After five years leading Pueblo, outgoing Pueblo mayor Nick Gradisar is ready to relax

Outgoing Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar recently reflected on his five-year single term and said losing last week's mayoral runoff was “bittersweet.”

While Gradisar wanted to win another term leading Pueblo, passing that immense responsibility to former city council president and Mayor-elect Heather Graham comes with some relief.

“I ran for re-election and wanted to get re-elected, but not getting re-elected has sort of lifted a big burden off of my shoulders and placed it on (Councilor) Graham’s shoulders,” Gradisar said.

What’s next for Gradisar

Gradisar said he is not planning on running for office again at this time, nor is he planning on going back to practicing law.

He first got his license to practice law in 1977, but it is now inactive. He joked that he could reactivate his license if someone “makes me mad.”

Instead, he will be working on some renovation projects with his brothers and taking time to relax. He’s looking forward to taking a week-long vacation in Cancun in March, noting that “it's been a couple of years since I've been able to get away for a week at a time.”

Gradisar had been involved in politics long before he was elected mayor and he won’t be turning a blind eye to what’s going on at the local and national level — for example, if nuclear power will replace the coal-powered Comanche power plant.

“I intend to give (Councilor) Graham all the space she needs to be able to accomplish her agenda. But if I think there are things that are not good for the city of Pueblo, chances are I'll make my opinions known and people can do with it what they like,” Gradisar said.

Reflecting on his time in office

Gradisar said that the mayoral system got a “good start” under his leadership. He was proud of the street repairs that have taken place under his leadership, as well as the large announcement of new jobs at CS Wind, a South Korean-owned wind turbine manufacturing facility.

He also said that he was proud of the millions of dollars in infrastructure investments that the city paid for with one-time federal COVID-19 relief grants.

President Joe Biden visited CS Wind in late November. Gradisar previously told the Chieftain that he was invited to the White House holiday party, but was unable to attend because of logistics. He shared that Biden penned a letter to him that he received Tuesday, thanking him for welcoming Biden to the “renewable energy capital of Colorado.”

Thoughts on Pueblo’s system of government

Pueblo has a “strong mayor” system of government and Gradisar was part of a group of people to promote the change, which voters approved in November 2017.

The mayoral structure was designed so the first mayor would have a five-year term, which was intended to sync up the cycle of the mayor’s races with the municipal election calendar and give the first mayor an extra year to figure out the system.

Ranked choice voting could help avoid a costly mayoral runoff, which is required if one candidate does not receive more than 50% of votes.

The city itself had to run the election because the Pueblo County elections department was preparing for the upcoming presidential primaries in March. Future mayoral runoff elections would also coincide with presidential primaries in future years.

Gradisar said that implementing ranked-choice voting was discussed five years ago, but that more research would be necessary. Colorado voters approved a presidential primary system in November 2016, but Gradisar said the overlap with that election season wasn’t considered when crafting Pueblo’s municipal government setup because it hadn’t been implemented yet.

“We would save some money because we wouldn't have the runoff election. But I think it's important that whoever serves as mayor has gotten the majority of the voters at the election: that gives them a mandate, if you will,” Gradisar said.

He added that not everyone votes in local elections, although all eligible voters are mailed ballots. Turnout in the mayoral runoff was approximately 36%.

“Not everybody votes in the election, but everybody has an opportunity to vote,” Gradisar said. “If they decide not to vote, and a small group of people make that choice, so bad, so sad, too bad: they had the opportunity to participate. And if they chose not to, they just have to live with the consequences.”

Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Nick Gradisar reflects on past five years as Pueblo mayor