{"id":73065,"date":"2017-01-25T01:19:45","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T08:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/frustrated-residents-seek-response-from-sen-cory-gardner\/"},"modified":"2017-01-25T08:19:45","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T08:19:45","slug":"frustrated-residents-seek-response-from-sen-cory-gardner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/frustrated-residents-seek-response-from-sen-cory-gardner\/","title":{"rendered":"Frustrated residents seek response from Sen. Cory Gardner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:8613526a-184b-41b5-92ba-82f38fbe344e --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j9jGFVb7ubk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Frustrated that Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner has ignored countless calls, more than 50 people converged on his Durango office Tuesday in an attempt to elicit a response from their elected official.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI pay taxes, which pays for (Gardner\u2019s) salary, his health care, and he can\u2019t even answer his phone,\u201d said Durango resident Lauri Costello. \u201cIt\u2019s not a democracy when people don\u2019t have a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since the election and subsequent inauguration of President Donald Trump, many of those in attendance Tuesday have called their locally elected officials to express a range of concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Most people standing outside Gardner\u2019s office near Office Depot said such things as Trump\u2019s nominees for key cabinet positions, environmental policies and basic human rights have prompted them to call or write at least once a week.<\/p>\n<p>All said only Gardner has failed to response in any meaningful way \u2013 in contrast to Congressman Scott Tipton, a Republican, and Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat \u2013 and that attempts to contact a representative in the Durango office have continually been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just don\u2019t understand why Cory Gardner is not responding to the people he\u2019s supposed to represent,\u201d said Gail Harriss, a Durango resident. \u201cEspecially when time is of the essence with Trump\u2019s nominees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alex Siciliano, a Washington, D.C., spokesman for Gardner, said since Jan. 1, the senator\u2019s office has received a large volume of emails and phone calls. He has  responded to more than 25,000 letters and fielded thousands of phone calls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNothing is more important to Senator Gardner than providing the best constituent service possible to all Coloradans,\u201d Siciliano wrote in an emailed response.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe continue to receive a large volume of calls from out-of-state special interests, many of them from New York and California. Our office will continue to prioritize responses to Coloradans in a timely fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Durango Herald on Tuesday called all of Gardner\u2019s eight offices in Colorado, as well as the Washington D.C. headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>In Durango, the line continues to ring with no voicemail.<\/p>\n<p>In Denver, multiple calls throughout the day were met with a busy signal.<\/p>\n<p>At Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Greely and Washington D.C., a voicemail was left on the general lines with no return call Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>And at Grand Junction, Pueblo and Yuma, a representative answered the line and referred The Herald to Gardner\u2019s press contacts, who returned a call.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI called this morning and it rang and rang and rang,\u201d said Durango resident Rose Chilcoat, a former conservation advocate with the Great Old Broads for Wilderness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m calling on Cory Gardner to represent the people of Colorado and not stay in lockstep with people trying to dismantle a government for the people, almost on a daily basis now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gardner defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall in 2014, by about 49,700 votes.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently in Colorado, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton beat Trump by more than 136,300 votes.<\/p>\n<p>In October, Gardner renounced his support of Trump following the release of a 2005 video that shows Trump making vulgar comments about women.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Colorado\u2019s junior senator sat in the VIP section while Trump was inaugurated in Washington D.C., saying in a prepared statement later that America\u2019s \u201cbest days are ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, a coalition of public interest groups demanded Gardner honor Colorado\u2019s value rather than buckle to Trump and party loyalty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator Gardner needs to serve Colorado, not D.C. and not Donald Trump,\u201d said Ian Silverii, executive director of ProgressNow Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>In recent days, Gardner has voted in support of Rex Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil CEO as Secretary of State and applauded Scott Pruit, the nominee for EPA administrator with fossil fuel industry ties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very frustrated,\u201d said Patty Dionne, an organizer of Tuesday\u2019s event. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to disagree with a politician on an issue, but he\u2019s MIA. If he doesn\u2019t want to do his job, we\u2019ll find someone who will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jromeo@durangoherald.com\">jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>protesters say they want their voice heard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,315,24,316],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-u-s-sen-cory-gardner","tag-video"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73065","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=73065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73065"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}