Colorado is an extraordinary place. My wife, Eileen, and I have built our life here, raised our family here and watched our children grow into adults. Like so many parents and grandparents, I think often about what kind of Colorado we are leaving to the next generation.

That is ultimately why I am running for governor.

My life has taken me into difficult places — from working alongside military and law-enforcement personnel to humanitarian missions helping vulnerable people in some of the most dangerous parts of the world. Those experiences taught me that leadership begins with listening, making difficult decisions and remembering who you are there to serve.

As I have traveled across Colorado, I have heard many of the same concerns from people with very different backgrounds and political views. They worry about whether their children will be able to afford to live here. Small-business owners struggle with rising costs. Teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses and hospitality workers in mountain communities increasingly struggle to live near the communities they serve.

Colorado’s own housing data reflects that pressure. The State Demography Office reports a median home value of more than $539,000 and median gross rent exceeding $1,700. The state’s housing experts have also specifically identified workforce housing and housing availability as significant challenges in mountain and rural Colorado.

These problems will not be solved by government alone, but state government can stop making them harder.

My approach can be summarized in three priorities: affordability, safety and accountability.

On affordability, I want Colorado to build more housing and make it easier to do so. That means identifying unnecessary regulatory barriers, accelerating permitting while maintaining appropriate safety standards, protecting taxpayers from unnecessary fees and examining policies that add costs without producing measurable benefits. We also need to address the growing pressures facing homeowners in wildfire-prone areas and work toward a healthier, more competitive property-insurance market.

Colorado communities are different, and solutions that make sense in Denver may not make sense in Craig, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction, Steamboat Springs or the mountain towns along the Interstate 70 corridor. State government should work with local communities rather than assuming every community needs the same solution.

Safety is equally fundamental. I will support law enforcement while recognizing that enforcement alone cannot solve addiction, mental illness or homelessness. Colorado needs strong consequences for violent and repeat offenders while expanding access to mental-health treatment, detoxification and recovery services. Those ideas are not contradictory. We can hold dangerous offenders accountable while helping people struggling with addiction find a path toward recovery.

Finally, government must be accountable for the money and authority entrusted to it.

If elected, I intend to require rigorous reviews of executive agencies, examine spending and regulatory overlap, establish measurable performance goals and make more of that information easily accessible to the public. Coloradans should not have to be experts in government to understand where their money is going or whether a program is producing results.

I am not running because I believe Republicans have every answer or Democrats are responsible for every problem. Governing a state as diverse as Colorado requires something more difficult: listening to people who disagree with you, being willing to change course when something isn’t working and measuring success by outcomes rather than political talking points.

Colorado’s challenges are real, but so are its strengths.

I believe we can preserve what makes this state extraordinary while making it possible for working families, young people, seniors and future generations to continue calling Colorado home.

That is the work I am asking to undertake as Colorado’s next governor.

 Victor Marx is the Republican candidate running for Colorado governor in the Nov. 3 midterm election.