybe go back to some of the start at the start kind of thing.
You've been around salida since the 80s, and I feel like that's a recurring decade in the stories of some of the people I talk with, with the river being the heart of that.
[00:04:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: People who've come in to be River Gu and do different things in that industry. And so it makes me wonder, was there something in particular going on in the 80s or is it just a coincidence of who I'm talking to and what the age is?
[00:04:54] Speaker C: Yeah, probably just partially that coincidence of the age.
But I think there was some significant things happening in the late 80s, Salida. The extraction economies were going away. The railroad was starting to slow down. There wasn't much happening here besides the river.
Besides the river, really. But other ski towns around the state were starting to really boom and explode and were becoming harder places to live where Salida was becoming an easier place to live.
There weren't really good paying jobs, but there were jobs. And for a guy that didn't need any money, it was a cheap place to live, an interesting place to live. And kind of the crowd I was hanging out with. From the river and from skiing, was moving here. So my people were here.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: I don't recall how long Monarch has been running as a ski area. How does that relate in terms of timing with the river and what was coming up then with rafting, you know.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: So I think Monarch is. This will be their 77th year, I want to say, or something like that, or 100. I don't know. It's been there for. It's one of the older ski areas.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: In the.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: So certainly longer than what we're talking about.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Way longer. Yeah.
But it was. It was certainly an influencing factor. Monarch. I've always loved Monarch because it is just this kind of small throwback sort of area. It's not a resort, it's a skier's hill.
And all the other ski areas in Colorado, for the most part, the few exceptions, were becoming more and more corporate resort areas.
I had been working at Purgatory for a long time, and they had got bought out. And when I was working there as a lifty, you know, you only made five bucks an hour, but you skied half the day. So it was like, whatever, I'm getting paid to go skiing. I love this.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: And you were in your, what, 20s, college age, something like that.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: And then that kind of went away and they weren't letting you ski as much anymore. And I'm like, I'm out of here. I'm going to do something else. And, you know, and Salida was inexpensive and a great town and, you know, mountains and the best weather and the best river. And I was like, I don't know why everybody in the world isn't moving to this town, but I'm.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: And now we have.
[00:07:29] Speaker C: Yeah, most of them have now. Right.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Because you're talking about it. It was cheaper to live.
And at this point, somebody who was in their 20s or is in their 20s now, like you would have been around that time, they're saying, what are you talking about? Inexpensive? I can't even imagine that having been the case. So I almost don't even know what direction to ask a question in relation to that. I just feel like hanging out here for a minute with it. Because you've seen some change then, as everybody who's been here long enough has to think that this was an inexpensive place is kind of unfathomable to a lot of people, I suspect.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah, it's kind of mind boggling. Right. But it was.
It was also, while it was an inexpensive place to live, the jobs were five bucks an hour. So, you know, you weren't getting rich being here, but you could afford to be here. And it's, you know, it's. It's unfortunate that we've lost some of that, but I think the trade off there is that now we have a vibrant, alive downtown. Back late 80s, probably 40% of the businesses were shut down, boarded up. There wasn't much happening in downtown Salida. You could go to First Street Cafe for food or over to Momma D's for a Chicago dog or something. There wasn't much happening. You know, and now we have this lively, vibrant town and valley, but it is more expensive.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: I think that probably feels bittersweet to the people who've been here long enough to feel the change and the change in terms of traffic, maybe of people, tourism, people moving in and out as residents, the expensive things. But there's a lot of great stuff here in addition to what might have been the good old days of before all that.
[00:09:29] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the good with the bad. Right? I mean, you can't have all good and hopefully you don't have all bad.
There's a mixture there and you kind of roll with it and make the best. And I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. This is the greatest place on earth and, you know, even go out and travel and go somewhere great. I'm excited to come back to Salida. Absolutely. Hear that from a lot of people.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: I love this kind of environment so much that when I think of vacations, I'm thinking, where else in the mountains can I go? Like, which is kind of strange. I grew up in the Midwest. I never thought, can I go to a vacation somewhere in a place just like where I'm living, you know? But here I have no problem going to another mountain location because I just love being around that. And it's like, okay, it's a little bit of a change of scenery and I'm still excited to go back home.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: Yep, for sure. That's great.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: I want to find out if we go further back in time, kind of about your growing up.
You grew up in Boulder. I'm thinking 70s into the 80s would have gotten the bulk of your childhood and into your teen years.
There's probably been a lot of change around there too.
And I wonder what it was like back then.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So I was born in 65. Right. And so then I graduated from high school in 1983. And Boulder was a pretty blue collar working town, kind of more of a Denver suburb, I'd say. Right. My dad worked for the National Bureau of Standards and all my friends, folks were either working at the university or working at. In car or, you know, some generally sciencey government type of jobs. But it was. It was fun. It was small. We'd.
We'd skate downtown from South Boulder to, you know, across town, and no problem. One time we. Sketching was a big thing when I was a kid, where you'd go out and grab on the bumper of a car when the roads are all icy and get drug around and.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Just on the soles of your shoes.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: Yeah, just on the soles of your shoes. And I remember we did that one time and wound up far, far, far north Boulder, out near Valmont Road there. And we were just having a blast, you know, just kids. And all of a sudden we're at Valmont Road, 15 miles.
Oh, boy. Oh, now we've done it. But, you know, that stuff that you. There was no way you could get away with doing that in Boulder anymore.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: No way did the people pulling, you know, you were back there, like, was it so cold?
[00:12:10] Speaker C: No idea. No idea.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: How old are we saying you were?
[00:12:13] Speaker C: I don't know. We were probably 15 or, you know, something like that.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: When you say skating, talking about skateboards.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: No, skitching is what we called it.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: But before that, I thought you used the word skating.
[00:12:24] Speaker C: Yeah, skateboards.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that would have been kind of at the beginning of skateboards, you know, in the.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: That would have been in the. Yeah, 70s or so. We had a great skate park that got built in Boulder in the late 70s out on baseline Road. And it was. I mean, it was huge.
I don't know, an acre or more. And I just remember it being really huge. And we would, you know, we. We all built our own decks. And then you'd go and get the tires and the trucks from the skate shop or whatever and build it. And then we spent hours out there just kind of rolling around, and it was cool.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: That's a little earlier than I might have guessed. To have a skate park, to have a skate shop.
I mean, I guess it is in the 70s when the popularity of that started coming up.
But I still would associate that more with California. Right. Surfers who are trying to catch waves on land and keep riding when the waves weren't good. So it's interesting it made it this far inland and that. That was part of your childhood, too.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it was cool. And it, you know, it was unfortunate that skate park only lasted a handful of years before they tore it up and put in a strip mall, which was, you know, tragic to every kid in Boulder. But happened.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Life is change, you know, like, we've already hit on a bunch of change here, and it's. It's fun to look back at these stories that are, I'll say, nostalgic. I'm sure it is for you. For me, I don't know if I get to use that word because I wasn't around to have the experience, but it's something. It's something cool. I love hearing the stories and can kind of feel a little wistful that those are times gone by. But I suppose that's what life always is, right? We're always moving forward, and so you kind of look back to what you think you don't have anymore while also getting to have the cool, awesome new things that we have now.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: Right. I mean, there's always something interesting happening. And I like change.
I like that progression of life and that progression of just interests and things.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: You've described the need to be a chameleon in mountain town life, and I think your history here in Salida kind of shows some of that. Because you'd mentioned owning Moonlight Pizza. You obviously have founded and owned Woods Distillery, now county commissioner, you've been mayor. I think you've built houses, you've done a number of things. I'm curious about that chameleon. To make life work in a mountain town kind of thing, and the necessity for that and just your thoughts on what that takes and maybe even why. Why is that so much harder in a mountain town versus somewhere out in the plains of the middle of the country?
[00:15:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I haven't lived in the plains out in the middle of the country, so I don't know if I can really speak. Speak to that. But in the mountains, it, you know, it's expensive to live here. Typically, the job opportunities can be somewhat limited. So you do have to kind of be able to turn on a dime and do a lot of different things. And again, I have a lot of.
I like change, too, so maybe that plays into it somewhat. But, you know, going out and doing a lot of different things is, I think, sometimes necessary to stay in a mountain town.
To be successful in a mountain town, it helps to have a lot of varying skills that you can lean on depending on how the economy is going and what's happening. And that's kind of fun, too.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: How did you cultivate these skills? I mean, and I guess the willingness to leap into business ownership, but when we talk about building houses, I don't have those skills. Nobody out there should hire me to build their house.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: I was Lucky to have a lot of good mentors along the way.
When I first started to build houses, we were putting in a concrete patio at a house over on that I owned on Park Avenue, and my buddy Mike Reed came over and he was mainly doing it, but he needed some help, so I helped him out. And not long after we had done that, I'd been working for Wavesport Kayaks at the time, selling kayaks, and that job went away. There was like this consolidation of kayak companies, and they all got together and got rid of their independence. Independent sales reps across the country within a week, during. I think that was 2001 or two. And so all of a sudden, all the kayak reps in the country are like, ah, what's the next step? And I was talking to Mike and I'm like, man, I don't know what I'm going to do. He's like, well, come build houses with me. I got plenty of work. So went to start helping him do that, and it just kind of worked out.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Let's talk whiskey, because that's a venture as well, and adventure and a lot of learning and developing those skills. Like we're saying to keep adapting and I imagine going to a passion area for you too. I would assume you have to really like this thing.
So how did you come to whiskey and distilling and opening up a distillery.
[00:17:41] Speaker C: That started on a Grand Canyon trip back in 1895?
I think that was Julie Jackson's permit, who owns J Squared down here.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: I don't know if you've talked to her, but super interesting person. She's great. And a bunch of, you know, just a bunch of folks from around town on that trip, including Peter Simonson, who owned the Victoria Tavern.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:08] Speaker C: And he brought a bunch of different whiskeys, and we drank bunch of whiskeys on that trip. And kind of by the end, I was like, man, I want to make whiskey. And I don't know where that idea ever got into my head that you could actually do that, but I was like, yeah, I'm just going to make whiskey. And I pretty much every river trip after that, when someone broke out a bottle of whiskey, I'd be like, I'm going to make whiskey someday. And finally, after you used what almost probably 15 or 20 years of telling that story, we opened in 2012. So you can do the math there.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
I got around to doing it and it was just. It was just in my head, something I wanted to do. And I've never been.
Never been afraid to Start businesses or to take chances or whatever. Just. I mean, some of the happiest I've ever been was when I was completely broke. Poor river guide guy. So, you know, going broke has never been a concern or a fear of mine.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: I was going to ask where that comes from, and is it rooted in something even earlier? Like, were your parents or family or friends or whoever you grew up around and were kind of socialized by? Were they risk takers? Were they people who showed you how to not be so fearful of those possibilities?
[00:19:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. So I think there's a few things. My dad was an entrepreneur. He started a number of different companies. He's still starting companies. He's 85 years old now and still starting companies.
And then growing up, ski racing. And I think a great story. My buddy Mike's parson's parents used to take us up to the top of Caribou Road and they'd go cut some peat for their garden. And at the end of the day, we'd jump on our BMX bikes and ride down Caribou Road. And, you know, these were bikes that we had made. They, you know, you couldn't go buy a BMX bike back then. You had your Schwinn Stingray frame, and you put the kind of knobby tires on it and change the handlebars. And so the bikes were pretty sketchy. But they'd let us off at the top, and we'd ride down and they'd follow behind us and, you know, check our speed and be yelling out the window, you know, like, 30 miles an hour, 35, 40. You know, we're on these sketchy bikes.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: And was that to slow you down or to say, getting there?
[00:20:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I was pretty sure they. They were trying to get rid of us. I think we might have been a thorn in their side.
But that was. That was just always kind of part of being a kid, right? Going out and doing dumb stuff.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, I think all the time with my. My boys who are, you know, at least one's a teenager already. It's like, man, kids are dumb. And so was I.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: Right?
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Like, we just survive it.
[00:21:08] Speaker C: Yeah. That's how you, you know, you learn a lot from doing dumb stuff.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I've sat around with my older brothers and kind of talked about, I can't believe we survived that one.
[00:21:18] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: But, yeah, you learn a lot and develop some grit, right?
[00:21:22] Speaker C: Yep. For sure.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: So if we keep talking about whiskey a little bit, I'm curious where Your interest in these things fits into what feels like, I don't know if it's a resurgence or if it was a totally new business idea that micro breweries and these local distilleries, it seems like in the past 20 or so years is when these things have really come up. And now to go into rural areas like this, like Salida, like bv, and you have both, and it just feels like such a cool thing and an entrepreneurial spirit. And I mean, it tastes good, right? So what is some of that history as your understanding of it and then how you kind of fit in with Woods Distillery as part of this boom? What do you think led to this?
[00:22:12] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So the industry really kind of started for the micro distillery in the mid double lots. So 2003, four is when you see the first ones really start to show up. And what happened was before 9 11, 2001, the ATF was doling out the licenses for distilleries and they didn't want to talk to anybody. They were like, there's eight big distilleries in the country. We're good, we don't need any more. We're not going to give out any licenses.
After 9 11, the ATF was told to focus on firearms and explosives and that kind of thing. And so they carved off the alcohol piece into a taxing bureau called the Alcohol and Tobacco Taxes and Trade Bureau. So it went from an enforcement bureau to a taxing bureau. And they were like, oh, we don't have enough, we don't have enough businesses to collect taxes off of. We need more. So they became very pro business and very supportive of these startup businesses. And you could call them up and they'd walk you through the license licensing process and they became just super helpful. And that is what led to the explosion of small distilleries. I think there's maybe 2,500 across the country now, whereas in 2005 there were maybe 15, something like that.
And when we got. I've been thinking about this a lot and we had tried in the early double aughts, 2001, 2002, to get something going. But again, the ATF, they want to return my call. So I finally gave up and went into the pizza business. That's when we bought moonlight pizza.
But in 2000, I think it was, well, 2005 or so, we were going down to Silverton a lot and we would always go into the Montagne Distillery, which, which was in Silverton at the time that had just opened up. And I was like, oh, These guys are doing it. That's cool. And then in 2007, we were on a deso trip, and a friend of mine, Kurt, brought one of the first bottles of Stranahans. And I was like, oh, this definitely can happen. So that's when I really dove into it and we started to working with my brother to develop a business plan and get things going. And again, it took from then till about 2012 to actually get up and running, but it was. We were. We were all in by then.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: You had those years of really wanting to make whiskey.
You know, I'm thinking you could have been. If you remember and think about the TV show mash, you could have been like Hawkeye Pierce with a still in the corner, and you could have just done it for yourself. This commitment and whiskey is. You really gotta dive in and allow some time for this to even develop before you can even open the door and say, hey, I have a bottle.
That's, you know, kind of a big vision and commitment to the energy needed to go from this. I can do it just for myself, to let me make a business out of this and a livelihood out of this. How do you connect and leap that gap? Because again, why not just do it for yourself and call it good?
[00:25:44] Speaker C: Well, that would be totally illegal, and I would not do anything illegal. So, you know, I don't know. It never really occurred to me to make. That I was going to make whiskey in my kitchen. That was never even a thought. I was going to make a business out of it, and I was going to have a room full of barrels. And that was.
I think that was. Starting a business was as much of the allure as the making of the whiskey part.
I really wanted to make the whiskey, but I really wanted to make a business as well.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Is that from a creative standpoint, too, to say I want people to be able to enjoy this product that I make that meets the expectations? Like, there's a feedback loop there that says, I want to make whiskey that is quality enough that people appreciate it, and then they're willing to pay this thing for it, and you can kind of keep spiraling it up into something of value beyond your kitchen, I guess. But it's interesting that that's illegal to do. But as long as you go make money and pay taxes on it and you serve this to other people right in front of our eyes, then you're good.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: Yeah, as long as there's license. Right. And there is a movement across the country to legal, and there's a few states that have done that. And it's an interesting kind of push pull between state rights and the TTB trying to regulate this. But that's another whole nother hour or two to talk about. But the art part that you kind of leaned into a little bit there has been one of the more challenging things, I take it. You know, I watch people drink our spirits all the time, and if someone's face kind of crinkles up, I take that very personal. Like, oh, geez, what I do, you know, and I take it. It's tough for me to see people not really love what I've made. Right. And I know that happens on occasion, but it's. I want people to really love it and to be like, wow, this is great. And this is really, you know, I'm glad I came in here.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: You gave an interview to Outside magazine several years ago, and they refer to you as the whiskey sipping, kayaking mayor of Salida, which of course at the time you were mayor, you're now county commissioner. But that description seems to still kind of encompass a lot about who you are. And you know, this wide reaching, broadly interested and skilled person. Has that always been who you are? I guess, you know, this multifaceted person who you throw the beard in with the whiskey, you throw the skiing and the kayaking in. We a mountain man going on here, Somebody of real compelling interest. I feel like.
[00:28:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know if I, I don't know if I've ever thought a whole lot about that. I, you know, I, I love being in the mountains. I love skiing, I love kayaking, I love rafting. I love riding my mountain bike. I was just Sunday, I went up and I, I did the crest and decided to come down Greens Creek because I hadn't done that in a while. And I was like, maybe it's not as rocky and rough as I recall. It is as rocky, rocky and rough as I recall. But there was a bunch of kids on kids. I don't know, they were probably in their 20s, you know, maybe 30s. I don't know anybody under 50 is a kid anymore, right. But they had their full suspension bikes and all their fancy gear. And they caught up to me and I was like, oh, heck no, these guys aren't dropping me. So I chased them and stuck with them the rest of the way down the hill. And I was just like, in a little competitive that way. Let's go with competitive.
I don't like to be, to be shown up or beat too much. So I think that drives some of that commitment to get out there and actually learn how to kayak and to bike and all that. And it took me, the kayaking thing did not come easy. It took me eight years to learn how to roll my kayak.
It was a struggle, A struggle. But once it kind of, once it came to me, it was just like, oh, this is. This is it. This is something that I'm actually good at. That was. And that happened kind of almost overnight. It was pretty cool, you know, after eight years of practice and then all of a sudden wake up one day and I was. It really happened in Gore Canyon. I was paddling that I didn't know how to roll my kayak. First time I paddled Gore Canyon, which is on the Colorado river, kind of this pretty stout Class 5 section of white water. And the last rapid is called Kirschbaum and it's the longest, shallowest rapid down there. And I flipped over at the top again. Didn't know how to roll my kayak at the time. I'd been trying for years but didn't have it. Hit my head on the bottom. Rolled right up until paddled through the rapid. Never had another problem with my roll. It was, it was an epiphany, I guess.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: It was cool hitting your head on.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: The bottom, I suppose. I don't know.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Jarred it loose and made it connect.
[00:30:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: That feels like to me as somebody who does not kayak and as. Actually that's one of the things, if I were to imagine myself trying, that I would fear the most is not being able to roll back up. How do you go through years of that? It would seem like you would encounter a lot of scary, potentially life threatening situations before you got that figured out.
[00:31:05] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: How do you get out of those situations? Luck.
[00:31:10] Speaker C: Over and over.
I think it has a lot to do with being stubborn. Yeah, very stubborn.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Wow.
I almost feel a panic coming over me just imagining being in that situation and not knowing for sure how to get out of it.
[00:31:26] Speaker C: That's how I felt pretty much every time I went kayaking for a long, long time. And then, you know, once I rolled up and I knew that I could roll up every single time, it was just like kid in a candy store. I was out running everything I was doing, you know, I was in my kayak all the time, upside down, all the time, whatever. It was just I was having a blast.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: People know you as PT And I hope you don't mind my pulling out this part from that outside article, but you shared your full name in that as Powell Thomas Wood.
[00:31:58] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: You know, it sound. That name sounds like kind of a blue blood East Coast. You know, if you throw the third or the fourth on the end of it, it sounds like you're going to inherit the railroad fortune or something.
And that kind of goes against this picture of who we're describing right here. You know, the mountain man kind of thing and the whiskey sipping, kayaking local politician.
Yeah, I don't know that there's a question with that, but just kind of. It struck me as amusing a little.
[00:32:31] Speaker C: Bit maybe those were both my grandpa's first names, and so I inherited those.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: You've joked also in that article that PT stood for passing through and that your parents were hippies. You were born in the back of the bus. But then you go ahead and cop to this. Well, I was really, was born in a hospital in Boulder, which makes me wonder, are you, first of all, were your parents hippies at all? You've described something about your dad and that might or might not go with being a hippie. Or are you really just a storyteller? And this is something, you just have fun around the campfire on a river trip and you're spinning yarns.
[00:33:07] Speaker C: Mostly it's just telling stories. And that's, you know, that was something that.
I think a lot of that came from being a river guide. And one of my. I think I get a bunch of that also from one of my really good, good friends, Pat Horton, who, unfortunately, he died on the Grand Canyon a few weeks ago in his sleep at Poncho's Kitchen. You know, kind of the way all old river guides want to go, although it might have been a little bit earlier, but he was a master storyteller. And we were roommates for years and years and years and just, you know, two peas in a pot. And there was competition to tell stories between the two of us. And I think that really drove a lot of my practice and a lot of my desire to keep telling these stories bigger and bigger and to, you know, just kind of be entertaining.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: I'm sorry you lost your friend, but I'm also glad now that we can share that piece of him.
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: And talk about the storytelling and. Yeah. Are there any favorite stories that you remember from the times that you would tell or maybe that he would, if you wanted to share one of his. I wonder how much those things are. You just described them kind of developing over time and getting bigger and more entertaining. Maybe. But if that's typically the way you do it, as opposed to, let me see what comes out of My mouth now, you know, let's make this up as we go.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: A little. A little bit of both of those. Right. But then when you. When you nail a good nugget of a story, then that's when you start to really develop it over time and tell it again and again. And, you know, you look forward to running into new people that you haven't met before so you can tell them the stories and that kind of thing. And it's. It's good. But, you know, as far as I've been thinking a lot, Pat's memorials in town on the 20th here. And so I've been thinking a lot about that and if there is a particular story that's worth telling at that. But as I start to think about it along the timeline, there are so many, and they're so in depth and they're so related to each other that, you know, that it would take weeks and months and years to kind of thread that whole thing. And maybe that's a. Maybe that's better told in a book or something. I don't know. We'll see where that lands.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough. There's a lot of years of shared experience and story in that. It sounds like.
[00:35:50] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: As we've said, you were mayor of Salida. That was for two terms. I think those were two year terms. Two year terms. So four years total. And now as county commissioner, you're around the midway mark of your first term, which is four years, right?
[00:36:03] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: I might be tangling us in our math here, but what we're talking about is A total of 6 years so far of local politics.
Yeah. Plus any campaigning that went into the efforts.
[00:36:16] Speaker C: Ten years on the planning commission in Salida before being mayor.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: Okay, so a lot of involvement.
[00:36:25] Speaker C: A lot of involvement.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: And my question to anybody who gets involved in politics, maybe a little less at the local level, because that seems more. Well, you might laugh at this, but civil compared to, say, state and then especially federal levels. But it's just my question still is the same as why. And I think I ask that through my personal filter of I don't want to have to deal with the criticism. I don't want to have to deal with the calls from people complaining and whatever all happens. I mean, why do you get involved in politics and for so many years, is that something that you maybe enjoy is the debate and facing criticism and the positives that you see as well? Of course.
[00:37:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I enjoy the debate. I'm not sure I enjoy the criticism, but I am pretty confident in Myself, so I don't take it personally.
I got into politics originally. People have been asking me for years on the planning commission, like, you should run for mayor. Should run for mayor. And I was always like a hard, no, no, no, not going to happen. This is what I'm doing. And then in kind of starting In, I think, 2015 or so, something like that, there was a city council in a mayor there that I didn't agree with, and I didn't agree with the direction they were taking our communities.
And I was pretty vocal about that.
And I woke up one day thinking about that, and I was like, well, if I'm going to be.
If I'm going to be a critic, and I'm going to be a loud critic, I have to step up and actually participate. And that was when I decided I would run for mayor.
I thought I had some skills that would benefit the city. I thought I could run a meeting well. I thought I was a decent arbiter of ideas.
And so I got elected, and I think I did a really good job. I did that for two years. Felt like the city was in a good place, and so I didn't need to do it anymore. Retired from politics, had given that up. And then a number of people came to me and asked me to run for county commissioner, including both Greg and Keith, two of the county commissioners that were still on there, about to be done with their commissioner journey here as they get term limited. And I think that just that calling to public service and people, you know, wanting me to help the community and me feeling like I had something to offer to help the community was what drove that.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: It feels like the rhetoric in politics has kind of bled down, maybe more than it has in the past.
I might be wrong on that. I don't know, but it feels like it's gotten a bit sharper even at the local level, a little less grounded in civil debate about the ideas and the ways we're handling things. Do you feel that. Do you feel that's the case even at the local level now?
[00:39:49] Speaker C: I don't know that I do. I think, you know, there's always that a little bit, maybe, but I think if you kind of slow down and listen to people and try to think about where they're coming from, and maybe, you know, maybe they're not having the best day, or maybe there's a decision we're making that's going to directly and significantly impact their future. You know, they can be upset, and rightfully so. And I think the, you know, that more Vitrolic national level stuff is, doesn't happen as much in local politics. And I think you can, if you actually kind of really get into it and pay attention and listen to what folks are saying, you don't see a ton of that.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: How can we take then, if it is more civil at the local level, how can we take that and kind of bring that to the state and national level, which it feels like, at least in my lifetime.
It's. This is the most difficult time, I feel like, for what's going on and how we handle that. How is there an optimistic take you have on our being able to improve that?
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. I think you have to. You have to require that of your, of your elected officials and you can't have this descent to the bottom. Right. You have to hold them accountable to their ideas and ask them and be asking what their ideas are. Not who do you like? Who do you not like? It's, you know, are you a serious person with serious ideas? And those are the people you should vote for.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: What are the most pressing issues you feel like we have going on locally here right now? The things that you as a county commissioner are focused on, and I guess as a kind of a secondary question, along with that, you're going to be, I would think, the one who's having to bring two new commissioners up to speed on these issues pretty soon now we are just to make clear we're recording before the election and this won't come out until after the election. So we're aware of that transition period, but we are not aware of who that's going to be working with you.
[00:42:13] Speaker C: Yeah, there will be two new commissioners sitting up at the dais with me. And so we'll bring them into the fold and bring them along and figure out what their ideas are and help to incorporate their ideas and their passions into what they do. I think right now, the biggest issues of the day in Chaffee county, they're the ones we been talking about forever. Right. It's housing, it's childcare, it's growth and land use. It's our environment and our climate as we're, you know, we're in a Valley with 7,000ft of vertical relief. We're kind of the front range of the front line of climate change. We are really feeling it here. We're feeling our summers grow longer, our winters grow shorter and warmer. We're getting less snowfall, maybe more rain at weird times.
Our forests are drying out and not as healthy as we would like. They're being infested by pine beetles and things like that. And so we have these kind of landscape scale problems that we're having to deal with.
But I think we're making good progress on it. I think we have, again, the right folks that are serious about finding solutions.
And as long as we have serious people trying to find serious solutions to these problems, I think we're doing all right.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: Is it an improved, an updated, a totally new land use code? Where are we in this process? And for me, as a layperson and I. I tend to assume I represent lay people who are listening as well for some of these governmental things in particular. So what is the land use code? What's going on with it? What does it mean for us?
[00:44:11] Speaker C: Yeah, so the land use code is.
Ideally, it codifies what is in the comp plan. And the comp plan describes who we are, what the valley is, and how we would like to see the valley in the future. Right. And so the land use ideally will codify that and help us direct growth in a. In a thoughtful and positive way that keeps the things we love about Chaffee County. In Chaffee county, so the big open, working ag lands, big open and working ag land, the towns, towns, the big view scapes, the big viewscapes open, the forest, healthy rivers and wildlife corridors healthy and vibrant, really working to allow people to live here, preserve the things we love about it.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: It sounds kind of like the push pull between maintaining, sustaining, preserving what it is we love and have and that there is growth and we're having to accommodate that. And how do we do that? I think that push pull applies across governance, across time, and of course, politics. And that push pulling back and forth with each other.
How do we look at that? How do you look at that? Process of this vision is meant to go well into the future, well beyond your years as a county commissioner. Someone's going to come in after you and then after them and after them. How do we look at that effort? You know, there's not a straight line. Right. Because not everybody's going to agree with how these processes unfold. And in four years, eight, 10, 12 years, somebody might be trying to almost undo some of the work you're doing. Like, that's got to feel challenging. And I think it is maybe as a population.
[00:46:07] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, there. There are no perfect solutions.
We can. We do the best that we can, try to find the most equitable solution, but none of them are perfect. And. But we have to be able to look at the decisions we've made and be like Whoa. We really did not nail that one. How can we do it better next time? Or. Wow. We did pretty good with that one. Let's see how we can apply lessons learned to future decision making.
[00:46:40] Speaker B: How about your thoughts on affordable housing right now as a county commissioner and what your role might be and where we are with that now? I imagine a lot of people are looking to you as an elected official to say, this obviously is a big problem. What are you doing?
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: How are you solving this?
[00:46:58] Speaker C: Solved it. It's done. By the time this gets out there, it should be everyone will have a house and be living high on the hog. Right.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: That is amazing. Thank you. Thank you for your efforts.
[00:47:08] Speaker C: No problem.
No, it's so at the county level, it's a little bit of a challenge. Right. Because most of the development that will ever happen in the county will be on larger acreage pieces that are not really conducive to affordable housing. Affordable housing really requires some density, access to services, those kinds of things. It's hard to do on well and septic on 35 acres. Right.
But what we can do, and one thing that we're trying to build into the new code are things like transferable development credits. So if you want to do say something out in the country that is a little outside of the code, you can do that by buying some transferable development credits and then that money can go to affordable housing. Or transversely, you can sell some of your development credits and then someone with a piece of land either in town or close to the town with services can buy that and get additional density on their property. We're also making so lots that are within that are in the county, but close to municipalities that can be annexed. We are building in some additional density bonuses for affordable housing and then making that process easier. Beyond that, we're supporting. We support the Chaffey Housing Authority and we really support both 6A and 6B there. And I know this will come out after the election, so hopefully those will pass, but those will go a long ways towards propping up that organization and helping with affordable housing in the future.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: I'm glad we finally got to talk. Pt I've wanted to do this for a really long time. I know you haven't been aware of that, but I've had you in mind for a long time and we finally have done it. So thank you very much for talking with me.
[00:49:07] Speaker C: Yeah, Adam, it's been great. I've been awesome.
[00:49:19] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to we are Chaffey's Looking Up Stream podcast. I hope that our conversation here today sparked curiosity for you, and if so, you can learn more in this episode. Show notes@we are chafeepod.com if you have comments or know someone in Chaffey County, Colorado who I should consider talking with on the podcast, you can email
[email protected] I also invite you to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever platform you use that has that functionality. I also welcome your telling others about the Looking Upstream Podcast help us to keep growing community and connection through conversation once again. I'm Adam Williams, host, producer and photographer. John Pray is engineer and producer. Thank you to CAHIN 106.9 FM, our community radio partner in Salida, Colorado, and to Andrea Carlstrom, Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment, and to Lisa Martin, Community Advocacy Coordinator for the We Are Chaffey Storytelling Initiative. The Looking Upstream Podcast is a collaboration with the Chaffey County Department of Public Health and the Chaffey Housing Authority, and it's supported by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Office of Health Equity. You can learn more about the Looking Upstream Podcast at we are chafepod.com and on Instagram earchafypod. You also can learn more about the overall We Are Chaffey Storytelling initiative at we are chafee.org till the next episode as we say at We Are Chaffey Share stories, Make change.
