Believe it or not, sometimes partisan politics can get in the way of good governance. A clear example of how ideologically motivated political actors can endanger the efficient operation of vital state, municipal, and county offices can be seen in El Paso County’s 2022 coroner election. Incumbent Coroner Dr. Leon Kelly, the long-serving medical examiner and forensic pathologist, was challenged by Dr. Rae Ann Weber, an osteopath who served on the board of conservative activist group FEC United. Due to the nature of Colorado’s assembly process, Kelly was nearly kept off the ballot after FEC United was able to manipulate Republican assemblies across the state to give their slate of extremist candidates topline billing — they were all handily defeated in the primary, and Kelly’s tenure as coroner continued until he resigned in 2024.
In 2024, the Colorado legislature passed House Bill 1100, which required coroners to be certified by the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators or the American Board of Pathology in forensic pathology. Coroner isn’t the only down-ballot race — often eclipsed by sensational headlines coming from statewide or federal races — that requires a certain level of technical expertise but is theoretically open to anyone.
“I’m running to be your El Paso County Assessor,” said Becky Fuller during last month’s El Paso County Republican Women meeting. “It’s a very, very technical job. It doesn’t set policy. It actually just implements policy.”
Fuller, a small business lender with a degree in accounting, is running for the Republican nomination for El Paso County Assessor against Raymond Garcia, a perennial candidate with a history of racist online posts and a love of bizarre conspiracy theories. In 2022, incumbent Mark Flutcher (R) defeated Democrat Renee Reif by over 20 points. Realistically, El Paso County’s assessor race will be essentially determined by Republican primary voters on June 30, and they will choose between Fuller and Garcia.
After the Savings and Loan Crisis in the 1980s, Congress enacted the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), which established professional standards and regulations for appraisers. Colorado law requires appraiser employees of the county assessor’s office, but not the county assessor, to be licensed or certified.
Democrat Dave “Muka” Traenkle, a retired teacher, is the only licensed appraiser running for El Paso County Assessor, working as a mortgage appraiser since 2020. “As an appraiser, I’ve been on the outside looking in at these assessor’s offices about probably 15 different counties,” he said. “Actually El Paso County, the software and the website, it’s very useful. You can get plans for buildings … This is way better than like Bent County, which there’s two people that work at that office and they have to dig through a file in the backyard and come up with two pieces of paper.”
Despite being the only candidate in the race with appraisal experience, Traenkle almost didn’t run for office. Assessor was one of the many county-level races where Democrats failed to choose a candidate during the assembly. “I went to [El Paso County Democratic Party Chair] John Jarrell and I kind of met with him quietly in a back room and I’m like, ‘I don’t know if this is gonna help but I’m qualified for this job,’” he said. “They called the meeting of the vacancy committee and they appointed me to that spot on the ballot.”
Property taxes have been a hot topic in Colorado politics in recent years, but county assessors don’t set tax rates, they simply assess the value of property. Traenkle says he would work to help constituents understand the assessment process. “[One of my priorities will be] reaching out to educate people, because there are folks who get discounts or exemptions from property taxes,” he said. “So making sure people are educated on that, making it really easy if you do get that discount to tell us, ‘I need that discount, don’t make that complicated.’ Educating people on how to do a protest, because obviously we do mass appraisals, and so there’s gonna be lots of mistakes in there for individual homes. It should be easy for them to say, ‘You assessed my home too high and I shouldn’t pay that much in taxes’ and make that work for them.”
Fuller has similar priorities. “I want to make sure that anyone that wants to understand how we came up with the property tax value, that you got that,” she said. “I think there’s a great opportunity for teaching people about appeals processes, should they not like that value.”
Despite Traenkle being the only licensed appraiser running for office, he has raised less than $200 for his campaign. Fuller has received the most support from developers. A June 10 major contributor report shows that the Colorado Springs Housing and Builders Association Political Funding Committee donated $2,850, and a June 11 report shows a $2,850 donation from the Realtor Candidate Political Action Committee. Individual donors contributing $2,850 include David Jenkins of Norwood Development Group, which owns 85% of all developable land in Colorado Springs, and Doug Stimple, owner of Classic Homes, the largest locally owned homebuilder and land developer in the Pikes Peak region. Jenkins’ son, Chris, was one of the megadonors pitched by Heidi Ganahl in her effort to launch Rocky Mountain Voice. The younger Jenkins is also a member of the state’s most powerful business lobby, Colorado Concern.
