{"id":42316,"date":"2022-02-08T19:58:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T02:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tozer-throws-in-hat-for-county-commissioner-district-1-seat\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:06:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:06:34","slug":"tozer-throws-in-hat-for-county-commissioner-district-1-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tozer-throws-in-hat-for-county-commissioner-district-1-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Tozer throws in hat for county commissioner District 1 seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Republican
Republican Liz Tozer has announced her campaign for Montezuma County Commissioner. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

McElmo Canyon rancher Liz Tozer has announced her candidacy for Montezuma County Commission seat District 1.<\/p>\n

Tozer, a Republican, is a lifetime resident of the county with a background in agriculture, livestock auctions, organizing junior rodeos and working in the hospitality industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided years ago to run for commission. Now I have more time to dedicate to it, so I thought I\u2019d give it a shot,\u201d she said during a break moving cattle at her ranch on County Road G.<\/p>\n

She faces incumbent Jim Candelaria and candidate Tim Lanier in the Republican primary June 28.<\/p>\n

Tozer, 65, has been working for the Cortez Livestock Auction for 37 years, including as manager for the past 18 years.<\/p>\n

She is a longtime organizer of the Four States Junior Rodeo, served on the county fair board when the new fairgrounds was built, participated in 4-H, currently serves on the oversight board for county social services and worked as the kitchen manager for Kelly\u2019s Place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know our community pretty well. I am out to serve the people. I will listen to the people, work with the other commissioners to solve problems,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Support for youth programs and bringing in more jobs are goals if elected, Tozer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future of our community is the strength of our young people. I want to support them, I want to make Montezuma County a place where they can have jobs and stay,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tozer said she advocates for multiple use and access to public land.<\/p>\n

\u201cI served on an advisory board when Canyons of the Ancients (national monument) was formed, and I pushed for multiple use, even though not everyone agreed,\u201d Tozer said.<\/p>\n

She is proud of her agriculture roots, especially the junior rodeo and current fairgrounds location she helped to promote decades ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe events out there support our economy, the junior rodeo supports our economy. It attracts people from all over who spend time here and spend money,\u201d Tozer said.<\/p>\n

She feels the county could do a better job with agricultural tourism. Something similar to the Bar-D Chuckwagon in La Plata County \u2013 a country-western entertainment venue \u2013 would work well here, Tozer said.<\/p>\n

While working for Kelly\u2019s Place for four years she gained an appreciation for the value of the tourism industry and outdoor recreation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t just hang out with cowboys all the time, I\u2019ve worked with a lot of different people and can see different perspectives \u2013 the tourists, I worked with retired groups like elder hostel at Kelly\u2019s Place, the bike riders, hikers, people from all over,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On the drought, she said farmers and ranchers are resilient and adjust \u201cto make it work with less water on the fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

She supports the county effort to improve compliance with the land use code and said private property rights are important but have limitations.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be considerate of your neighbors,\u201d Tozer said.<\/p>\n

She said she will bring a \u201ccommon sense\u201d leadership style to the commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many people see things as \u2018their way or the highway.\u2019 I\u2019m good at getting more discussion to see things in different ways,\u201d Tozer said.<\/p>\n

Something people may not know about Tozer is that her grandparents and parents owned Wheelers Market on Main Street in Cortez in the 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n

When not working, Tozer loves to garden and is known for planting 5,000 tomato plants and 800 onions.<\/p>\n

If elected as county commissioner, she plans to resign as manager for the Cortez Livestock Auction, also known as the Sale Barn.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican faces incumbent Jim Candelaria and candidate Tim Lanier in June GOP primary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85292,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42316\/revisions\/85292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42316"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}