Stan VanderWerf has stepped down this year into an uncertain future from the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners.

He served two four-year terms on the board, the most allowed.

He came to the board with military career experience, having served in the Air Force in various roles. His tenure was marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the steady growth of El Paso County as the most populous county in the state.

VanderWerf represented District 3, which includes Monument as well as Palmer Lake and Manitou Springs. In his last months on the board, Vander-Werf was running for state Senate District 12 against Democrat Marc Snyder. He lost the close race by just over 1 percentage point.

He said his next steps were not yet set.

“When I was running for the senate, I didn’t work on Plan B, and now of course I am,” he said.

VanderWerf said he had aspirations for a political appointment in the Trump administration, while putting applications out for employment in the private, public and nonprofit sectors. He is also signed on as ambassador for a ballot initiative campaign to repeal wolf reintroduction in Colorado.

An avid mountain climber and commercial-rated pilot, VanderWerf said he would also be making time for other pursuits after his time on the commission.

Here are some of the issues that came to define VanderWerf’s tenure and will likely continue to affect the county.

Housing

VanderWerf identified the lack of affordable housing in El Paso County as an ongoing problem, one they’ve tried to address on the commission. The Colorado-based research organization Common Sense Institute estimated the county had a 2023 housing shortage of 16,554 to 27,360 units.

As a commissioner for a district which has frequently grappled with the need for housing versus the risk of wildfire in the wildland-urban interface along Pike San Isabel National Forest, VanderWerf said his approach has always been “thoughtful growth.” He advocated in his Senate campaign for the creation of a state-level modeling office to make recommendations based on holistic modeling of evacuation routes in the event of fire.

“There’s a lot of people on the west side who have a certain level of frustration about whether or not we have sufficient infrastructure for evacuations, but they actually don’t know scientifically if they have a problem or not,” he said.

When it came to projects meeting existing regulations, he was a proponent of making the way more open for developers.

“As a public agency, you’ve got to let the market do its job,” he said.

Development

VanderWerf said he was proud of the progress so far in lobbying for a federal courthouse in El Paso County, which is now slated for a requirement study. He said the addition of a federal courthouse outside of Denver would be a boon for defendants in southeast Colorado, as well as an economic development tool for Colorado Springs’ legal industry.

“Almost every state across the country has a federal courthouse in more than one city,” he said.

Political influence

VanderWerf worked toward elevating the county’s status and bargaining power at the state and federal levels. He touted his Stepping Up campaign, which matched commissioners with lobbying causes on the state and federal level.

At the federal level, VanderWerf worked with multiple Pikes Peak-area partners to prevent Space Command from being moved from Colorado to Alabama, a decision made under the Trump administration and reversed under the Biden administration. With the return of Donald Trump as president, he said he was less worried about the issue cropping up again due to cost concerns.

“I’m not going to say it’s a zero risk of it happening.”

He highlighted his work with other Colorado counties and municipalities in fighting “unfunded mandates” from the legislature.