The two candidates vying for a seat on the Montezuma County Commission disagreed on issues such as child care and the controversial “Big Beautiful Bill” at a forum Wednesday evening in Dolores.
Republican Rodney Cox and Democrat Rebecca Busic faced off before an audience of about 80 at a gathering sponsored by the Montezuma County Democrats. They are seeking to fill the seat that will be vacated by Jim Candelaria, who is term-limited. The forum was moderated by L.P. McKay, KSJD’s news director.
They were asked about the impacts that H.R. 1 will have on the county’s social services department. HR. 1, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, was a major budget-cutting piece of legislation passed by Congress in 2025. Among its many provisions, it requires states to do checks of eligibility for Medicaid clients every six months instead of every year. Critics say that will make much more work for social services departments and increase the chance for errors.
Cox said he does not have a problem with it.
“I don’t think there’s an issue with evaluating people twice a year,” Cox said. “I support the Big Beautiful Bill. I think some of those services might need cut. We can’t give everybody everything all the time.”
He said he does want to make sure that children and the elderly receive the benefits they need, “but the ones in the middle, I’m not so concerned with.”
Busic said in addition to the verification of eligibility having to be done twice a year, which will result in “a lot of extra work,” there are now more penalties for errors, resulting in “multiple punches at once” to the system.
“We have extremely low rates of fraud in Montezuma County Social Services,” Busic said. “Some are just human errors.” Now, there will be a penalty for making an error, she said.
“We need to make sure social services has all the support we can give,” Busic said.
H.R. 1 slashed about $1 trillion from Medicaid and health-insurance subsidies. It is predicted to reduce Medicaid payments to hospitals by an estimated $321 billion over the next decade, according to a report by Advisory Board, a research firm for the health-care industry. This is expected to have a major impact on rural hospitals such as Southwest Memorial in Cortez.
The biggest cuts will come in 2028, when rates paid to providers for Medicaid patients will be drastically reduced.
The bill does provide $50 billion across five years for the Rural Health Transformation initiative, which is supposed to help rural medical facilities.
Cox said Southwest Health System, which manages Southwest Memorial, provides “a huge impact to our economy.” He said the county commissioners do not have any direct involvement in SHS but he is concerned about what could happen to the hospital.
“We could lose that hospital,” he said, adding, “It’s critical to keep it here. I’ll do anything I can to protect them.”
Busic noted that the hospital is a major employer in the county. She said the county commissioners should take an active interest in it and should talk to U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd about expanding Medicaid rather than cutting it.
“It will be a big blow if those cuts go through,” she said.
The CEO of Montezuma County’s Southwest Health System, Joe Theine, has said that by 2033 SHS will receive an estimated $9.6 million less per year because of the bill.
Busic suggested offering incentives for county employees to get their medical services from SHS and the hospital.
The candidates, who both have said they support a 1 percent county sales tax, were asked what exemptions they would want to see in such a tax. (No county sales tax is on the November ballot.)
Busic said she would explore offering a food-tax rebate of $30 per person per year and possibly an exemption for school supplies.
Cox said he would like to see a rebate for property taxes if a county sales tax is ever adopted.
“I’m not going to grow the government, that is not my intention,” he said.
Asked about child care, Cox said it is important but he doesn’t believe county monies should be used to fund it.
“Get rid of regulations” and let the private sector provide child care, he said.
Cox said his daughter stays home with her children in order to take care of them and that is one option.
Busic said two things are holding back economic development in the county – child care and affordable housing.
She is raising a child herself, she said, and her friends are upset because they have nowhere for their children to stay while they work.
Not everyone can afford to have one parent stay home with their children, Busic said.
“I believe child care is infrastructure,” she said. Since the Covid pandemic, the amount of available child care has declined locally, so the private sector isn’t taking care of the situation, she said.
She suggested providing financial bonuses for people who provide child care and possibly using county lodgers’ tax funds to support it.
“We can do better than we’re doing and it wouldn’t take that much,” she said.
The candidates were asked their views on large-scale solar farms and data centers.
Referring to a 125-megawatt solar-energy facility currently proposed east of Cortez, Cox said, “There is a solar farm being proposed now and I’m against everything about that.” He said solar panels can be put on existing buildings and there doesn’t need to be a centralized solar farm.
“We’re going to get some money from it, but at what cost?” he said.
In regard to data centers, he said some are not as “water-intensive” as others.
“But if it’s going to take any of our water, I will fight that tooth and nail,” he said.
He said he was speaking personally, but as a commissioner, he would have to approve anything that is legal and fits with the county land-use code.
Busic said she asked the current commissioners whether they would place a ban on certain types of data centers, but they said no.
“I think we’re sitting ducks,” she said.
She would immediately place a moratorium on data centers and would consider a ban, she said.
“The board needs to learn a lot more about data centers” before allowing any in the county, she said.
Busic said she was surprised about the opposition to the Valley Range solar project because she believes solar energy would help with some problems. She noted that the county recently added language to the land-use code that does allow large-scale solar facilities.
The candidates were asked to name a decision made by the current commissioners that they disagreed with, as well as one they supported.
Busic said she definitely disagreed with the board’s decision in April not to seek a grant that would have provided a summer lunch program for local kids without any financial cost to the county. She noted that the board said they didn’t think food was in the purview of the county health department and that the children might rely on the food and then expect it the next year.
“I would have decided differently,” she said.
Cox said he would have rejected the concept of large-scale solar facilities in the county.
Both candidates said they agreed with the commission’s decision not to place a proposed rubbish ordinance on the November ballot. Cox suggested that places that have a bunch of junk sitting on them should pay property taxes as a landfill or junkyard rather than as agricultural land.
Busic and Cox will have another forum Thursday, Oct. 1, at 6 p.m. at the Cortez Chamber of Commerce Building, 20 W. Main St., Cortez.
