Editor’s note: Each week during the legislative session, Denver Post political reporters will sit down with Capitol newsmakers. This Q&A was edited for length.Jerry Frangas has earned a reputation as a statehouse maverick. He voted against the Democrats’ property-tax freeze and was one of only three House members to initially oppose “Super Slab.”
He’s now a full-time lawmaker, but when he arrived at the legislature in 2003, he was a social worker for the Denver Department of Human Services.
Frangas, 43, and his wife, Gregoria, have been married for 18 years. They have three children: Blaine, 17, Gabriella, 15, and Warren, 11.
Q: The legislature in 2007 passed a bill that held mill levies in place, meaning school districts could collect more property-tax money. Did you take heat for opposing it?
A: No. Democrats understood I had questions about its constitutionality and that people in our neighborhood were being impacted by skyrocketing property values.
Q: You like to garden. Do you grow your own food?
A: We grow a lot of vegetables: tomatoes, zucchinis, jalapeños, cilantro.
Q: “Super Slab,” a private company’s proposal to build a high-speed highway and rail lines on the Eastern Plains, initially went through the House in 2005 with only three lawmakers, all Democrats, opposed: you, Terrance Carroll and Paul Weissmann. Of course, by the time it got to the Senate, the issue blew up and everyone was in arms. What caught your eye?
A: I read it as a bill that could wipe out homes. I didn’t want to be a part of that. I was surprised it went through initially with little debate or opposition.
Q: You’ve been a social worker most of your life. Do you watch this budget process and ache?
A: I understand how devastated the budget is, but we’re 50th in the number of psychiatric beds. Health centers are taking a 2.5 percent hit, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but, relative to what they have, it is. When insurance companies are cutting their benefits and there’s no health care, there’s no mental-health care, there’s no maternity care, it’s a big stress.
