Colorado House District 49 is about to hire a new representative, and the voters of the Estes Valley are among the members of the hiring committee.
The job starts Jan. 8, 2025, when the seventy-fifth legislative session is convened, and it pays $47,561 annually. The Colorado General Assembly is considered a “part-time legislature,” with 65 representatives elected for two-year terms to the Colorado House and 35 senators elected for four-year terms who serve in the Senate. The legislative session meets for 120 days and is scheduled to conclude on May 7, 2025.
In order to serve, an individual must be at least 25 years of age, a citizen of the United States, and have been a resident of the district for not less than 12 months.
The duties of a representative include passing bills on public policy matters, setting levels for state spending, raising and lowering taxes subject to voter approval, and voting to uphold or override gubernatorial vetoes.
The District is an area of about 3,400 square miles that extends from the Colorado-Wyoming border on the north to an area south of Idaho Springs and Georgetown, and from the Continental Divide on the west to an area that takes in areas along the Front Range along the western edge of Fort Collins and Loveland and the western and northern edge of Boulder.
Estes Park is almost smack dab in the middle of the elongated district. The area was carved out after the 2020 Census and was approved by the Colorado Supreme Court’s legislative redistricting plan which had been approved by the state’s Independent Legislative Redistricting Commission in October 2021. The map became effective on January 9, 2023.
House District 49 is made up of about 88,00) people. The average age of the population is 49.4 years of age, but the largest cohorts are people aged 50 to 59 (16%) and 60 to 69 (19%). There are 37,947 households in the district and the median household income is $110,932 with 25% of households earning between $50,000 and $100,000 and 31% earning between $100,000 and $200,000, while 7.1% of the households fall below the poverty line.
Judy Amabile has served as the Representative from District 49 since Jan. 9, 2023. Her current term ends on Jan. 8, 2025. She is running unopposed for the Colorado State Senate to represent District 18.
Two candidates, Lesley Smith and Steve Ferrante, are vying to represent House District 49. The Estes Valley Voice sat down with each candidate this week to learn about their interest in being hired by the voters to represent the people of House District 49.
Lesley Smith
Lesley Smith became the Democratic candidate after winning a primary against Max Woodfin on June 25, 2024. Smith took 71.8 percent of the 14,225 votes cast.
Smith is a scientist who graduated from UC Santa Barbara with an undergraduate degree in aquatic biology and has a doctorate from the University of Maryland. She was the first woman aquanaut in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s underwater research habitat, Aquarius. As a researcher, Smith is interested in the impact of climate change on the environment, especially on water systems.
Smith came to Colorado in 1989 to work for CU Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences. After the 2013 floods, she was appointed to serve on the City of Boulder’s Water Resources Advisory Board, where she advised the city on how to rebuild and strengthen its water infrastructure.
In 2005, she was elected to the Boulder Valley School Board where she served for eight years and oversaw a $300 million budget. In 2019, she was elected to a six-year term on the Colorado Board of Regents, a position which has taken her to every corner of the state for meetings with communities and constituents. Instead of running again for a second term on the Board of Regents, Smith decided to run to represent House District 46.
“I am a huge proponent of public education. I want to make sure students are graduating and ready for whatever—two year, four year, certification, and that teachers are better paid,” said Smith who is also concerned about protection for those in higher education and in helping people find training to transition from one career to another when jobs are lost, such as when a coal mine shuts down.
When asked why voters should consider hiring her for the job, she responded by pointing to her job experiences, “I have 20 years of public service, eight years on school board, five years on the water board, six years being a regent. I was on school board in 2008 when the great recession hit, so I had to deal with that. I was on the water board after the Great Flood, so I had to deal with that. And then I was vice-chair during COVID of the Regents.” Smith went on to add, “People know that I’m very collegial. I’m pretty levelheaded. I’m good at stake holding.”
Smith lives in Boulder with her husband. They have two grown children.
Steve Ferrante
Steve Ferrante is the Republican candidate for House District 49. He was unopposed in his bid for the party nomination.
Ferrante is a former law enforcement officer, having worked for 20 years in California and Florida as a patrol officer, detective, and SWAT member. For the past 20 years, he has had a career in ministry and is currently the pastor at Park Fellowship Church in Estes Park. He is also a small business owner with a short-term rental property management company. He has lived in Estes Park for almost 12 years.
As an Estes Park business owner, Ferrante says he is aware of the importance of tourism to the local economy, and he is concerned that the schools are failing students today. “If I get elected, I’d be in the minority, and I’m fully aware of that, and you can’t go in there and change everything overnight. Yet, I would advocate for school choice, which is on the ballot right now, but also funding school choice without government interference and mandating what you have to teach, like you have to teach a social agenda,” he said.
“I don’t have an allegiance to the system, whether it’s the education system or whatever it might be, I have an allegiance to parents and children above all else,” said Ferrante who is concerned that students are being shortchanged.
“In Estes Park, 39.3% of our students at Estes Park High School are minority, and there are 323 students in the school. We graduate 83% of them, but only 47.5% of the students that graduate are prepared for college. Not everyone is going to go to college, but we’re not adequately preparing our students to go to college if they want to, and even if they don’t want to, they should have an education proficiency to where they could if they wanted to.”
Ferrante went on to say that only 30% of students graduating from Estes Park have mathematical proficiency.
In addition to wanting to focus on what he believes is a failing educational system that allow students to move on through social promotion, he would draw on his background in law enforcement to address problems with crime and legislation that would help law enforcement officers to do their jobs.
Over the past three years, Ferrante has gone down to the legislature about one day a week during the session to sit in the gallery in the House and the Senate to watch the process and to attend committee meetings. He reads the bills and occasionally has spoken at hearings about matters he is passionate about.
“As a law enforcement officer for 20 years, I enforced the laws that (the legislature) passed, and I saw the shortcomings,” said Ferrante. He hopes to draw on his background to help craft better legislation.”
Steve is married and is the father of four adult children and nine grandchildren.
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