Pyrost Podcast · Candidate Interview
Taylor, TobyThe Builder's File.
Thirty years on Chaffee County job sites. Two days before the filing cutoff, District 3 was about to go unchallenged — so the man who built the Eddyline filed. Debriefed by Josiah and Adam of Salida Gunshop.
On the RecordPYROST PODCAST · WATCH ON YOUTUBE ↗
In the county since 1995.
Taylor arrived in 1995 — oldest son entering first grade, youngest born in the old original hospital — and spent nearly all of it in construction. Sub work for Dave Williams at La Paloma Builders through Game Trail and north Buena Vista. The Eddyline restaurant in South Main, built for Jed Selby from breaking ground to opening day. His own outfit, Colorado ICF Builders, poured insulated concrete form homes from foundations to gables.
Then eight years running commercial work for Diesslin Structures: the new high school, the Amícas remodel into the old Gables building, the Su Casa remodel into a former car dealership. He stepped away from building when state-mandated codes pushed margins past penciling — in his words, you can't build them for what they need to sell for. That resume is the platform: codes, taxes, land, and fees, read by someone who has paid all of them.
Electric-preferred, on a grid already failing.
Around 2022–23 the state mandated every county onto the latest building codes — the first time, to Taylor's knowledge, Colorado has regulated counties that way. Weeks before this interview, commissioners voted in electric-preferred codes: incentives to build all-electric, higher costs for anything gas. Taylor's math: the EV-charging provision required for each bay of an attached garage pushes a typical home from a 200-amp to a 400-amp panel — heavier line, bigger transformer, roughly $40,000 added, and every new house drawing like two. The hosts had lost power three times that week; Xcel executives, Taylor says, have told him the grid is already near max.
His cleanest evidence is Salida's new fire station, priced by its own designers:
INTERCEPT 01 · SUBJECT, ON HOW FREEDOMS DISAPPEAR
“You have a dog on a ten-foot leash, and you take one link out once a month. Before the dog knows it, he's lost all his freedoms. By the time he realizes it, it's too late.”— Toby Taylor
A $5,000 swap — and a water heater on WiFi.
First the gas-stove push, which collapsed. Now, water heaters. Under new NOx-emissions rules, Taylor says a modular or manufactured homeowner whose unit dies has no compliant direct replacement: it's tankless with a whole new vent system, or electric with a whole new circuit — about $5,000 either way, per the contractors quoting through the local supply house. A recent state move may push enforcement to 2030; the mandate itself still stands.
Buried in the requirement: a CTA-2045 communication port. As Taylor reads it, that gives the utility a remote kill switch on your water heater — the same playbook as peak-hour air-conditioner programs. Then there's Walsh, Colorado: a 37-day winter outage some years back. An all-electric county with no supplemental heat, an aging population, and a grid that folds at 90 degrees is a stack of risks he doesn't think anyone has priced.
INTERCEPT 02 · SUBJECT, ON REMOTE UTILITY SHUTOFFS
“I pay for it, I'm gonna run it. That's it. Send me the bill.”— Toby Taylor
Taxing equity you can't touch until you sell.
Every two-year assessment taxes equity the owner can't spend — an unrealized gain, until the house sells. Taylor's direct neighbor, an elderly woman on the senior exemption since 2014, watched her bill more than triple in a decade. The county budget kept pace.
Taylor's diagnosis: a spending problem, and he's carrying the county payroll and department budgets to prove he's done the reading. His leading fix — cap real-estate taxes until a property sells, let the next buyer's price set the new basis, and protect the roads and programs the revenue actually funds.
A million in net worth, gone overnight.
On the county's land-use map, everything in blue can't be subdivided under 35 acres. For ranching families here for generations, Taylor says that single stroke erased at least a million dollars of net worth — and the safety valve with it. A rancher who once sold two acres to survive a bad year now can't. This year Taylor helped a friend load a third of his cattle for auction: no rain, no grass, feed at $7,000 a load.
The code itself came from an outside Front Range firm — the same kind of outfit that once mailed his HOA copy-paste rules that read like another world. Meanwhile permits run at half their pace of four years ago and realtors quote months on market, not days. Taylor's position: guardrails yes, Boulder's hillsides no — but common sense, smart growth, and the affected people actually at the table.
$100K in permits before the first shovel turns.
Commissioners invoke affordable housing about ten times a session, by Taylor's count. The fee schedule votes the other way. As of April 1, every building application carries a new fee routed directly to Chaffee Fire — a district already funded by its own mill levy. Nobody saw it coming down the pipe; Taylor's questions are who approved it, why the public wasn't notified, and which district lines up next.
That math is why workforce rentals don't pencil — and why Taylor says the affordability problem starts inside the building department, where good inspectors are left playing judge and jury over which unworkable codes to enforce.
- 1995 · Roots Down
Taylor moves to Chaffee County. Three decades of building follow — La Paloma, Colorado ICF Builders, eight years of commercial work for Diesslin Structures.
- 2022–23 · State Mandate
Colorado orders counties onto the latest building codes. Self-built homes stop penciling; Taylor begins stepping away from the trade.
- 04.2026 · Filing — T-minus 2 days
With the seat about to go unchallenged, Taylor files for District 3. The same month, a new per-house Chaffee Fire fee lands quietly on building applications.
- Mid-2026 · Electric-Preferred Passes
Commissioners adopt electric-preferred codes over a room of opposed contractors — the vote that hardened his resolve.
- 08.2026 · This Debrief
Taylor sits down with Josiah and Adam at Salida Gunshop, county payroll and fee schedules in hand.
- 11.03.2026 · Decision Point
District 3 is a residency requirement; the ballot is countywide. Every Chaffee County voter weighs in.
Know the Candidate
Platform and events at tobyforchaffee.com — or on Facebook under Toby Commissioner.
Know Your District
District 3 sits roughly east of US 285, Stonebridge down through Salida — but the whole county votes on the seat.
Register & Vote
Colorado is all mail-in. Verify registration and ballot status at govotecolorado.gov before ballots drop.
Show Up
Commissioner meetings are public, and decisions land whether or not the room is full. Be a stakeholder on the record.
Who is Toby Taylor?
Who gets to vote on the District 3 seat?
What are the electric-preferred building codes?
What would Taylor do about property taxes?
What is the 35-acre rule?
Where can I watch the full interview?
FINAL INTERCEPT · SUBJECT, TO THE VOTERS WHO'VE GIVEN UP
“If you say you've given up, then they've won. If you're unhappy with the course, we need to change course — and the only way is to get in there and start rowing.”— Toby Taylor, Pyrost Interview
Pyrost conducted this interview as part of its ongoing coverage of Chaffee County and Colorado elections. Figures and claims in this article reflect the guest's statements in the interview and have not all been independently verified. Pyrost invites candidates across the ballot to sit down with us.
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