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Michael Ridlen stepped into his seat as the Place 2 Councilmember as his predecessor Mayor Lori An Gobert rose to her current position on Aug. 27, 2018. A little over seven years later, Ridlen stepped down due to moving outside city limits, passing the torch to Renee Long.
Ridlen joined a year after the destructive Hurricane Harvey and started tackling a looming threat. The floodwaters of Harvey had significantly eroded the banks of the Colorado River next to the city’s wastewater treatment plant. Ridlen said another major hurricane or flood would likely compromise or destroy crucial plant infrastructure and result in an emergency water situation for the city. Ridlen and the council sought to safeguard the plant.
“Now, we are this many years down the road, and we have the money; we have the land; we have the right-of-way. Now, the [plant] just needs to go get engineered and all that stuff,” Ridlen said. “I felt like my major role for the city and one of the major reasons I got on the city council, I had kind of completed that task.”
When Ridlen joined Columbus City Council, he had no prior government experience. Ridlen is the owner of and a veterinarian at Colorado Valley Veterinary. He said he does not consider himself a politician but a community advocate. Ridlen intends to continue supporting the Columbus community with a “deeper understanding of the role of government” and making positive, diplomatic decisions.
“There are many lives and many folks that are impacted by our decisions,” Ridlen said. “…I have gained a deeper appreciation for what government is supposed to do for us and how it’s supposed to act.”
Ridlen said he focused on community safety by ensuring the Columbus Volunteer Fire Department was adequately staffed and equipped. Backed by 23 years of Little League involvement, he pursued improvements to public parks and the golf course and the development of sports fields for youth outdoor recreation.
Ridlen added that he and the council aimed to accelerate city growth but faced legal limitations on annexation. While facing stagnation on expanding housing, council efforts supported growth through its local businesses. Ridlen joined the Columbus Community & Industrial Development Corporation in May 2019 and worked to create the business park. He remarked on a large increase in development across the county and encouraged leaders to accept the change.
“I think we would all agree we would love Columbus to maintain this hometown, on the river, live oak feel. We want to maintain that but still enjoy the growth,” Ridlen said. “Making those two things happen at the same time can be challenging…I think we have been able to do that fairly well.”
Ridlen encouraged citizens to engage with the local government. As a councilmember, he learned to trust in citizenry, which he described as people understanding, protecting and advocating for their own communities. Ridlen said the government should be as transparent as possible with its citizens, but citizens should strive to understand government.
“That means you’ve got to get informed [by] reading the paper, attending [meetings],” Ridlen said. “…Every one of these meetings we have, there is time allotted for folks to get up and ask questions and to be a part of the process.”
Columbus City Council meets every second and fourth Monday of the month at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 605 Spring Street.
