Candidate Q&A Castle Rock Town Council District 5 - Caryn Johnson

I’m running for a second term on Council to continue efforts to find a stable, reliable revenue source to fund Police and Fire. The Town relies largely on sales tax dollars to fund Police and Fire. When an economic downturn occurs our sales tax revenue takes a hit and means certain capitals projects get deferred to maintain appropriate staffing levels in Police and Fire. A stable revenue source for Police and Fire, would free up these sales tax dollars for capital projects. I will continue to pursue funding for additional open space acquisition.

I approach governing growth by asking tough questions of staff and developers regarding the development to better understand the impact my decision has on the Town’s citizens over the long-term. I work with Town staff to bring greater transparency and improve public access to information on development. I collaborated with staff to gain an increase in the distance developers are required to publicly notice regarding future development, from 300ft to 500ft. I study and work in partnership with Town staff to obtain quality projects and plans for Castle Rock that help everyone in our community.

My top priority is to work with the Town Manager and Town staff to ensure the Town has a stable, reliable source of revenue in place to support Police and Fire operations so the Town isn’t as reliant on sales tax dollars to provide Public Safety (as stated previously). Securing these revenues will help with employee retention and recruitment of highly qualified Police Officers and Firefighters. My next priority is to assure a source of revenue to fund preservation of additional open space in our community, possibly through revenue from tobacco sales. Lastly, I will continue to prioritize Town transparency.

I will continue to support Town and County programs currently in place to address homelessness in Castle Rock. The Town has a dedicated Police Officer who leads a team that meets with these individuals and works to secure resources available to help them get back on their feet. The team checks homeless individuals/sites weekly in our community and sends a cleanup team in when sites have been abandoned. Douglas County has a similar program, the HEART program, which runs in tandem with Castle Rock’s program and provides countywide assistance and check ins on homeless individuals/sites in unincorporated Douglas County.

The biggest challenges facing the Town is finding a reliable source of funding to support the operations of our Police and Fire Departments. While developers/builders pay impact fees to the Town when they build in Castle Rock these fees can only be used to build capital projects – facilities/buildings, roads, etc. Impact fees “help” pay the costs for connecting to our existing infrastructure and contribute to the future capital costs (infrastructure costs) needed to build necessary additional infrastructure to serve them and our community. Another challenge for the Town is to find a means to fund acquisition of additional open space.