Speaker 1: Kathleen Chandler's class that is coming up at the Independence Institute.
Speaker 1: It's not at the Independence Institute. It is a zoom class,
Speaker 1: to be clear. So you could sit in your jammi's
Speaker 1: at home and take this wonderful class about how to
Speaker 1: get involved as a citizen. It's part of their Citizen
Speaker 1: Involvement project, and Kathleen is here to talk about it.
Speaker 1: First of all, Kathleen, how did you dip your toe
Speaker 1: in the first time? Like what brought you to be
Speaker 1: the civic involved minded person that you are now?
Speaker 2: Well, at age eighteen, I got involved in my first
Speaker 2: campaign in Colorado Springs. Back in the day. Someone was
Speaker 2: running for mayor and I thought, Mayor, I can help
Speaker 2: with that, and so I got involved with her campaign.
Speaker 2: And ever since then, I've just been keeping my self
Speaker 2: abreast of what's happening in my community. I got a
Speaker 2: degree in political science. I'm a Colorado native, like, I
Speaker 2: want my state to be good. I want my state
Speaker 2: to be what did they say, Colorado again? Yeah, make
Speaker 2: Colorado Colorado again. And so over time, John Caldera about
Speaker 2: eight years ago now sat down and said, hey, we
Speaker 2: want to try to figure out how to start taking
Speaker 2: back Colorado one little bit at a time, because we
Speaker 2: didn't get here overnight, and we're not going to get
Speaker 2: out of this overnight. So we set out a strategy
Speaker 2: of trying to help people understand that they are the
Speaker 2: actual reason and way to stop the overreach of government.
Speaker 2: And so I came up with a way to kind
Speaker 2: of infiltrate these boards and commissions and help people to
Speaker 2: understand that they can actually have an effect on government
Speaker 2: without being elected. And I've been placing people and strategically
Speaker 2: around the state in you know, in very specific places,
Speaker 2: with the hopes that maybe one of them would be
Speaker 2: lit on fire and decide to run for office, because
Speaker 2: not everybody should, not everybody can run for office. And
Speaker 2: in the end, it's not really the be all and
Speaker 2: all be all. It's about cultural change. And so what
Speaker 2: we really want to do is have a cultural change
Speaker 2: of citizenship is really important, and running for office happens
Speaker 2: to be an outgrowth of that citizenship. But it's really
Speaker 2: about just realizing, you me, all of us really need
Speaker 2: to be good citizens and be involved.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is that when citizens do show up,
Speaker 1: it has a powerful effect on what happens. We just
Speaker 1: saw this happen in Littleton where there was zoning changes
Speaker 1: that were going to be put through and the citizens
Speaker 1: showed up in force. And now they've tabled to measure indefinitely,
Speaker 1: and it really had looked like it was going to
Speaker 1: coast a passage, no problem. So what you're doing is
Speaker 1: critically important, especially in an era where I feel like
Speaker 1: there are in the metro area a variety of different
Speaker 1: levels of government that are really working double hard to
Speaker 1: obfuscate everything. They're doing, the legislature exempting themselves from certain
Speaker 1: aspects of KORA, you know, the school boards creating policies
Speaker 1: to be between parents and their children. So we need
Speaker 1: people to be paying attention. We need people to be
Speaker 1: pushing back and be engaged. So what can people expect
Speaker 1: from this class? How long does it last? Give me
Speaker 1: all the details first?
Speaker 2: Sure, Well the details are. It's going to be held
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, January fourteenth at six thirty pm. As you mentioned,
Speaker 2: it is by zoom. There's a link on our website.
Speaker 2: Go to thinkfreedom dot org. Think Freedom dot org and
Speaker 2: at the very top there's a little thing for the
Speaker 2: Citizen Involvement Project and there's a how to register for
Speaker 2: the class. There is a ten dollars fee that'll give
Speaker 2: you the link to the class. It just helps us
Speaker 2: to kind of keep track of who's in the class
Speaker 2: so that I can do some follow up. But this
Speaker 2: is an opportunity for a couple of hours for you
Speaker 2: to get step one. Like what do I do? I
Speaker 2: find most people just don't realize what step one is.
Speaker 2: They want to do step five. But I'm going to
Speaker 2: help you get to step one. And if you can
Speaker 2: get to step one, and I'll coach you in two
Speaker 2: and three and four. And if you want to get
Speaker 2: step five and run for office, fantastic, I will be
Speaker 2: happy to help you there too. But the point is,
Speaker 2: we need good people on the Water Commission, the Citizen
Speaker 2: Advisory Commission, the Fair Commission. We need good people on
Speaker 2: all levels of government in all areas helping advise so
Speaker 2: that the best happens for the most people.
Speaker 1: You know, Kathleen, one of the things you don't talk
Speaker 1: about is actual like partisan politics.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: I noticed there's not any mention of that.
Speaker 2: No, we really aren't about partisanship, right. This is about freedom.
Speaker 2: This is about the best ideas for the most and
Speaker 2: that obviously means that some people are inadvertently left behind.
Speaker 2: But that's where we believe charity picks up a lot
Speaker 2: of that. But once we let government in, we are
Speaker 2: less charitable. So our idea here is government needs to
Speaker 2: be small so that charity and people are big. So
Speaker 2: if we can get good people in there that always
Speaker 2: are asking is this the role of government? Should government
Speaker 2: be doing this or that? Then it allows people to go,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe government shouldn't do that. Maybe government can
Speaker 2: do this and do this well, but the rest should
Speaker 2: be left up to charity. And that's not a right
Speaker 2: or left issue. It's not a blue or red. It's
Speaker 2: an issue that makes people good at heart and allows
Speaker 2: people to flourish in their God given capacity.
Speaker 1: So when do people have to sign up by to
Speaker 1: do this? January fourteen zoom call.
Speaker 2: It is unlimited number of people. It's a statewide obviously
Speaker 2: even nationwide. I have people that have attended from California.
Speaker 2: Because of the format, zoom is available for all, so
Speaker 2: there's really no sign up time. I usually cut it
Speaker 2: up about three o'clock on Tuesday, just because I want
Speaker 2: to get a roster together. But you're more than welcome
Speaker 2: to sign up as late as the link is available
Speaker 2: on the website till about three o'clock on Tuesday, January fourteenth,
Speaker 2: and the classes at six point thirty that evening. I'd
Speaker 2: love to have you attend just so that you can
Speaker 2: see why should I be involved? How do I get involved?
Speaker 2: Kind of the nuts and the bolts and the why.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's the one way to put it,
Speaker 1: says like if you're involvement curious, like you're not ready
Speaker 1: to take the leap, you think maybe there's some issues
Speaker 1: that you might want to engage it the do the
Speaker 1: class because it's it's not very much time. It's it's
Speaker 1: a measly ten bucks, which at this point is you know,
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee at the rate we're going. But
Speaker 1: do the class and at least then you'll have a
Speaker 1: clear picture. Because the reason I'm encouraging that, Kathleen is
Speaker 1: twofold one. I think that people don't realize that there
Speaker 1: are things you can do without a ton of effort,
Speaker 1: okay without without a you don't have to like commit
Speaker 1: forty hours a week right away. There's there's ways to
Speaker 1: make a difference that are kind of low barrier, and
Speaker 1: I want people to know about that. To do what
Speaker 1: you can do you know, maybe you're never going to
Speaker 1: run for office? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Isn't your freedom worth two hours a month or four
Speaker 2: hours every couple of weeks? I mean I look at
Speaker 2: it that way. Yes, I'm not going to run for office.
Speaker 2: I may, I may not. But isn't my freedom worth
Speaker 2: sitting in and listening to a meeting? We don't have
Speaker 2: enough reporters, local reports, hyper local stuff, and so when
Speaker 2: you hear something weird going on, nobody knows about it.
Speaker 2: So why don't you know about it and then be
Speaker 2: nosy if you want? Put it on next door, but
Speaker 2: at least have an opportunity instead of waiting until it
Speaker 2: becomes a problem. I guess that's when people tend to
Speaker 2: get involved.
Speaker 1: Yep, I just got this text message. I took this
Speaker 1: class last year, even though I didn't put it to
Speaker 1: work as much as I had hoped. This year, I
Speaker 1: got step one covered and know what to expect and
Speaker 1: look for when I get my kids into school and
Speaker 1: I have a little more time.
Speaker 2: Great class, excellent, Yay, Okay, success story. See that's it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think just educating citizens on what their
Speaker 2: responsibility is. I mean, because we cannot have a civil
Speaker 2: society without the citizen being involved and holding accountable each
Speaker 2: other and the elected officials. Right, thank you for attending
Speaker 2: my class. Tell your neighbors.
Speaker 1: Kathleen Chandler is wonderful. She's doing a great job at II,
Speaker 1: and we'll be doing a great job on the RTD board.
Speaker 1: Newly elected rt D Board member. So the class is
Speaker 1: January fourteenth, Kathleen, thank you for making time for us
Speaker 1: to talk about it today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Mandy all right, that is Kathleen Chandler from the Independence Institute.