Sean Short is running for Greeley City Council’s Ward II seat. Here’s where he stands on the issues.

By Kelly Ragan

Sean Short is running for the Ward II seat on Greeley City Council.

At a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan organization, Greeley mayoral and city council candidates answered questions from the league and from audience members regarding where they stood on various issues, what their plans would be if elected, and more. 

Some of the major topics included housing, transportation, water, diversity, and communication. Candidates were also asked about three ballot measures, 2F (also known as Keep Greeley Moving), and 2G and 2H (also known as the water ballot measures). 

The NoCo Optimist included candidates’ opening and closing statements, answers (with minimal edits for clarity and brevity) as well as the questions asked for context. The NoCo Optimist’s goal here is to give you an idea of who a candidate is and where they stand on issues that matter to you.

Opening statement

I am a local here. I moved when I was a young child. My dad got a job at Monfort, or what we call JBS now. I went to school in Greeley-Evans School District 6.

For college, I went off to Hawaii. I'm trained as a plant scientist and an industrial engineer. My background is in agriculture and oil and gas. I'm on the Weld County Extension Advisory Council, and I have a lot of experience doing wastewater treatment out in the oil field. We took water that was black and turned it into drinking water, so I've got a little bit of skillset in water.

I want to revolutionize how we think about food and how we think about community. I partnered with a clinical counselor to co-found a nonprofit aquaponics farm that helps at-risk youth. We get them off the street, so they don't go back to jail or get in trouble.

I'd like to take what I see and what I hear from the local community and be able to give a voice that echoes who the people of Ward II are and what the Ward II citizens need in the larger context of our city.

Question: As the city of Greeley continues to experience increasing population growth and diversity, this growth has impacted a number of areas such as housing transportation and water to name a few. What ideas or strategies do you have to address future issues impacted by this growth?

Growth is a big topic that we've discussed in a lot of different arenas here. We're one of the fastest growing communities in the United States, but sometimes it seems like we don't stop to ask the question should we be growing as fast as we are? And what are we going to do with the other areas of our city as we do grow?

We need to look at building our roads and how well are we building our roads. Are we looking forward to smart growth in the sense of driverless vehicles? Are we looking forward to wireless infrastructure for broadband? Are we looking towards some of these other things?

Question: Do you think the city is effectively communicating with the community about its activities and needs? If yes, how are they doing that? If not, what needs to be improved?

Our city does a pretty good job at using their resources to communicate the different things that are going on, and they've been able to adapt to the different types of technological challenges they’ve encountered, specifically we all encountered a pandemic and it changed how we communicated with each other.

But I do think the city can improve on their communication strategies. I think one of the most important things is looking at the bilingual aspect. Forty percent of our community is Latino, and we have poor translation and interpreting services.

Question: The University of Northern Colorado is part of Ward II. It also affects the rest of the city. How would you work to engage students so they might want to stay in Greeley after they graduate?

I've heard from several people throughout my time collecting signatures, throughout talking to people, how they graduated through UNC, how their kid, their mother, their grandmother – everybody seems to have some kind of connection to UNC here.

So, it seems like we're doing a really good job at making sure that we're integrating our college students, integrating the administration, and integrating the educators that are all involved with UNC. And it goes back the other way. You see people wearing Bears stuff that aren't even people that go to UNC.

I didn't go to UNC, I went to the University of Hawaii and Johns Hopkins, but my business partner did go to UNC, so I am also actively engaged with UNC students. They intern for my nonprofit, and I send them out into the community, so we get to see lots of different ways that they are staying here.

Question: How would you use your skillset while on council, for example reading contracts, advocating for public safety officers, reading scientific data, and/or your personal experience with water issues?

I’m trained as a scientist and an engineer, so I can read technical documents. I'm good at interpreting data, I'm able to read contracts. What I do in my nonprofit world is help kids get off the street, so I advocate for public safety as well.

I'd be able to use all of those different skillsets to be able to help the citizens, but most importantly to be able to communicate those things to the citizens. I'm a fairly effective communicator, I like to be in front of people. I like to listen, I like to speak, and I have the gift of gab, so I'm here to help use those other skillsets so that I can be a moderator for the city.

Question: What is the most important issue to you in the ward you are running to represent?

Ward II has its own challenges. One of the things that I'm concerned about is affordable housing for the local and the transient population.

We are a community that has transient agriculture workers and oil and gas workers and being able to solve those challenges for them with either short-term or long-term type rentals is going to be very important.

I think another thing that's extremely important to Ward II is our storm water mitigation. We live in part of the city where we get floods every time that it rains, so coming up with some unique strategies on that, like mitigating what's grown in the common spaces, and cutting curbs so that we can start to grow more water and drought tolerant types of crops depending on runoff and stuff like that.

Also looking at food access in that area will be a priority.

Question: What is your position on the Keep Greeley Moving ballot issue? What are your positions regarding the home rule charter changes on water decisions?

Keep Greeley Moving, we've seen what looks like a lot of fantastic improvement since it's been implemented. I would vote for that, and I would advocate for others that vote for that.

On the charter change, I think one of the most interesting things about that is the communication issues that have happened from that.

The biggest thing that draws my attention is that the language on the ballot title in no way reflects the petition that was circulated. There's no mention of permanently disposed at all in the ballot title. I think back on all of that as a Greeley citizens , and we've never had been told our water is okay to drink, and now we have marketing campaigns to tell us our water is okay to drink, and I find that very odd.

Closing statement

I was born in Fort Collins, but I made this my home when my family moved here. I got to know the people, I’ve been involved with different aspects of the community most of my life, and I have experience with the major industries that we have in our city at large. I bought my first home in Ward II, and that is the place that I called my home.

I want to be able to use my experience in a way that gives a voice to those people in that community.