Candidates for Gilpin County positions in the upcoming elections in November will be profiled in The Mountain-Ear. A questionnaire was sent to each candidate.

Susan Berumen is running for County Commissioner in District 2 as a democrat. She has lived in Gilpin County for 28 years since 1994.

She graduated from Pueblo County High School and attended Bryn Mawr College. She has attended various government accounting seminars from Colorado Government Finance Officers Association and tax seminars from the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Berumen is an accounting and human resources clerk for the City of Central. She has been with the City since 2016.

“I enjoy working with the citizens and different departments. My husband, Mark Gonzalez, and I have been married for 29 years and have raised two daughters. We have one dog, Dean, and two cats, Squeek and Nikki,” she said.

Civic activities include six years on the Gilpin Library Board of Trustees, three as president, two years with the Friends of the Library, both as vice president, volunteering at schools as field trip chaperon and room mother and was a Girl Scout leader and with the PTA.

Her top three goals will be to start working on a plan for more affordable housing in the County and to have more workshops for alternative energy use and healthy forests for citizens and to expand access to mental health services.

“We have a great rural lifestyle in Gilpin, but we all need to be more educated on how to preserve and protect our forests and water sources.” She suggested restarting the Coffee with the Commissioners program and to try holding a Commissioners meeting in the evening so more people would be able to attend.

“I’ve been a resident of Gilpin for close to 30 years, and I want the County to continue to be a great community to raise a family and live. The County needs to continue to move forward, and I’m willing to work hard to help it keep going forward.

“I believe the position is a full-time job and will concentrate all my time and effort on it. I will resign other positions in order to do so,” she said.

Regarding her experience with budgets, she has 20 years of experience in the private sector and eight years with the government. “We need to be proactive in controlling growth. Diversified economic growth needs to be encouraged in the Cities where there is the infrastructure to support the growth.

“I’m in favor of keeping the County rural. Even as a rural community the quality of life is important. We still need to have childcare, access to mental health and programs for children as well as adults. There are facilities that provide these and they need to be supported.”

She opposes the plan to send oil tanker cars from Utah through the Moffat Tunnel and will support and continue the efforts started by the current Commissioners to stop the Plan. She supports the regulations approved by the Commissioners to regulate short- term rentals.

Residents in neighborhoods deserve calm and quiet neighborhoods. Businesses that are operating in residential areas need to be limited and regulated.

To promote economic diversity in the County, she would work closely with Central City and Black Hawk to see what programs and goals they have for economic growth and would work with other rural counties to see how they are promoting growth, and utilize programs and grants available through the State.

There isn’t one industry that will bring growth to the County like gaming has. We need to think outside the box and promote several types of business models, she said.

She can be reached at susanforgilpin@gmail.com