{"id":15571,"date":"2015-10-11T16:29:02","date_gmt":"2015-10-11T22:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=15571"},"modified":"2015-12-28T15:13:02","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T22:13:02","slug":"jared-kaszuba-i-represent-the-working-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=15571","title":{"rendered":"Jared Kaszuba, \u2018I represent the working class\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Candidate<\/a>

Candidate Jared Kaszuba made Boulder home about a decade ago. He’s worked as a driver, courier and retail manager and is currently in the manufacturing industry. (Photo courtesy Jared Kaszuba)<\/p><\/div>\n

Jared Kaszuba came to Boulder to visit his brother.<\/p>\n

Kaszuba, who grew up in Florida, ended up staying and has lived here for the past decade.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old has made the city home. He rents a residence in Martin Acres and has roommates. He rocked out at the Boulder Theater and other Boulder landmarks with his band, Wicked Skeleton\u2014which recently broke up after the guitarist got accepted to Princeton University. He plays in a pool league on Tuesday nights and he\u2019d eventually like to study media theory at the University of Colorado.<\/p>\n

Kaszuba is running for City Council because he\u2019s concerned about the direction the city is headed when it comes to rising rent for both residential and commercial spaces. He\u2019s also heard complaints from business owners about the liquor board being overzealous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not happy with the current city and if you can\u2019t beat them, join them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Kaszuba presently works at Wild Goose Canning, manufacturing beer canning lines for the craft beer industry. He\u2019s done all kinds of working-class jobs, though, including working as a driver, courier and retail manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cI represent a demographic that is underrepresented or misrepresented completely and that\u2019s those who rent and work in Boulder,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m working class. I\u2019m not part of the wealthy elite.\u201d<\/p>\n

His campaign strategy has been less about signage and fundraising, he says, and more about hearing from people around Boulder. In his pursuit to understand what the people of Boulder want from their City Council representatives, he\u2019s stopping by fire and police stations, visiting neighborhoods and listening to local business owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of taking a different approach,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Kaszuba says that many of his friends have had to move out of Boulder because of skyrocketing rent prices. He loves Boulder and wants to continue to call it home, but is concerned with the city growing at too fast a pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was drawn to Boulder,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty magnetic place. Waking up and seeing the flatirons every morning\u2014it never gets old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott Mess, owner of Messyman Transportation in Boulder, a local car service, met Kaszuba five years ago. Kaszuba has been a driver for Mess\u2019 company. Mess will be voting for Kaszuba.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s naturally friendly and outgoing,\u201d Mess says. \u201cHe can look at an issue and come up with his own opinion and he particularly resounds with the working class people of this community\u2014those who live paycheck-to-paycheck or tip-to-tip. He knows what it takes to survive in a town that\u2019s becoming more and more affluent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a testament to Kaszuba\u2019s character, Mess relays an incident in which Kaszuba intervened in a hate crime on University Hill about five years ago when a Nigerian CU student was being harassed. The Boulder Police Department gave Kaszuba an outstanding citizen award after he helped police identify the suspects, Zachary Harris and Joseph Coy, and then served as a witness in their trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s somebody of character and integrity and will stand up for people with his actions,\u201d says Mess.<\/p>\n

Kaszuba in his free time enjoys playing music and was a bassist in his band, which he describes as being a \u201csurfadelic metal band.\u201d He also enjoys playing indoor soccer. He has a goal to travel to all 50 states\u2014with just four left to cross off his list: North Dakota, South Dakota, Hawaii and Alaska.<\/p>\n

Kaszuba has also volunteered with the humane society and Food Not Bombs, which distributes food to those in need.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jared Kaszuba came to Boulder to visit his brother. Kaszuba, who grew up in Florida, ended up staying and has lived here for the past decade. The 36-year-old has made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1211,"featured_media":15573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120],"tags":[44,11,1092,144,1109],"class_list":["post-15571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2015-cc-candidates","tag-affordable-housing","tag-city-council","tag-election-2015","tag-housing","tag-working-class"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15571"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15577,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15571\/revisions\/15577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}