Pueblo Crushes Municipalization

Steve Welchert and Mayor Nick Gradisar

By 76 percent, Pueblo City voters rejected municipalization of the private utility now run by Black Hill Energy in an effort supported by a number of local politicians, including the new Mayor Nick Gradisar and an array of political activists. Well-known political consultant Steve Welchert ran the campaign to defeat the proposal. No doubt, the chaos of the pandemic affected voters’ support for more debt and risk. Pueblo voters, who are nominally Democrats, are, in fact, very fiscally frugal and skeptical of their own government growing bigger.

The lesson of Pueblo officials should be considered carefully by the myriad of liberal activists preparing to burden the November ballot with expensive new proposals.

Read Pueblo Chieftain: Municipalization sharply rejected by Pueblo voters