Where do Boulder’s City Council Candidates Stand?
Better Boulder invited candidates for Boulder City Council to answer questions about some of the biggest issues facing our community today, from housing and land use to transportation, downtown, public safety, climate resilience, and the city budget.
Below, you can compare their responses, question by question.
Click each candidate’s name to read their response. Responses are presented as submitted by the candidates.
In early 2025, the Boulder City Council passed an ordinance called Family-Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods to make it easier to build duplexes and triplexes in single-family home neighborhoods. Would you have voted yes or no on that ordinance? [If you were on city council when this vote occurred, did you vote to make it easier to build duplexes and triplexes?]
Yes. It helps.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
No. It would depend on well the design would fit into a neighborhood, mostly related to size and if it is single story.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. We need the ability to build more diverse housing types by right in residential areas, plus an easier process to change zoning.
No. While I did vote no in 2025, I did support allowing duplexes and triplexes in more areas during the comp plan process.
No. If higher density is part of the solution, I believe it should be focused in areas of the city that provide more benefits.
Yes. Ordinance 8666 was a modest, incremental modification of the Land Use Code to allow potential development, within 350 feet of bus routes.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. I championed making it a workplan item, then voted to pass the final ordinance.
Yes. I voted no at first but yes on third reading. Tara of today would have voted yes sooner. Duplexes and triplexes bring affordability.
Would you vote to reduce minimum lot sizes (or eliminate minimums entirely if you can meet all open space and set back requirements) in low-density zones to allow for greater housing density?
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. Probably.
Yes. I would want to vary this by zone rather than a blanket minimum lot size
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. I believe there are opportunities to reduce minimum lot sizes, especially to create the middle housing ownership types we need.
No. If higher density is the best solution, we should focus on areas that provide the highest level of services.
No. I support careful reductions in lot size, targeted by area, but not eliminating minimums; big reductions likely lead to changing character.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. I was the sole council vote (1-8) for Judy Amabile’s lot-size bill on April 16, 2026. I support eliminating lot sizes in city code.
Yes. I believe Boulder needs more housing choices, and lot splitting is a great tool to help create them. them.
Do you agree with this statement: In most circumstances, 3 traffic lanes (one each direction and a center turn lane) can carry as many cars as 4 lanes (two each direction with no center turn lane)?
Yes. I’m now more comfortable with this approach based on observing where this change has been made in the city,
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
No. I am strongly against this. This approach on Folsom Street in July 2015 caused major problems and was reversed that September by council.
Yes. This rule breaks down on high-volume highways with few turn-offs, but is true in most of Boulder
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. I’m a soft yes. There’s a lot of other factors to consider: peak flow, # of intersections, driveway freq, bus stops, etc. But it can help.
Yes. While I strongly support rigorous traffic studies for each situation, generally it seems to be the same and safer.
Yes. Yes, if the costs are reasonable relative to the benefit, traffic throughput is maintained, and neighborhood cut-through does not grow.
No. This broad statement results in exceptions swallowing the rule. My general experience here is 4 lanes exist to accommodate greater traffic.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. My understanding is that this generally works well when there are 20-25k or less vehicles per day.
Yes. I definitely agree with this statement. Center turn lanes make all the difference. it worked well when 30th was recently under construction
Are you committed to the build out of the Core Arterial Network?
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
No. Absolutely not. The Baseline Project has resulted in more congestion and less safety for cars and bikes and is the reason for my campaign.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. I like the idea, I question some of the plans. Iris, in particular, given traffic speeds, volume, the trees, and that bike lane.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. The build-out should proceed if the outcome is positive, the cost is reasonable, and lessons from completed projects are incorporated.
No. The CAN has strong city support, but the community does not yet show sufficient backing for this; the Iris plan remains too contentious now.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. I helped architect CAN’s original design on the Transportation Advisory Board and I will lead and back it until it is fully built.
Yes. Absolutely yes. I was on Council when CAN unanimously passed as a priority. It has been one of council’s best priorities ever.
Do you support the plan for Iris Avenue?
Yes. Initially concerned about impacts. Nothing is perfect. I still believe more education needed in emergency evacuation plan for neighborhood
Yes. I was a skeptic but changed my mind after learning more about the safety benefits
No. From my understanding it is a replay of the Folsom Fiasco of 2015. Like the Baseline Project it will be unpopular and make things worse.
Yes. Not sure I would keep my girlfriend if I didn’t ;), but we do need to find the funding. That will be the key
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
No. We should fix challenging crossings to the N & S for bikers instead. A distracted driver killed my niece by rear ending her on a similar st
Yes. As long as our traffic engineers and our evacuation/disaster response teams and BVSD (Foothill) support the design, I support it.
Yes. Key risks to be monitored are cut-through traffic on Grape & Hawthorn and increased traffic volume from Broadway onto Iris.
No. To represent the community’s wishes, the Iris plan needs further study and trial before this community agrees to reducing to 3 lanes.
Yes. No additional comment submitted.
Yes. I spearheaded CAN’s approval by council on consent, representing a pivot to approving safe streets on values. My kids and I can’t wait.
Yes. I can’t wait for the Iris Ave plan to be realized! I use the new Baseline bike lane all the time and I will use Iris as well.
The 10-year Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan update will be complete in weeks. What do you think of the plan? Do you think there are any missed opportunities or shortcomings? What 2-3 parts especially please you about the plan? How will you lead on implementing these important pieces of the plan?
Good plan. . I was an advisor to the staff implementing community advisory group and 15 minute nhd discussions. Still need to take big steps to make it more than a report on a shelf for another 10 years. Taking on land use code update/ redo would be a priority for me.
Overall, I think it’s a solid plan that covers the key themes for building and maintaining a vibrant, sustainable community that works for everybody. Parts of note: –Including racial equity in the development of and recommendations in the plan. This language in policy 34 Is important to me: “The city will advance climate justice by prioritizing support for those most affected by climate impacts and advance climate equity by distributing resources, benefits and burdens of climate actions in ways that ensure everyone has a fair outcome.” –Policy 26 emphasizes “redevelopment and infill within municipal boundaries” to “to create a compact city”. That’s a clear statement for what I see as critical priority –Join that with Policy 82 about “promoting a full spectrum of housing types and price points, including middle housing and middle income opportunities, throughout the city that enable people to remain in and join the community” and with promotion of more by-right development. The plan is pointing us in the right direction. Not so much a shortcoming, but an inherent potential conflict between the policies cited above and 37: “The city expects urban development and public places to be designed and built to achieve high standards of excellence”. I agree with that statement but I also want to move as fast as reasonably possible with in-fill development and worry about 37 potentially adding too much additional review and delay. Devil’s in the details. One way I can lead is by supporting thoughtful modifications to land use review processes to move projects forward faster when appropriate.
I am focusing only on transportation issues since the city has never had a public vote on transportation projects that routinely increase congestion, increase accident risk and have little public support. City council routinely differs to the transportation department projects and fails to provide critical oversight of their proposals. Should I be elected it will evaluate other issues as they come up.
I like the new plan overall. Good parts first: The shift from rigid land-use designations to neighborhoods 1 & 2, community + regional hubs, and innovation + production hubs was a smart move. Neighborhood 1 now imagines attached + multi-unit housing, & small neighborhood-serving businesses. This is how Boulder was originally designed by S.S. DeBoer, but we abandoned it in favor of more siloed zones. Neighborhood 2 allows greater housing intensity & mixed uses. I like the 150ft transition area, too, as it softens land-use boundaries and allows adjacent neighborhood & hub designations to inform future rezonings. If implemented, this should provide us with additional housing opportunities + more neighborhood-serving commercial. Implementation is key & must include significant cleanup of Title 9 (already a primary implementation tool in the plan itself, but we still need serious political will to do it). I would make comp plan code alignment an immediate council priority. We need to rewrite & simplify the use table; replace subjective, discretionary reviews with clear, objective standards wherever possible; reduce site review & use review for projects consistent with adopted zoning; create streamlined adaptive-reuse and temporary-use paths for vacant commercial space; and develop pre-approved ADU plans & other tools for small, owner-driven infill. I do not think it requires another multi-year community visioning process. We just completed that process. Engagement should help resolve unanswered questions and identify impacts, not reopen adopted policies on a parcel-by-parcel basis. Weakness: its theory of housing supply is stronger than its theory of housing ownership and occupancy. More units are not enough if we produce more institutional student housing, luxury second homes, & scrape-and-builds. I would measure outcomes such as year-round occupancy, population, tenure, second-home/vacancy indicators, permanently affordable housing, commercial vacancy, local-business formation, & permit times
Overall, I am encouraged by the updated BVCP. I especially support its emphasis on mixed-use, transit-supported neighborhoods; expanding housing types; and creating community centers where people can reach homes, services, shops, and gathering places without relying on a car. I am also pleased by the plan’s stronger integration of climate resilience with land-use and transportation planning. Compact, walkable communities protect open space, reduce transportation emissions, and make public investments in transit and infrastructure more effective. The principal shortcoming, as we all know, is that the plan’s aspirations are not yet an implementation strategy. It does not automatically reform Title 9, fund transportation improvements, or produce housing. As a councilmember, I would prioritize these core implementation steps: Make it a top priority to modernize Title 9 to permit more missing- middle housing and ADUs, duplexes, cottage courts, tiny homes, as well as support the implementation of mixed-use neighborhood centers, and increase permanently affordable housing near transit and daily services. Second, I believe that a council priority should be Climate Resilience Infrastructure Investments to advance the BVCP’s climate and resilience goals by strengthening wildfire resilience (neighborhood-scale home hardening programs, resilience hubs, backup power planning, stronger partnerships with fire districts), expanding urban tree canopy, and continuing to protect and invest in our transportation infrastructures. I also believe that an essential priority for ensuring the implementation of the BVCP is for the City Council to have city staff create a BVCP Implementation Dashboard with measurable targets. A yearly “State of the BVCP” report could track metrics such as: housing production and affordability, transportation mode share and safety outcomes, wildfire and climate resilience investments, food system resilience indicators, etc. The plan gives Boulder a strong direction. Council’s responsibility will be to translate that direction into code, budgets, capital investments, and measurable outcomes.
This is more an aspirational statement of intent than it is a plan. Just six of 135 pages deal with implementation and implementation is what a plan is: a series of steps that turn ideas into reality. Second shortcoming: 104 policies, unranked, ungrouped, largely unlinked to one another, and in some cases, directly contradictory to the idea of building more housing. Chapter 5 admits the plan “does not prioritize one policy over another,” which in practice means that only the policies with strong advocates see any headway. Given the diversity of policies and the conflict in pro- and anti-growth sentiment within them, I would say it is comprehensive only in that every participant in its drafting could add a paragraph. That said, Chapter 4 is a winner: it diagnoses our supply problem honestly its explanation of the future land use framework and the Neighborhood and Hub designations is the best starting point for total zoning reform I’ve yet seen. Policies 82 and 25 belong in that column too: Boulder finally says it supports increasing supply, and encourages putting empty buildings back to work. But Chapter 4 is a vision for a map, not a change to the code. These aspirations will be consumed wholesale by the city’s kafkaesque permitting processes and the municipal code that underpins them without significant reform to both. That’s where I’d lead: drive the land use code rewrite Chapter 4 sets up, work to make middle housing and commercial conversion by-right, set timelines on every review, and build the indicators Chapter 5 only touches upon. I like the vision of Chapter 4, but we need code reform to make it a plan that can work. And that’s what I’m running to do.
Overall, I believe the process to develop the update was good, though I would have benefited from more discussion with the other approving bodies. I am excited that the plan creates more opportunities for middle type housing to be built. However, Council will need to create processes and incentives to make building middle type housing as attractive as SFH and stacked student housing. Many of the members of Better Boulder have volunteered their time to show how difficult this is, and I appreciated the Better Boulder middle housing event I attended recently. I hope to continue to tackle and solve this problem collaboratively with potential buyers, builders and developers. This is an area where I hope to lead the conversation and ultimate solution. I also am excited the BVCP frames open space, greenways and parks as a system. Along with the focus on our tree canopy, I hope this ensures every member of our community has access to nature, regardless of their income and housing type. I am also committed to working on economic vitality, including our innovation, visitor and arts economies. Finally, I appreciate elevating the urgent need for wildfire resilience and protecting our water supply. Given the size of CU’s campus and student body, I would have liked to have spent more time collaborating with CU. I especially think we could have greater understanding on how our housing, parking, and transportation plans interact, as well as the impact of future enrollment growth.
From a 30,000-foot view, the “destination” of the plan is largely admirable. The key is what route will be taken to get there. How do you manage the contradictions within the plan? For instance, at full implementation, housing stock could increase by 40%. Does that increase present a flood risk by reducing natural surfaces that can absorb stormwater? If significant changes to water distribution from the Colorado River occur, does that create risk to our water supply? What parts of the built environment would need to be modified, and how expensive would that be if we significantly increased the number of housing units? It would be helpful if the report addressed potential impacts from its proposals. It addresses how it meets certain expected needs, though it fails to discuss the impact of those, whether they are achievable today, and how to measure them. I understand, as the report states, that goals can’t be measured solely by numbers; however, providing a framework would be helpful. The two areas that I am pleased about are Transportation and Agriculture & Food. I would be pleased to be in a leadership position for all transportation-related items. I am a transportation omnivore, utilizing RTD, walking, biking, and driving as ways to get around the community. This is an area that I am passionate about, and my pragmatic common-sense approach would be valuable. I understand the relationship between transit options, equity, and economic vitality. By population, the city dominates the pie chart for the BVCP, though by acres, it is the county and specifically Open Space, including Food & Agriculture. These areas are so important to the fabric of the community, and it is great that it is incorporated into the plan.
The Plan and its 2026 Update reflect the dedication and thoughtfulness of many Boulder Valley stakeholders. Overall, I support the Update as a vision for how Boulder can preserve, grow and sustain. Three aspects have greater clarity in the 2026 Update. First, climate resilience and adaptability are woven throughout the Update, alongside continued protection of open space and environmental stewardship. Second, it prioritizes housing options and affordability while recognizing the need for measured growth. Third, it moves beyond conventional residential, employment and commercial uses toward mixed-use, transit-supported development and 15-minute neighborhoods. One area that deserves greater attention is to recognize that the current shortage of affordable and missing-middle housing demonstrates the inability of Areas I and II to suitably accommodate this unmet priority need. I would support some growth within the 500-acre Area III Planning Reserve, subject to considerable permanently affordable and missing-middle housing, strong transit and infrastructure planning, environmental protections and a transparent public process. The opportunity for the next City Council is to turn the Update’s goals into tangible execution. On climate adaptability, I would support a public monthly implementation dashboard identifying current actions, 30- and 60-day commitments, responsible departments and measurable progress under the 2024 Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Publicly listing specific commitments helps maintain focus and accountability. I would also prioritize the Update’s commitment to an inclusive local economy, particularly small and independent businesses. Helping businesses start and remain in Boulder would be a priority of mine. I would support streamlined approvals and targeted, modest assistance with permit fees and the costs of code, safety and accessibility compliance. These practical steps would help offset the increasing cost of opening a small business while preserving the local businesses that help shape Boulder’s identity.
I was part of the assembly for the 15-minute-neighborhood. The Black & Latino members of the community all wanted equity on the frontlines, more diverse, mixed-density housing, development without displacement and small business. Equity got lost in the conversation on more than one occasion and the city staff reported that they already had a vision of BVCP which left several to feel like the process was performative.
I’m proud of this plan. It delivers real improvements in housing and transportation options, and further, it integrates those two topics together, which helps each one to do more. This was one of the top things I ran on in 2023, and overall, developments with the BVCP have been a huge success. No material gaps, though there are plenty of detail-level things I’d have liked to see be different. I pushed for a more fully realized vision for public transit, and I’m disappointed the history section got cut. But this plan involved a huge number of decisionmakers, and there was never going to be time to get 100 percent of what 100 percent of people wanted. Measure it against where we started before this process began, and the result is a clear success. What I’m most excited about is the changes with transportation, coming from effective advocacy by our community that I helped guide. The new BVCP reframes transportation planning around access rather than moving vehicles, codifies 15-minute neighborhoods, and centers Vision Zero as a data- driven safety commitment, all while opening the door to legalizing more middle housing citywide. The most immediate next step is updating city code, especially Title 9, and the standards underneath it, to drive these reforms further into real changes on the ground.
Overall this update is a big step forward for Boulder. Organizing the future land use map into just 12 designations within five classes (Neighborhoods, Hubs, Special Purposes, Systems, and Rural) makes everything simpler and easier for staff, stakeholders and residents to use. I think prioritizing 15- minute neighborhoods, where real attention is given to transit and the amenities people need so they’re not stuck driving across town for everyday errands, is great. I also like that the plan allows duplexes, triplexes, rowhomes, cottage courts and backyard cottages as housing options, which will make a positive impact on our missing middle housing shortage. My biggest concern is that we’ve updated the land use map, but we haven’t touched the underlying zoning in Title 9, and in many places, the two are now in direct conflict. For instance, we’ve designated areas as regional hubs, but our zoning code doesn’t actually permit the performing arts centers or museums that would make a hub function as one. TVAP 2 was passed in 2023, but the city still doesn’t have zoning districts to support the regional transit oriented development and entertainment district envisioned for this area. Therefore, I strongly support rewriting Title 9. It’s the single most important thing we can do to turn this plan from hopeful thinking into reality. I’d like to kick off that process at our next council retreat in 2027. This re-write will most likely take many years, so we had better get started!
The City is exploring the creation of a Downtown Development Authority (DDA) to increase investment in our downtown area. Is this the right path for revitalizing downtown Boulder? What do you view as the pros and cons? Are there alternative approaches to improving the economic vitality of downtown Boulder that you are interested in exploring?
Could have been right path had city council and staff had an engagement strategy on the front end to educate and inform people of the structure and pro/ cons so that by the time council voted on moving it to ballot for the district voters, it would have had majority support. Big mistake to not have conversations with other business supporters like Boulder urban renewal board, library district, etc. and/or to have presumed support and understanding was already there. Alternatives to the DDA, no suggestions. It’s a tool that has potential for us. I think it makes sense to return with DDA for a vote of the eligible district voters as soon as possible, with improved outreach, stakeholder engagement and a council subcommittee driving it.
I’m not convinced at this point that the DDA is the right tool. I recognize that there appears to be a track record of successful use by other Colorado cities. And the concept of using some of the taxes raised in the district to help the district, rather than try to find money elsewhere, holds some appeal. The other side of that is the redirection of increases in voter-approved designated taxes. Even when presented with the argument that proper reinvestments can lead to revenue increases that benefit those designated programs, I have heard confusion, suspicion and even the word “betrayal”. That’s a big “con”: the feeling that this is an undemocratic breach of trust. As far as alternatives–I’m in the process of educating myself about economic vitality strategies. Pop-ups and events make sense. I am also very interested in exploring the feasibility of a commercial land trust for downtown, modeled in part on the work of the Urban Land Conservancy in Denver
This is an important question. I frequently am downtown on the mall and at the library and by Boulder Creek. I don’t have well-formulated ideas on what approach to take. It seems that high-end chains reduce the vitality of the Pearl Street mall. Having seen businesses come and go, I think high rents are part of the problem. I do know owners of Pizza Colore and Falafel King and would probably survey businesses on the mall for their insights. I’ve been in Boulder since before the mall was built.
Downtown revitalization will absolutely be one of my top priorities if elected & you can hold me to that. That said, I am skeptical about a DDA & will need many more questions answered + a more honest conversation before I will support it. I am not “ideologically opposed” to DDAs. They can be a great tool when a downtown is blighted or underdeveloped, or when a major public project is needed (like Denver Union Station). I am not convinced that is Boulder’s problem. What I hear most from downtown businesses is that they are suffering from declining foot traffic, the major driver of which is office vacancy. I still believe in supply & demand enough to trust that there is a price at which these spaces would lease, but I also know that there is almost no political will to look too deeply at ways to influence rent. So how do we fill spaces? A DDA can use the sales tax portion to provide grants, which I do think could help, but it cannot fix the regulatory barriers that make it outrageously challenging + expensive for small businesses to open. I would prefer that Council first pursue tools already within their control: speed up permitting and adaptive reuse, make office-to-housing conversion easier where feasible, reduce barriers to opening a business, provide targeted grants to local businesses, & more. At the same time, allow some natural recovery and then revisit the question. I also do not accept the framing that “no DDA” means continued decline while a DDA means growth. University Hill has recovered substantially without one, and downtown will recover some value as new hotels come in, office pricing resets, Sundance establishes, companies bring employees back to work, etc. In any case, before Boulder commits to a structure that would last 30+ years, I want much clearer answers about what the money would fund, a more honest conversation about what growth would happen anyway, and how schools, the county, libraries, transportation, and other city priorities would be affected. Finally, I am concerned about governance & public engagement, given that most Boulder residents would not vote on formation, yet would be impacted by it. I hope that we can all agree that we at least need better public engagement on this.
A DDA could be an effective tool, but it needs a clear and transparent investment strategy, meaningful representation for affected stakeholders, and safeguards ensuring that public resources produce measurable public benefits. Downtown, one of the city’s major revenue generators, has experienced a significant decline in tax revenue over the past decade. It is part of why Boulder currently faces a structural budget deficit and resulting departmental cuts. Strengthening our economic resilience, in a careful way, can ensure higher tax revenues that support all the important and necessary services the city offers. TIF and better coordinated public and private investment could provide our local, small independent businesses with grants and other support, as well as invest in infrastructure repairs, arts and cultural venues, mobility improvements, and essential redevelopments of vacant spaces that may not occur through fragmented annual appropriations. Additionally, with Boulder workers facing layoffs and difficulty finding employment, the enhancement of local job security and the prospect of job creation as new businesses open in Boulder are important considerations. The primary risks are governance and opportunity cost. A portion of future tax revenue committed to a DDA would be unavailable for other citywide priorities and voter-approved investments. Its boundaries and board composition could also give a relatively small group considerable influence over resources generated in Boulder’s civic and economic center. Workers, renters, residents, small businesses, and the broader public must have a meaningful voice. It is worth noting that Council would approve how large of a portion would be kept by the DDA, what their budget is and how it will be spent, and implement necessary safeguards. Whether or not a DDA proceeds, Boulder should modernize zoning and permitting so vacant or underused spaces can be adapted more easily, enable more downtown and nearby housing, and improve transit access.
Downtown has lost roughly 19% of its property value and 10% of its sales tax revenue since 2019, turning our civic and commercial heart from an economic engine to a net drag on the general fund. Because commercial properties are financialized now, landlords can’t simply respond to this change by lowering rents to attract more tenants. While many I’m sure would cheer at Tebo & other landlords being forced to sell or default, I’m not one of them: I want to find solutions that don’t involve defaults and I believe the DDA is one of them. I’ll admit: 30 years is a long timeline, but used correctly, the reinvestment into Downtown has the potential to replace office space with residential space, bringing back the people we lost in the shift to remote work. It also allows us to make long-needed improvements to both Downtown and the Hill, one of the first places that visitors staying in the new Moxie or Limelight hotels will encounter. DDA didn’t pass, but in the meantime, we have options, not least of which is regulatory reform: greater by-right change of use; ground floor use flexibility; clear, simple permitting; and a common consumption/entertainment district designation for Pearl could all start to move the needle. Improved pop-up programs can help (esp during Sundance), as can having the city as a tenant in some cases.
I made extensive comments about the DDA at the council meeting when I voted against the DDA at this time. Due to the short timeline, we were not able to bring enough people along to ensure a successful DDA supported by the community. If we decide to pursue a DDA next year, there needs to be authentic engagement with the special taxing districts and the boards related to dedicated funds (ie., open space). Hopefully, with their support, we can then bring along the broader community. In this process, we need to better define the pain points and benefits of a DDA, provide a clearer vision of what the DDA will do, and explain why other tools and the city aren’t able to create the changes we are contemplating. In the meantime, in order to promote economic vitality, we need to make sure Sundance is a success. While it is only two weeks long, the city will benefit all year as we grow our creative economy. In addition, we can use our learnings from Sundance to support other large scale events, bringing new visitors to Boulder. Separately, we are opening up the RFP for the East bookend redevelopment along with the permanent farmer’s market, transforming and activating this area. When I first ran three years ago, public safety was perhaps the biggest issue during the campaign. Just this week, we received promising data from our July point-in- time count. We are making progress on public safety but need to keep up our work. Finally, I like the idea, as does everyone I know, of turning offices into residential spaces downtown. I am open to any and all ideas to do this.
In general, I do not believe fragmenting the city into siloed revenue sources and spending pools is the best approach. A dedicated tool for downtown improvements is a plus, as is a board of interested parties to efficiently allocate funding. Fragmenting another slice of city revenue and funding, which reduces the city’s ability to prioritize spending from a single perspective (this already exists) is a concern. Another concern is measuring success: how much of any future change in sales and property tax revenue would have happened without the DDA? That is challenging, though far from an impossible thing to measure. More work is needed to resolve several areas of uncertainty, including: 1) the baseline tax year (post-Sundance); 2) whether the sales tax baseline is adjusted for inflation; and 3) how property tax valuation changes are indexed from the baseline year to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison from year to year. A city-commissioned study from December 2019 identified that occupancy costs for downtown merchants ran 25% higher than outside the studied area. How can that cost be reduced to attract the “missing” concepts that could survive — and ideally thrive — downtown? Boulder launched its Affordable Commercial Grant Pilot in 2024 to make below-market retail, office, and industrial space available to small businesses. The funding, however, was one-time from ARPA funds. Was this program successful? If so, should funding be sought to continue it? Simplifying regulations should be a goal regardless of the program. This reduces cost, saves time, and makes Boulder a more attractive place for a small business to open. For new & small businesses, Boulder could provide free commercial-lease support, perhaps staffed by volunteers. This type of program could help businesses negotiate lease terms, understand build-out, and efficiently navigate the permitting process.
Yes, I supported sending the Downtown Development Authority proposal to the November ballot. I believe a carefully designed DDA could help revitalize downtown Boulder and University Hill. These areas face significant challenges, including commercial vacancies, public safety concerns, aging infrastructure, and declining activity in public spaces. Businesses have struggled since before the pandemic, while downtown sales and property-tax revenues have remained largely flat. A DDA would provide a coordinated, long-term mechanism for investing in these areas. The proposal had several strong points. Colorado law makes this form of tax increment financing the one available mechanism for establishing a district. The proposed mill levy would be paid by property owners within the district, subject to voter approval. Tax-increment financing would dedicate a portion of future revenue growth —not existing revenue—to improvements intended to help generate that growth. Other Colorado communities, including Longmont and Fort Collins, have used this model successfully. There are also legitimate concerns. Dedicating future incremental revenue to the district could limit revenue growth available for transportation, open space, schools, and other public priorities. A DDA could also add governance complexity or give certain stakeholders disproportionate influence. I would support strong City Council oversight, including its authority to appoint and remove board members, transparent financial reporting, balanced representation, and measurable performance goals. I also support the proposed 30-year limit. It provides time for meaningful investment while ensuring that the DDA must eventually demonstrate whether it met its goals, merits extension, or whether some form of modification could address any shortcomings.
The DDA vote tells us something real about where this city is right now. I don’t think it failed because people don’t support a strong downtown. It failed because council and staff didn’t do the work upfront: they didn’t bring the right intergovernmental partners to the table early enough, and they didn’t connect with local advocacy groups in a way that let people’s questions get answered before the first vote even happened. That’s a process failure, not a values failure. We need a thriving downtown, no question. But getting there means doing the work that got skipped this time: real intergovernmental agreements, community outreach that actually reaches people instead of checking a box, and sitting down with staff to close the gaps that are still open. I want to get this to a place that works for everyone, not just push it through. I also want to look at using BURA’s blight authority more surgically, targeting the specific areas that need support instead of broad strokes. And I want to take a hard look at where the city’s permitting and regulatory processes are working against us, where they’re overbearing or just inefficient, and fix that.
No. I don’t think it’s right to hand the decision to reallocate more than $60 million in voter-dedicated funding to a group representing less than 3 percent of the city’s population, especially with so many open questions about where the money would go, and real concerns from Boulder County and the library, the other local governments affected by the tax. In principle we could get there, in part through a statistically valid, representative survey that reflects the whole community, not just downtown stakeholders. On the pros and cons, I see two key tensions. First, a DDA is fundamentally about making more money for the whole community, and I love that. But the DDA as proposed is a bet made with money we’re stewarding for other people, and we can’t place that bet without their permission. The city needs a real way to show community buy-in that goes beyond what state statute technically requires. Second, a DDA is a potentially strong financing vehicle, but we don’t yet have agreement on the underlying policy concept. How much should revitalization focus on commercial vacancies versus the wider public realm? What role should private owners and investors play, and what actually moves them? How much should go to public amenities versus inducing private deals? What tools exist besides spending public money? These are real, unanswered questions, and given the sums involved, they deserve full council scrutiny. We need a clear, evidence-based plan before we move ahead. Alternatives to explore now: Cutting business costs through red tape and fee reform, creating a cross-departmental customer service line, simplifying zoning under Title 9, supporting city-led activation through the Downtown Boulder Partnership, investing in basics like public restrooms and a transit circulator, and ending power outages. And if there’s enough interest from the business community and other stakeholders, we should explore re- engaging on the policy questions above.
I think a Downtown Development Authority is a good idea, as I said at the city council meeting on August 6. I did my own homework and called mayors and council members in Colorado cities that had formed them, and not one person I called wished they hadn’t formed a DDA. Denver used tax increment financing to turn Union Station into one of the city’s most successful revitalizations- a hotel, restaurants, and shops in a previously underused building. Fort Collins’ DDA, which started in 1981, helped turn their mediocre downtown into one with 600+ businesses and 1,000+ new housing units. Longmont’s DDA has drawn over $200 million in downtown investment since 1982. Lafayette focused their DDA on helping small businesses with matching grants and made a huge impact on so many small business owners’ lives. Although the DDA had the backing of businesses on the hill and downtown, it did not have the backing of the community at large. We got a huge volume of emails from constituents opposed. One reason: it was short on actuals. What would the money actually fund? A DDA can’t get that specific, which made it hard to convince people it was needed. Another reason: Boulder is strong on dedicated taxes like open space and transportation, and we did not have a compelling argument that this tool would grow revenue rather than just redirect it. We also didn’t bring the county commissioners or school board into shaping the plan. At the meeting, I strongly suggested we bring library trustees and open space advocates into whatever staff scopes next, not as an afterthought. If we proceed with a DDA, we need to include the whole community in the process and show them how it benefits everyone.
Title 9 of our city code is our land use code. Some council and community members are advocating for a complete rewrite of this title. Do you support or oppose this, and do you think now is the right time to undertake this?
I support this as it can make the comp plan real and could improve efficiencies and reduce costs for staff, property developers, home owners, etc. I would imagine that it is a role of an independent contractor and not internal staff to perform this complete rewrite. It is worth the investment to have this completed as quickly as possible. This has to happen in concert with the comp plan as now updated and adopted.
Yes this is the right time to continue moving ahead on this review and rewrite. This is connected to the new comp plan. It will need to be balanced with other council priorities and staff resources. And I would not want the review process to completely eliminate our ability to be flexible with certain projects while the review is underway but not yet completed. .
I have no expertise on this issue.
Yup! I fully support it & think now is the right time. I have written about this extensively. Boulder’s land use code has been layered & amended for decades. Many of those additions were made for good reasons, but we almost never removed old requirements when we added new ones, & the result is code so difficult to understand & navigate that we hire consultants to guide us through our own process. We need look no farther than Alpine Balsam to see the time, cost, & uncertainty our code adds. It hurts small businesses, too. A local restaurant should not require months of discretionary review. A homeowner should be able to understand what can be built on a property without hiring a team of lawyers & consultants. I still want clear standards for height, form, setbacks, & a transportation plan, but when a project meets those standards, the default should be a predictable administrative process rather than one filled with discretionary review and call-ups. We just completed a major update to the Comprehensive Plan, so now is the time for a land- use code rewrite. We just decided what we want the city to become; now we have to change the code and actually implement it. One caveat here… We need to be more honest with the community (in all things) moving forward. The public is feeling gaslit right now. I hear that everywhere I go. Please, let’s not pretend that a title 9 rewrite suddenly nets us a bunch of middle-income housing. That is just not honest, and it’s a way we will lose more community trust than we gain.
I support a comprehensive modernization of Title 9, and I believe the near completion of the BVCP makes 2027 the appropriate time to begin. Boulder’s land-use code has accumulated decades of amendments, overlays, exceptions, and inconsistencies. The result can be difficult for residents, small businesses, city staff, and applicants to understand. Complexity adds time, cost, uncertainty, and inequity: large applicants can hire teams to navigate the system, while homeowners, nonprofits, and small local businesses often cannot. This should be a policy-driven modernization, not simply a technical reorganization. The code should implement the BVCP by making it easier to create missing-middle and permanently affordable housing, adaptively reuse commercial buildings, establish neighborhood-serving businesses, build near transit, and create walkable mixed-use centers. It should also replace subjective or duplicative processes with clear, predictable standards. Modernization does not mean abandoning community values. A well-designed code can protect historic resources, our precious height limits, trees, open space, environmental constraints, and neighborhood character while allowing neighborhoods to evolve and welcome more people. Form-based standards, building envelopes, context-sensitive transitions, and objective design requirements can often protect these values more effectively than exclusionary limits on housing types. I would support our dedicated staff with outside technical expertise. We should address urgent barriers along the way rather than freezing all reforms until the entire project is complete. Boulder cannot implement a 21st-century comprehensive plan through a code built around assumptions from another era.
I 100% support this and is a major component of my campaign. Not only should we do it now (IMO it’s overdue), we should be doing it ourselves, not outsourcing it to consultants. Title 9 is only part of our problem: there is a cultural component within city staff that often defaults to no rather than yes. Council working in partnership with city staff to make these revisions ourselves can help shift that dynamic in a way that just having model legislation imposed will not. We need staff and the planning board along for the ride on this one to make the changes stick and to improve the processes that sit on top of the code.
I support it, and believe staff has already mentioned that they can start looking at it later this year or early next year. I would also like to, in parallel, consider other slight changes. For instance, I am looking for a change that would make ground floor commercial in a multi-family development optional if a developer can show ground floor commercial isn’t needed, given our struggles with too much vacant commercial space.
I support modernizing Boulder’s Title 9; however, I would be cautious about committing to a complete rewrite before Council clearly defines the problems to solve, the policy guardrails, the budget, and how success will be measured. Title 9 has grown complicated through decades of amendments. A careful overhaul could make Boulder’s land-use rules clearer, more predictable, and easier for residents, businesses, and city staff to use. It could also better align development rules with Boulder’s goals.
I do not support undertaking a complete rewrite of Title 9 at this time. Boulder’s land use code can evolve as needs change, but a wholesale rewrite would be a significant, time-intensive process that could divert energy and attention from other priorities. Importantly, the most recent update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan did not recommend a complete rewrite of the land use code. The comprehensive plan can provide the foundation for policymaking on land use, and rewriting the code would not guarantee better outcomes for Boulder. That does not mean Title 9 should remain unchanged. Targeted amendments can address current needs and opportunities, including climate adaptability and housing affordability.
It is my understanding that this code has been patched more than once, which means we acknowledge its shortcomings in addressing the needs of the community. Further patch work can only contribute to a more confusing code lacking cohesion and consistency. With that information, I support a rewrite of the code in its entirety and we have a unique opportunity to do so given the new
I support it, and I think now is a good time with the BVCP process and its zoning reform wrapping up. We’ve spent the past several years legalizing middle housing, eliminating parking minimums, and reframing transportation around access, all of which the BVCP now reflects. Updating Title 9 will potentially turn those changes into actual housing. Rewriting Title 9 can implement what the BVCP already calls for, and it can also go further where the BVCP didn’t, like pursuing lot-splitting by right and exploring “condo-ization” for ADUs, California-style, so a backyard cottage can be sold on its own, not just rented out. I want the rewrite to remove barriers rather than add new ones: no legally mandated minimum lot size, and clear, predictable standards for infrastructure, water, sewer, access, and fire safety, so splits and infill reliably produce more homes instead of one larger house replacing what could have been two or three smaller, more affordable ones. I also want to build on the “straightforward” review category we already created, which lets routine projects skip mandatory Planning Board review, so the code gets simpler and more hospitable for the people actually trying to build housing, not just legally permissive on paper. I support this item being a council priority in 2027.
Yes, I support a full rewrite of Title 9, and yes, now is the right time. Our new comprehensive plan changed the land use map, but not the zoning underneath it, and in a lot of places those two things now conflict. Neighborhood 1 is a good example, as the plan allows duplexes there, but our zoning doesn’t authorize a duplex in N1 outside 350 feet of a transit corridor. Same problem with our new Regional Hubs: we’ve designated areas for uses like a performing arts center or a museum, but none of our current zoning permits building either one. Title 9 needs to catch up. We also need to streamline permit reviews and make it easier to do business in Boulder. I have already voted for pieces of this: streamlining permit reviews, relaxing rules on ADUs, eliminating parking minimums, and this spring’s land use code cleanup. But piecemeal fixes aren’t enough anymore. We need to remove redundancies and archaic rules, and reduce the amount of time a project moves through Planning & Development, since long delays can skyrocket costs. I recently read the Common Sense Institute’s finding that “Colorado’s housing unaffordability is substantially policy-made, not just market-driven.” And I passionately believe that’s true and that we need to do something about it. At our last retreat, some council members, including me, told staff we were gearing up to take on Title 9 once the comp plan was done. The comp plan is just about ready to be adopted, and we should be ready to roll with rewriting Title 9.
What specific policy changes and incentives would you support to increase the supply and affordability of market-rate homes for middle-income households in the City of Boulder?
It seems that comp plan and land use code with bear biggest return on investment, Prioritizing and phasing it will help staff, planning board, developers, etc understand a path and schedule for their potential projects. I would want to explore incentives for sales of market rate homes tied to elderly and those down sizing but desire to stay in Boulder. We have an aging population that desires to downsize and save on costs, let’s look at creative ways and incentives that help keep these people in our community and makes middle income housing stock available. I would support more exploration and testing of land trusts and lease to buy finance structures. Some things to explore will not require city staff or council involvement.
–I think we can increase from 350 ft, the distance from transit corridors that gives duplexes and triplexes a by-right use. By how much? Not sure –some reduction in minimum lot sizes. Again, not sure of the exact % I will advocate for –adjustments in the land use code to make middle-income projects more viable –support the Title 9 review
This is a complicated issue and I do not have simple answers. I do support ADU’s. I believe the state has already lifted limits on the number of unrelated people that can live together but that still leaves open the question of parking and transit. Boulder has limited available land given support for open space which I’ve always supported. The supply/demand issue is fundamental – obviously increase supply or reduce demand. Price increases effectively cut demand and subsidies only increase demand. One other way to decrease demand is to allow Boulder’s quality of life to decrease, which is not desirable. Mark Wallach’s recent resignation highlighted the council’s rejection of his approach to making more land available from the airport. I have no simple answers.
Area 3 is our best opportunity for true middle-income housing, but we would need to do it right. That is a major undertaking, and it will not happen fast, so I will focus on the quicker solutions. First, baseline setting on what we are building now: new market-rate housing tends to be student apartments in high- density zones; luxury townhomes/condos in medium- and mixed-density zones; and scrape-and-rebuild single-family homes in low-density zones. None are the middle-income homes we need. I struggle to see how we can change which pencils are in high- and medium/mixed-density zones, even if we do clean up Title 9. So I think our biggest opportunity is in our low-density zones, which make up 74% of our residentially zoned land. Here, I would start with owner-driven, incremental housing: one or two additional homes on lots already served by streets, water, sewer, and schools. Specific changes I support include pre-approved ADU plans, allowing homeowners to sell an ADU separately through condominiumization, simpler rules for duplexes, small attached homes + cottage courts, & faster administrative permitting when a project meets the code. We will also need to reduce open-space and lot-size requirements & allow lot splitting to get there. I would love to see protections against the immediate conversion of these units into investment products. Boulder should explore occupancy-based deed restrictions for newly created incremental units, modeled on programs like Vail InDEED, so this housing serves people who live and work here rather than becoming another second home or LLC-owned asset. The goal should not simply be more units. It should be smaller, less expensive, separately owned homes that middle-income people can actually buy, while giving existing homeowners a way to add housing and build wealth without scraping the homes and neighborhoods we already have.
Boulder needs both permanently affordable housing and substantially more market-rate housing attainable to middle-income households. I would pursue the following: Legalize more missing-middle housing redevelopments—including duplexes, triplexes, cottage courts, townhomes, small apartments, and condominiums—where infrastructure can support it, especially near transit, employment centers, neighborhood commercial areas, and along major corridors. Reform minimum lot-size, open-space-per-unit, and other requirements that can unintentionally (or intentionally) make smaller homes infeasible. Make lot splitting and smaller ownership units possible, with standards protecting trees, usable open space, and neighborhood context. Expand incentives for converting underused offices, retail spaces, and surface parking into housing. Provide density or floor-area incentives when projects deliver smaller homes, accessible homes, family-sized units, or homes affordable to middle-income households. Create a predictable, timely approval pathway for projects that meet adopted plans and objective standards. Reduce fees for smaller homes and missing-middle projects, where justified by their actual infrastructure impacts. Expand community land trusts, limited-equity cooperatives, shared-equity ownership, and the city’s Housing Legacy Program.
The whole process for building things is just plain broken. Talk to most developers and they’ll tell you the same thing. As I’ve said, Title 9 reform, further allowances to diverse development types across all residential areas, more allowances to change existing properties by right, streamlined permitting processes, retraction of requirements for mixed use housing with commercial on the bottom floor, exploration of a community land trust on the eastern half of Valmont Park, increased density in transit corridors, and changes to requirements about how affordable housing is accounted for in development of market rate housing. Fundamentally I’ll look for ways to make it cheaper and faster to build and hunt for ways to reduce the impact of land costs on a sale price for a unit of housing.
The first step was making changes to the BVCP land use maps, making it clearer that middle housing is possible. However, given that the family friendly neighborhoods initiative has not resulted in many duplexes or triplexes, and there was no interest in the middle-housing down payment program, we know a land use change is not enough. I’m open to creating an expedited permitting path for middle income housing, making it clear that the city will work to quickly support these types of projects, especially if affordable and owner-occupied. I am not versed in federal grants, but the new bi-partisan federal housing act included some grants that might be of interest, like those supporting pre-approved plans and manufactured housing. I also support creating smaller single family homes or duplexes on smaller lots as well as cottage courts. While there aren’t a lot of large empty lots in Boulder, it could help. As mentioned earlier, I hope to create these changes and incentives in concert with the builders, architects, developers and home seekers to ensure we get the outcome we hope for.
I support increasing housing affordability for Boulder’s middle-income households by expanding practical, cost-effective housing options — without treating higher density as the only solution. Housing policy should also account for second-order effects on infrastructure, traffic, parking, tree canopy, and neighborhood character. Boulder should continue to streamline approvals for projects that meet clear, objective design and infrastructure standards, reducing the delays and uncertainty that drive up housing costs. We should clearly identify which populations are best served by each type of housing and work to increase its supply accordingly, with a stronger emphasis on transitioning existing housing stock to permanently affordable status where appropriate, rather than relying solely on higher-density development. Increased density, if part of the solution, should be implemented in core areas of the city as opposed to on its edges where services are less robust.
I support addressing Boulder’s housing needs through a strategy that increases supply while respecting neighborhood character, infrastructure constraints, and our climate goals. I would support faster and more predictable approvals, and incentives that make it financially feasible to build homes for middle-income households. Reasonable development of duplexes and triplexes along major transit corridors in traditionally single-family home areas can occur without changing neighborhood character. Standards addressing building scale, setbacks, trees, parking, and neighborhood compatibility should accompany this change. Neighborhood character matters deeply to Boulder residents, and housing policy should balance growth with that legitimate community priority. Also, Boulder could streamline approval of projects that comply with adopted zoning and design standards. Clear rules, firm review timelines, coordinated departmental reviews, and simpler permitting would reduce uncertainty, delay and costs. The city should also examine development fees or reductions for projects that provide smaller, moderately priced homes rather than primarily large luxury units. I also support exploring development of the Area III Planning Reserve through a community-driven process. Planning should prioritize mixed-income and permanently affordable housing options. Finally, we should add a focus on housing opportunities for people who serve and sustain our community, including teachers and first responders, as well as seniors who want to downsize while remaining in Boulder.
– Working thought the newly revised BVCP and current and upcoming changes to Title 9 so to offer more mixed density/type housing. – Draft Title 9 to align with BVCP plan. – Revise downpayment assistance incentives.
This is one of the most important questions facing Boulder and cities everywhere. I’m a YIMBY supply-sider *and* I’ve come to see there are a lot of forces holding housing back in practice besides general supply. I envision three kinds of changes that I’m working to advocate for: First, increase the supply of diverse middle housing types. Keep legalizing duplexes, triplexes, cottage courts, and townhomes near transit, building on reforms that already enable more than 15,000 additional homes (ordinance 8666), and use Title 9 to clear the remaining barriers, including a legal path to lot splitting by right. The East Boulder form-based code (ordinance 8669) shows this works, enabling roughly 5,000 new homes through infill instead of sprawl. Keep going on the aspects of city codes and standards to enable this category. Second, tackle the cost drivers that run deeper than supply scarcity. One area of innovation is to reduce the development costs of land, materials, labor, and permitting, each one on its own terms. Another is to make the process of getting the rights to own, design, and build something simpler and more bankable from the start. This relates to cost but can also be more of a binary enabler. A third is to build new, better financing tools to help people build ADUs and other outside-the-box dwelling types. Third, reduce the “cost of place.” The above items are about decisions to build. But there is also the wider context of building that will allow greater utilization of homes by more diverse people with more diverse needs, starting with overall affordability. Conventional planning pits housing costs against transportation costs, so people move further out for cheaper housing and end up with worse, costlier transportation. More human-centered planning, built around access and 15- minute neighborhoods, cuts through that: better-funded transportation options for everyone, and more room for housing in town to begin with. Boulder is headed in the right direction with the BVCP and needs to keep going. My council cohort has been moving all three of these areas forward in important ways, and I look forward to helping lead the next council to keep going.
I support Better Boulder’s full toolkit for building homes that families earning roughly 80 to 120 percent of area median income can actually buy: duplexes and triplexes by right in more places, smaller lots, reduced setbacks, streamlined permitting and fee waivers, manufactured and prefabricated construction, and developing the Area III planning reserve. Building out the Area III Planning reserve with a Holiday type neighborhood is one of my own goals as well. My model for Area III is just like the Holiday model: approximately 40 percent affordable housing and 60 percent attainable market-rate housing, with a mix of duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes. I believe Boulder’s home-ownership gap is 19 percent, and a Holiday-style mix will help reduce the gap. I don’t particularly think we need more apartment buildings, which in my experience aren’t actually what many middle-income buyers, especially those with families, are looking for. I really like the city’s House to Homeownership (H2O) program, a loan of up to $100,000 toward a market- rate home with no resale restrictions. I am excited about what Prop 123 can do for us. One interesting point: our permanently deed-restricted middle- income program has had zero takers, despite offering up to $200,000 in down-payment assistance. Nobody’s biting. I think the reason is obvious. Strict caps on home appreciation limit equity building, so a deed-restricted home is a harder sell than a comparable market-rate purchase. H2O’s model, a loan without that appreciation cap, is the more realistic path to ownership, and I’d want future public dollars weighted toward tools like it. Streamlined permitting and fee waivers matter as well, as every month shaved off a permit is money a middle-income buyer doesn’t have to cover.
Do you think the current inclusionary housing fees used to produce permanently affordable housing are too high, too low, or just right? What changes would you make, if any, and why?
I would like to explore different approaches to “permanently affordable housing” as it continues to segregate people by income and not build wealth. IHFs are often seen as letting developers off the hook and instead if there are more incentives to incorporate affordable units in their plan, it could result in a more desirable end product. That’s one approach. I would also look at affordable living for many households which should include renters, so not only housing unit affordability but the full package- HOA dues, utility costs, child care, food, etc and shape a working group of experts in our community to take on this topic, look at the data, consider options and come up with new strategies and recommendations. I’m confident that convening the best minds to truly explore what we’ve learned from trends, where we can leverage fees and better understanding the complexities that makes the housing unit one element of the full household. It made sense to us decades ago to institute fees tied to construction of new units but at this stage we should affirm that the fee is making a difference and helping. If it is not meeting goals and not serving our existing population, then should something else be considered? So much has changed in marketplace, demand, supply and other challenges that we should have an opportunity to reconsider whether it is comprehensively serving the goals before any changes are made.
I’d like to learn more about possibly lowering IH fees for middle income housing because it might be a reasonable trade off between reduced revenue for other affordable projects and an incentive for middle income projects. But I need input from other stakeholders, including BHP. It would be revenue lost from a public good–supporting permanently affordable housing–shifted to another, less defined public good–providing middle income housing but potentially without any permanent affordability protections.
I don’t know.
I would keep them as is. I know there is an effort to reduce them, but I would be a very hard sell on that (I do not support raising them). I have served on the board of Boulder Housing Partners for years and seen firsthand how important our permanently Affordable homes are (specifically BHP housing. I actually think developer-built Affordable housing is problematic). BHP communities house thousands of our workforce, families with children (at higher rates than in the rest of the city), & seniors on fixed incomes. I understand the argument for reducing inclusionary housing fees: they add to development costs, so lowering them may make more projects financially feasible. What I do not find convincing is the next step in the argument, namely, that cutting the fee will meaningfully reduce the price of the resulting market-rate homes. Developers charge what the market will bear. If a new condominium can sell for $1.2m, reducing the inclusionary housing obligation does not mean it suddenly sells for $950,000.
I would maintain a strong inclusionary-housing requirement, but I am open to recalibrating fees where independent feasibility analysis demonstrates that cumulative costs are preventing housing—particularly smaller and middle-income homes—from being built. Boulder’s Inclusionary Housing program is essential. It produces permanently affordable homes and generates flexible funding that can be combined with state, federal, nonprofit, and housing- authority resources. I support maintaining a strong requirement. However, an obligation that appears ambitious on paper will not necessarily produce housing if the cumulative cost of fees, regulations, land, financing, and construction prevents projects from proceeding. Boulder should commission regular independent feasibility analyses examining these factors across different project types. The findings should be transparent and used to inform predictable, evidence-based policy adjustments rather than case-by-case negotiations. I would also support: Preserving the square-footage-based cash- in-lieu structure, which distributes costs more fairly and avoids disproportionately burdening smaller homes. Strengthening incentives for providing affordable homes on-site when doing so advances mixed-income communities. Exploring carefully designed flexibility for projects producing missing- middle, ownership, or middle-income housing. Calibrating requirements by project type when objective evidence demonstrates materially different economics. Offering faster approvals or appropriate development incentives for projects exceeding baseline affordability requirements. The program should be evaluated not simply by its nominal fee or percentage requirement, but by the number of affordable homes created or preserved, the depth and duration of affordability, the outside funding leveraged, the types and locations of homes produced, and the effect of the requirements on overall housing production.
Every developer I’ve talked to has said that the process itself is broken, and the existing fee structure only serves to make all housing more expensive within the city, rather than hitting the goal of getting more affordable units to market. Now, I’ve never built a home or development, nor have I been to a barn raising lately, but I do understand that any fees levied by the city will be passed on to customers in one way or another. I don’t believe we make Boulder more affordable by levying more taxes or fees on the people we hire to build the housing in the first place. All we’re doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Thinking outside the box, using city-owned parcels to build housing may be a more effective way to get families back into town, but I have more research to do on this particular issue. I’ve read up on community land trusts, as well as similar efforts where the city took a more active role in the development process that could prove fruitful here in Boulder.
I continue to support the inclusionary housing fees but would be open to a discussion about them, especially to promote middle-housing types. However, the greatest need for affordable housing is for those making below 40-30% AMI, which is more expensive to produce. I would want to quantify those costs while studying what changes we could make to understand the trade-offs we’re making.
This is a measurable question. The city should compare the number, type, location, bedroom mix, and delivery timing of housing created with cash-in-lieu v. the on-site option. If cash-in-lieu is underperforming, the fee should be adjusted, or the on-site option strengthened. If it produces more units more efficiently through Boulder Housing Partners or other qualified providers, do not make any changes.
This is an area I would want to study more carefully, but based on the available evidence, I believe Boulder’s current inclusionary housing fee structure is about right. Boulder had 4,094 permanently affordable homes at the end of 2024. In 2025, the city’s Affordable Housing Fund awarded $21.38 million to projects expected to add 184 permanently affordable homes. Inclusionary cash-in-lieu payments provided some—but not all—of that funding. These are meaningful gains. At the same time, inclusionary fees add to the cost of development and, if set too high, could discourage the construction of housing that Boulder also needs. My preference is to maintain the existing fee structure to provide predictability for housing development while continuing to make sustainable progress on permanently affordable homes.
I would like to learn more about this. I am not familiar with the fee structure and how this helps or harms the goal for more permanently affordable housing.
This question deserves real exploration by council. On the one hand, inclusionary housing fees create friction against building housing in general, and the overall amount of new affordable housing they can create is limited. So current fees are probably costing us in the form of some housing not being built. On the other hand, the program is delivering real housing to people who need it and providing guarantees that housing at the more affordable end is protected and being built. I’m honestly not sure exactly what the right optimum is. My sense is we’re probably in the right neighborhood, and the real gains are going to be found in my answers to the previous question about creating more middle housing overall. But I am definitely open to research and experimentation in this area. As part of that, I want us to understand the actual experience of paying these fees once you factor in all-in costs like HOA fees. I think there’s real work for the city to do here. I’d also support regular, transparent review of fee levels against actual construction costs and delivery outcomes versus a set-it-and-forget-it number. More flexibility for developers to choose between on-site affordable units, off-site delivery, and fees, so the city gets whichever outcome produces the most homes in each situation. And continued focus on reducing land, financing, and construction costs generally, so the math behind affordable housing delivery gets easier over time beyond the fee formula per se.
I’ll be honest: I don’t love fees. They add to the cost of doing business and the cost of building a home. Fees get baked into rents and sale prices. They have a trickle-down effect that makes it harder to live here. And yes, at 25%, Boulder’s inclusionary housing requirement is the highest in our region — higher than Denver’s, higher than any of our neighboring cities’. But here’s what that fee buys: real, permanently affordable homes. Every dollar collected through cash-in-lieu leverages another three to four dollars in state and federal money, so a modest local fee turns into a much bigger pot of construction funding. Last year alone, that funding helped deliver 242 new affordable homes in Boulder: apartments for seniors, townhomes for working families, and units for households earning as little as 30% of area median income. It also lets us preserve existing affordable homes, not just build new ones. So do I think the fee is a little high? Yes. Do I think it’s doing real, measurable good for people who’d otherwise be priced out of this town? Yes. And it’s very popular with almost all Boulder constituents. Boulder’s constituents by and large want to see more permanently affordable housing. Where I’d keep pushing is on making it easier to build in the first place: faster permitting, fewer fees of other types stacked on top, so we’re not asking this one fee to do all the work. My job on council isn’t to pretend fees are free or that they have no unintended consequences. They do. It’s to make sure the fees we charge are actually buying something worth the cost. We should strive to eliminate the fees that are not worth the cost but keep the ones that are worthwhile. That’s the balance I’ll keep striving for.
Powerful e-bikes known as “e-motos” have become popular with many community members, particularly teenagers, but some concerns have been raised about their safety on the streets and multi-use paths due to their speed and weight. Should the city be regulating their use more? What type of regulation would you propose?
Yes. I suggest the e motorcycles should be regulated in some way. I would propose education at purchase for all riders and special outreach to parents of any rider under 16. I would support and encourage partnering with BVSD for educational programming and support at our middle and high schools. I am comfortable with restrictions on certain paths and certain times. I am concerned about safety for all and finding the balance for access, safety and ease of movement.
Yes, the city should be regulating them more. Require helmets for all minors on all class-2 and class-3. Require lights, speedometers and reflectors Not a regulation change but we should increase signage about the 15 mph limit on multi use paths and more striclty enforce that limit
Yes. These bikes are dangerous for those driving them and others around them. My opening approach, not fully developed, would likely classify some of them as motorcycles even if they are designed for off-road use. This would require a driver’s license for any on-road use. Perhaps some trails would allow them but likely most trails and multi-use paths would not unless their weight, acceleration and max speed are limited. I believe there are 3 classes of electric bicycles; I’m not sure if there are any equivalent classes for the type of vehicles you mentioned
Probably, but I need to understand the issue better before I give an answer I am likely to stick to. My son is in 7th grade at Centennial, and many of his friends have motorcycle-like e-bikes. They pop wheelies, ride in packs, carry multiple kids at once, and go very fast. It is madness, and as a parent, it terrifies me. I worry that someone is going to get seriously hurt. At the same time, I do not want a response to e-motos to unintentionally make ordinary e- bike use harder. If I had my way, far more people in Boulder would get around by e-bike or some other alternative to a car. And the line is not as simple as “e-bikes.” My son and his buddies are also riding electric scooters, one-wheels, electric unicycles, and other devices at high speeds. My own son rides an electric unicycle and takes it off jumps and down stair sets. If we regulate one category, do those devices belong in the same framework? Is the issue the motor, the maximum speed, the weight, where they are ridden, or rider behavior? My instinct is that we probably need clearer rules, particularly for very high-powered devices on multi-use paths and around schools. But I want to hear from transportation staff, safety experts, parents, young riders, and people who rely on e-bikes before deciding exactly where that line should be. All that said, I am genuinely all ears on this one!
The city should regulate e-motos more effectively, beginning with enforcement and education around the rules that already exist. E-motos are not the same as legal Class 1, 2, or 3 e-bikes. Their speed, weight, and acceleration can create serious risks on multi-use paths, particularly for pedestrians, children, older adults, and people with disabilities. Under current rules, e-motos are not permitted on sidewalks, multi-use paths, or bicycle lanes and generally lack the equipment required to be street-legal. Yet many families and young riders may not understand these distinctions. I would support: – Clear, highly visible education at schools, bicycle shops, retailers, and online marketplaces explaining vehicle classifications and where each may legally operate. Point-of-sale disclosure requirements for local sellers. – Targeted enforcement focused on dangerous behavior and high-conflict locations, with warnings and education as the first response when appropriate. – Escalating consequences for repeated violations, reckless operation, or excessive speed. – School and parent partnerships offering age-appropriate safety training. Better collection of crash, injury, complaint, and enforcement data before adopting broader restrictions. We should avoid rules that inadvertently discourage ordinary e-bikes, which are valuable transportation tools and can replace car trips. Regulation should distinguish between low-speed e-bikes and motorbike-like vehicles based on actual power, speed, and safety risk. Our multi-use paths work because people of different ages and abilities can use them comfortably. The goal should be to preserve that safety while giving families clear expectations and young people realistic, enforceable rules.
Regulation without enforcement is useless. Unless BPD is out on the prowl for the teens out on their e-motos, we’re not going to see much in the way of change I’m afraid, at least not until the state passes something that can directly deal with manufacturers and retailers. If we made them illegal to sell, they’d be bought online, or in Denver. Illegal to own and they’d go incognito with pedals. Certification requirements would be ignored. I agree they’re annoying, but apart from a gruesome fatality that is covered in all the local papers and socials, parents will continue to get them, and unless we really increase our budget for speed humps, kids will continue to fly around on them. And, as I wrote this, two teens just flew by my house on them.
I believe the concern around e-motos is well founded. The other day, I saw a 10-11 year old girl driving her younger brother on the back of an e-moto without a helmet across Folsom. The next day I saw some kids driving e-motos on Broadway, hitting a car unintentionally while distracted. Parents still buy them, some not knowing they’re not allowed to drive them on multi-use paths, and also not knowing the liability they assume, which is significant. The city and school district have done a lot of education but it apparently isn’t enough. The police have started tagging e-motos that are parked, explaining they are not allowed. If they continue to be used on major roads like Broadway and on bike paths or trails, then I do support ticketing and confiscation. Hopefully, we can encourage biking instead of e-motos.
For Level II e-bikes, and especially Level III e-bikes (along with those modified to exceed Level III performance), the speed differential compared to human-powered bikes & Level I e-bikes can be substantial and create dangerous interactions. Boulder’s multi-use paths have a 15-mph speed limit (8 mph in crosswalks), while Level III bikes can reach 28 mph with no pedal assist. I think it is prudent to consider banning Level III bikes from multi-use paths and stepping up enforcement in areas most sensitive to e-bikes exceeding multi-use path speed limits. The city should also consider an age requirement for operating Level II and III e-bikes to reduce the chances of serious injuries like those that recently occurred in North Boulder.
Other than keeping powerful e-motos off multi-use paths, I would not support further regulation or restriction. E-motos are here to stay, and their use can be an alternative to driving for short trips. Additional regulation could discourage this transportation option that can help reduce automobile trips, traffic and emissions. I prefer keeping the focus on clear rules for multi-use paths and enforcement of existing regulations.
In one week, I knew three tens who were seriously injured as a result of these vehicles. – I would propose the same regulations they provide for vehicles that reach the same speeds. – No e-motos on sidewalks, riders should use designated lanes/paths. – Guardian responsibility for injury or death caused by minors use of these vehicles. – Insurance requirements.
Yes, the city should be more proactive with e-motos. My council cohort unanimously directed staff to explore this question, and we’re awaiting their response. In the meantime, here are some ideas to explore. First, keep educating parents on how e-bikes and e-motos are different. E-motos are illegal on all Boulder public roads and paths, subject to citation or confiscation, and a liability for parents, since they’re likely uninsured in a crash. Second, seek to collaborate with BVSD on education, since schools are where these vehicles live during the day and kids talk to each other about them. I’m open to exploring enforcement options like more proactive impoundment, but I’m apprehensive about the legal, equity, and other issues, so this would need careful consideration. Third, keep encouraging safe, respectful riding on our multi-use paths for cyclists, e-bike riders, and walkers alike. The city’s doing this through signage, and I want to build on it. Boulder has a strong culture of multi-use, and being a good citizen means operating respectfully around others, whether on an e-bike, a regular bike, or walking a dog. In fact, the only fatal crash I’m aware of on a Boulder multi-use path involved a conventional bicycle and a pedestrian, no electric motor involved. I’m open to enforcing dangerous riding on multi-use paths, covering all modes, based on behavior. Fourth, we need to avoid marginalizing lawful e-bike riders. I don’t support registration or other permission requirements for e-bikes. They’ve given young people, especially those who can’t yet drive, real freedom, and families a new path to affordability. Kids today have less independence to move through the world than any generation before them, and this technology is helping restore some of that. We should keep encouraging it, while building infrastructure that makes it safe and convenient for everyone.
One of the things I love most about Boulder is watching teenagers outside on e-bikes having a great time instead of staring at screens, and I don’t want anything we do to take that away. But we do need more education, smarter enforcement, and parent accountability, because a lot of what’s happening on our multi-use paths isn’t legal e-bike riding. Colorado’s e-bike law is good and doesn’t need to change: Class 1, 2, and 3 e-bikes, capped at 750 watts, are already regulated appropriately. The problem is what exceeds that: true “e-motos,” including bikes tampered with or unlocked via aftermarket controllers to go past the 750-watt/20-mph limit. Those already qualify as unregistered motor vehicles requiring a license, registration, and insurance under state law. Boulder just isn’t enforcing or defining that clearly enough locally. Most of the e-motos we see are bought online, often from Amazon, by parents who don’t realize they’re buying an unregistered motor vehicle their kid can’t legally ride on a path. I’d push BVSD and local bike shops to educate parents and teens, support state-level reform to stop online retailers from selling misclassified e-motos as bikes, and hold parents accountable — including fines — when their kids are caught on illegal or tampered machines. California has some good ideas: False Advertising Rules: Legislation like Senate Bill 1167 targets retailers and manufacturers by making it illegal to market, label, or sell high-powered motor vehicles under the misleading title of “e-bikes.” Marketplace Compliance: Because of state enforcement pressure and warnings over rising safety incidents, Amazon implemented restrictions to block listings and halt sales of non-compliant, high-speed vehicles to California zip codes. I would like to look into adopting these measures.
Acknowledging that the job of governing requires skillful navigation of competing priorities, what do you think are the city government’s current top three priorities? What do you think their top three priorities should be?
Affordable Housing, economic vitality, and sustainability I think priorities should be wildfire mitigation, attainable housing for the middle class, and economic recovery for small businesses.
I think the immediate top priorities now look like Sundance, the budget and wildfire resilience These are okay: Sundance is getting close and it needs to go well; budget development, monitoring and adjustment should always be a prioirty, especially in a fiscally constrained environment and wildfire mitigation/resilience is something we need to continue making progress on because of the increase in fires. And without debating the semantics of priorities and priority functions, I think for any city, including Boulder, the priority goal should always be providing excellent public safety, infrastructure maintenance and development management.
To be clear I am running as a single-issue candidate. In more than 5 decades living in Boulder I do not recall a single referred measure allowing the public to directly vote on major transportation issues such as the Baseline Project or the recent conversion of traffic lanes to so-called “Bus Only” lanes or the recent reduction of traffic lanes on Baseline east of Foothills. Having met with transportation officials on multiple occasions and contacted city council I have seen no responsiveness to public opinion on these issues. By comparison, overwhelmingly in dozens of conversations with people in the community, I found disapproval of the city’s transportation projects. I am running to allow the public to clearly express “No Confidence” in the city’s approach to road projects. If you want a comprehensive evaluation of and proposed policy approach to transportation projects, I can supply you with a working document if you request it at Lee4Boulder@yahoo.com
To be honest, it is hard for me to identify the city’s current top three priorities. I could repeat the priorities adopted at Council’s last retreat, but they do not always match what the city actually spends time, political capital, and money on. If elected, I would prioritize three things: 1. Rebuild public trust. Trust in city government is extraordinarily low. Some of that reflects the national environment, but some of it is well-earned. Whatever you think about the outcomes of the airport, DDA, or bond votes, the public processes around them have been deeply problematic. People feel decisions are being made before meaningful public engagement occurs. We need more transparency, clearer accounting of tradeoffs, and more stakeholder + public engagement. 2. Revitalize + relocalize Boulder’s economy, which includes making it easier for people to live here. Housing & economic vitality are inseparable. We have empty offices & storefronts while tens of thousands of workers commute into Boulder because they cannot afford to live here. I want to make it dramatically easier for local businesses to start & grow, fill vacant commercial space, support incremental, owner-driven housing, and keep more of the wealth generated in Boulder circulating here. A comprehensive rewrite of Title 9 is central to that work (as I have discussed elsewhere). 3. Take care of what we already have. Before adding major new obligations, we should maintain existing streets, parks, facilities, utilities, and public spaces, and understand the full life-cycle costs of our assets. I would love to see us do an Urban3 value-per-acre study. I also support a financial auditor who would report to council. These all go hand-in-hand to me.
Based on where the city is directing significant staff capacity, funding, and Council attention, I would characterize its current top priorities as fiscal sustainability and core services; housing and homelessness; and community safety and climate resilience. I believe these should remain the top three priorities, but we must improve how we pursue them. Fiscal Sustainability and Core Services: We should avoid unnecessary ongoing obligations, regularly evaluate programs to ensure every public dollar delivers meaningful outcomes, and improve efficiency through cross-departmental collaboration, technology, and operational reforms. Independent performance audits can help identify best practices and support objective, data-driven decisions. Housing and Homelessness: Modernizing Title 9 with support from external experts should be foundational to implementing the BVCP’s Future Land Use Strategy. We should expand housing choices, reduce unnecessary barriers, and advance affordability. Because homelessness is a regional challenge, Boulder must press Boulder County and neighboring cities to share greater responsibility for funding and providing services. We must also prioritize homelessness prevention so limited resources can more effectively serve people who are already unhoused, and we also need to better prioritize public spaces being safe, clean, and accessible. Community Safety and Climate Resilience: We should target limited resources where they will produce the greatest community-wide benefit. For example, while programs such as WRAP are broadly available, outreach and financial assistance should prioritize households and properties in the areas of greatest wildfire risk. Reducing risk at the points where fires are most likely to ignite or spread helps protect the entire community. We must also invest in shared defensible spaces, strengthen emergency evacuation planning, and improve our capacity for disaster response and recovery.
When you look through the handy “Budgeting for Resilience and Equity Dashboard” each department provides via PowerBI, it’s not clear that many departments have or understand their priorities. Many of those KPIs left me scratching my head. I think an effective city government has these three priorities, announced by Council and executed by staff: 1. Make working with the city as simple, seamless, and fast as possible. Every city employee should be thinking “how can I make this process better, cheaper, or more understandable to the people who have to work with us?” 2. All our investments & expenditures should have a clear return to the city and its residents, with a priority going to those with the clearest return. Our climate spending runs afoul of this: of the proceeds of our climate tax, we spend more on programs with distant returns than we do on wildfire mitigations, which has immediate returns. 3. Focus on the fundamentals. City government is meant to plow the roads, put out the fires, balance the books, and keep the city looking good. While our city thinks globally, we can’t lose sight of the most important, day to day activities that our residents rely on us for.
1. Providing basic services that only the local city government can provide, like providing clean water, maintaining roads, and public safety and emergency response. I believe this should continue to be the top priority. 2. Developing a framework to help prioritize funding decisions by breaking down spending into categories, including core services (clean water, sewage, roads), planned commitments and then other programs and initiatives. Council is a part of this process and will help protect core services and the funding to operate and maintain them. 3. Preparing for Sundance I agree with the priorities listed above but would add in a clear plan to address deferred and future maintenance as part of the strategic plan work. I would also add increased funding to address climate change, especially around wildfire mitigation and preparedness, power supply shut off preparedness and protecting our water supply.
I believe the city’s current top three priorities are: 1) long-term financial stability; 2) wildfire and public-safety resilience; and 3) housing policy. I agree with the first two and would replace the third with resident-centered stewardship. We should focus on delivering essential services and infrastructure in a pragmatic, cost-effective manner.
City government currently appears focused on managing growth and housing, advancing climate goals, and addressing public safety and homelessness. These remain significant issues, but the next City Council should emphasize rebuilding public trust, preparing for climate-related threats, and ensuring that everyone can safely use our public spaces. My first priority is a responsive, trustworthy city government. Boulder residents should be able to see how public money is spent, how programs are funded, and whether their results justify their costs. Every major program should have clear objectives, measurable outcomes, identified funding sources, and regular public reporting. Boulder now needs independent performance monitoring, not only internal assessment and financial auditing. Residents deserve to know which programs are achieving their goals, which are not, and whether the results justify the public investment. Spending wisely and transparently is fundamental to regaining residents’ confidence. My second priority is climate adaptability, particularly wildfire preparedness. The Marshall Fire demonstrated how quickly a destructive fire can overwhelm a community, while the August 20, 2026, wildfire near Eben G. Fine Park provided another reminder of Boulder’s vulnerability. The city should prioritize mitigation, early detection, emergency communications, evacuation planning, and regional coordination. Residents need clear evacuation routes and realistic plans for moving vulnerable populations under rapidly changing conditions. Boulder should use appropriate incentives and other practical measures to implement the recommendations of the 2024 Community Wildfire Protection Plan. My third priority is public safety in public spaces. Parks, paths, libraries, civic areas, and commercial districts should be safe, welcoming, and accessible to everyone. Compassionate responses to homelessness, addiction, and mental-health crises must be paired with consistent and effective enforcement of laws protecting public health and safety, including the camping ban. Residents should not have to choose between compassion and safe shared spaces. Greater public safety would also support a healthy, vibrant business community.
This city seems to always be debating land, taxes and affordability. I don’t disagree that these are important, however, there seems to be an inequitable representation of issues that can cause other forms of significant harm on those impacted such as staffs ability to make decisions that should be deliberated over in the public forum, which is undemocratic, police oversight, and mass surveillance through FLOCK.
Actual priorities, where real bandwidth goes right now: managing cash flow, preparing for Sundance, and staying responsive to the wide range of requests we hear from residents, individuals and organized advocates alike. What they should be: Cut the costs of living. A first order of business is to rewrite Title 9 so the housing reforms we’ve already legalized can turn into homes people can move into. Adapt our community to a changing world. We are currently implementing the 2026 wildfire hardening workplan item, which I co-developed, to create a public, cost-ranked list of fire-adapted investments for existing buildings and landscapes. We should build on that to create larger scale hardening of buildings, landscapes, and the electric grid that will provide the community higher levels of collective protection. Make local government more predictable and effective. I’m co-leading the Long- Term Financial Strategy, and I want to finish it and turn it into real council-level spending controls, so major costs are visible years out instead of discovered mid-crisis. Big, consequential one-time questions deserve real time and care. I think these three themes along with the specifics within them could really help our community live better, and they’re what I’d like to elevate.
Right now, I think the city’s actual top three priorities are increasing revenue, solving deferred maintenance, and climate resiliency. Sales tax, our biggest revenue source, has flattened for years, and the city is counting on Sundance to help. We also have about $400 million in deferred maintenance for our aging buildings, our recreation centers and our falling-apart public safety building are especially concerning, and paying for it is consuming a lot of council and staff attention. And climate resiliency, especially making sure we’re wildfire ready, is urgent. What should their priorities be? First, growing our sales tax revenue for the long term, not just through one-time events like Sundance, but through a thriving, vibrant downtown that keeps people shopping, eating, and spending here. A healthy revenue base is what pays for everything else, including the deferred maintenance and resiliency work ahead of us. Right alongside that, as a sub-priority: it’s currently too hard to do business in Boulder and have a good experience doing it, and I’d like us to fix that. Rewriting Title 9, our land use code, so it actually matches the vision in our new comprehensive plan, is the single most important thing we can do to make Boulder easier to live and do business in. Our customer service and accessibility in Planning and Development also needs fixing; our residents and business owners are our customers, and we should treat them that way. Second, safety: a core city responsibility. That means building out protected bike lanes, completing the Core Arterial Network, keeping our multi-use paths and underpasses safe and clear, keeping shared public spaces clean and safe, and staying on top of basics like snow and ice removal and pothole repair. And third, climate resiliency- especially wildfire preparedness- must be a priority. Right along with that comes making sure XCEL does it’s job and keeps the power on. We need to keep pressuring them to do their job. The impacts the outages have had on the elderly, the infirmed, businesses and just about everyone in this community is not acceptable. .
What are three areas of the city budget that you think are ripe for cutting? Are there changes in process or budget allocations that you would actively pursue if you were elected?
Some administrative support services, outreach programming by department, and any programs started with AARPA funding that did not prove effective or sustainable. I would actively pursue increasing and shifting funding from sources to more aggressively fund wildland fire mitigation and related programming that supports WUI and our residents safety and security.
I would advocate for continued thoughtful hiring freezes backed by needs analysis for each department. I’m not a fan of across the board hiring freezes. We should also examine the use of outside consultants–there may be an opportunity to cut there and bring some of that work in house. Finally, I think we can continue to look for duplicated effort and combining positions where appropriate. I do not have any big specific budget changes in mind right now. I support the city’s transition to an outcome-based approach to budgeting
The transportation CAN should not be funded and reductions in the transportation department planning staff should be used to fund undoing the tremendous damage caused by their “improvements”.
1. I want to look closely at what we spend on consultants, studies, and duplicative processes. IMO, we spend too much time and money studying issues we have already studied, hiring outside consultants for work we have internal expertise to do, and running long processes without a clear connection to a decision. I am not interested in cutting meaningful public engagement on major issues, but we do not need a consultant & extensive public process for everything, like whether to have a restaurant at the reservoir. 2. We should reduce spending on new facilities and focus more on maintaining what we already own. The city manages a large portfolio of buildings and infrastructure, much of it with significant deferred maintenance. But when you look at the bond measure, much of the spending goes to new buildings rather than maintaining what we already have. We should consolidate operations where possible, lease, sell, or repurpose buildings we no longer need, and think very seriously before adding new ones. 3. I support creating an independent financial auditor to help identify programs and administrative spending that are not demonstrating results. I would require regular program-by-program reviews: What are we trying to accomplish? What does it cost? Is it working? Is another department doing the same thing? Programs should not automatically become permanent simply because they were included in a previous budget.
I oppose arbitrary across-the-board cuts, which can weaken high-performing programs while preserving structural inefficiencies. Instead, I would focus reductions in three areas: First, evaluate underperforming or “nonessential” programs. I would support a detailed, independent performance audit, guided by the city’s Sustainability, Equity and Resilience framework, to evaluate the outcomes programs and services deliver for residents. We must distinguish essential services and unmet needs from “nice-to-haves.” Every significant expenditure should be tied to measurable outcomes, multi-year fiscal forecasting, regular evaluation, and transparent public reporting. New programs should identify sustainable funding and formal evaluation points before becoming ongoing obligations. I would also pursue efficiencies through cross-departmental collaboration, appropriate technological improvements, and operational reforms. Second, address the overuse of consulting contracts and studies. Outside consultants are valuable when specialized expertise or genuine independence is needed—such as modernizing Title 9 or conducting performance audits. However, Boulder should not repeatedly pay to study questions when sufficient local expertise, previous analysis, or reliable data already exists. Before approving a contract, Council should receive a clear explanation of why outside expertise is necessary, what deliverables it will produce, and how the findings will inform a specific decision. Third, underused facilities, vehicles, and other assets. With a substantial maintenance backlog, the city cannot treat every building as equally essential. I support implementing the Facilities Master Plan, consolidating operations, and selling or repurposing properties that lack a defensible long-term public purpose. Before constructing new facilities, the city should evaluate existing vacant office space—particularly downtown—where relocating employees could reduce costs while supporting economic vitality. The city should also inventory vehicles, equipment, and other assets, establish utilization standards, and sell those that are unnecessary or consistently underused. My goal would be targeted, evidence-based reductions that protect and improve essential services while making our city more efficient, accountable, and financially sustainable.
I think one area where we can save some cash is limit what we’re hiring our consultants for. Revising Title 9 should not take consultants: regular council members put it in place, so regular council members should be able to untangle it. I also think we need to flip the proceeds of our climate tax 80/20 towards wildfire prevention work vs long-term climate work. That said, lots of people talk about cuts to the city budget, or this magical savings we could find if we just ‘tightened the belt.’ Frankly, I don’t think it’s there. I also don’t think there’s political appetite for it in the electorate. Boulder has never met a tax it didn’t like, which means cuts are never really on the table. However, I would be a strong advocate for hiring a City Auditor that’s a peer to the City Manager and whom has a small staff to review expenditures and ongoing projects to identify where we’re overspending or where we’re simply not hitting our targets. Programs that have started are hard to unwind without a nonpartisan advocate to do so and the Auditor can fulfill that role.
While the city is moving toward outcome-based budgeting, we’re not quite there. It’s difficult therefore to understand where opportunities are to reallocate funds. I do support the city’s work to think about the funding needed for core services separately from other funding, enabling us to first maintain our core service levels, then prioritize the remaining programs and services. I am looking to better fund ongoing maintenance needs and am advocating for a Facilities Oversight Panel to elevate this need. I also believe we should pursue a major study and alignment with the county around our spending and granting. Both the city and county are often serving the same community or working toward the same outcome and I suspect that there might be ways to combine or consolidate funds, and even serve the community better. Finally, I am hoping to better fund wildfire and power shut off mitigation and preparedness, based on the outcomes of our wildfire and energy discussions in the next month.
Before cutting the budget, we should look for efficiencies — can we deliver the same or a higher level of service with fewer dollars? Are there multiple departments delivering the same or similar services that could be combined? Do we have the right mix of players (staff) to coaches (managers)? Should that be changed? Over the last 15 years, based on data from the city’s CAFRs, the number of FTEs grew 26% while Boulder’s population grew 5.7%. Are we seeing a commensurate increase in services? I would identify duplicative services across city departments and consolidate them and over time, manage headcount to be consistent with population and revenue. Boulder County and its use of Priority-Based Budgeting (PBB) process is a pragmatic approach that makes prioritization especially explicit. Should a PBB approach be the final layer to Boulder’s outcomes-based approach? I believe that would be a valuable way to provide a fiscal overlay to the current approach.
The past two budget cycles have clarified areas that deserve close examination: administrative staffing, open-space acquisition, and selected Transportation and Mobility spending. First, I would review administrative staffing before cutting frontline services. The 2026 budget closed a projected $7.5 million General Fund gap partly by eliminating three filled and 16 vacant positions. Communications and Engagement, with 33.5 full-time equivalents, and Human Resources, with 28, merit further analysis. Both departments perform important work, but their staffing should be evaluated against measurable outcomes and comparable cities. At a time when many residents question the city’s responsiveness and transparency, Communications and Engagement should demonstrate that its staffing is producing clearer communication and more meaningful public engagement. Second, I would consider slowing additional open-space acquisition during constrained budget years while protecting maintenance, wildfire mitigation, ecosystem health, and public access on land the city already owns. Boulder has an extraordinary open-space system; responsible stewardship may sometimes require prioritizing existing assets over acquiring more property. Third, I would examine Transportation and Mobility’s administrative costs and lower-priority capital projects. Because much of its funding is restricted or project-specific—and deferred maintenance can cost more later—I would not impose an arbitrary department-wide cut. I would distinguish essential maintenance and safety work from projects that can be delayed, redesigned, or delivered more efficiently. Every proposed reduction should identify its actual savings, legal restrictions, and effects on public services.
I don’t feel comfortable answering this question without a thorough review of the city budget and consideration of the community needs and gaps.
Two specifics deserve a hard look. One is massively-networked automated license plate reader cameras (e.g., Flock). It might make some policing more efficient, but we lack the controls to prevent federal intrusion or misuse, and we don’t have meaningful consent from the community to conduct AI- enabled mass surveillance. Also, open-ended free EV charging at public parks. I drive an EV and want a better charging network, but subsidies should target need or catalyze new behavior, and unrestricted free charging reliably does neither. For what it’s worth, I’ve heard some residents raise city communications as a place to cut. I’m skeptical, because communications is a core function for a city like Boulder, keeping people informed and connected to their government. Others call for council-level performance auditing. I think this idea is on to something. But my hunch is what we’ll find is less about things to cut and more about opportunities to provide better service. So my thinking is we should keep building out an outcomes-based approach to budgeting with real reporting at the council level, so we understand what programs are actually achieving, not just what they cost. As we do that, we should adopt a stronger focus on services generally, with clear expectations and accountability for service levels department by department, paired with a genuine cross-departmental customer service effort so residents get help without bouncing between offices.
It’s worth mentioning our role: City council doesn’t run day-to-day operations. That’s the city manager’s job. Council sets policy, approves the budget, and can direct priorities. However, it takes five votes to actually agree on any specific cut, which is harder than it sounds when nine people have nine different ideas about what’s essential. Or eight people, in our case. That said, here’s what I’d push for. First, staffing has grown well beyond peer cities, mostly in overhead, not front-line service. Boulder’s FTE count rose from 1,426 in 2019 to about 1,548 by 2026, which is a 14% increase, roughly 200 positions, while the city’s population has stayed essentially flat. The growth wasn’t evenly spread: Communications grew 116% and the City Manager’s Office grew 84%, all internal, administrative functions rather than police, fire, or direct resident-facing services. Boulder’s FTE per 100,000 residents is well above comparable peer cities (this comes from PLAN-Boulder County’s analysis of city budget documents, not a city-published figure). Either way, I’d want the city manager to bring our staffing back toward the peer-city norm, especially in those support functions. Second, our real estate. We own a lot of buildings. Selling off what we don’t need both cuts ongoing maintenance costs and helps chip away at our deferred maintenance backlog. Third, I’d want us to use data to identify which of our many programs are redundant with the county or simply aren’t giving us the bang for the buck, and prioritize true needs over wants accordingly. Lastly, I’d like us to hire an independent city auditor’s office — a community ask I agree with. We need independent oversight of city programs, their outcomes, and fiscal stewardship, to rebuild public trust in our government.
As you’ve watched Boulder’s Council over the past five to ten years, among the hundreds of decisions they’ve made, which one do you most celebrate? And which one do you most regret?
Purchase of the former BCH hospital site on Broadway (aka Alpine-Balsam) And regret the Alpine-Balsam plan that got approved by the city council and what we see there today.
I celebrate the decision last year to update the Inclusionary Housing ordinance to require 25% permanently affordable housing. The cash in lieu option is a very effective tool to leverage additional investment and move us more rapidly towards our goal of 15% permanently affordable housing by 2035 In hindsight, I regret the municipalization fight. I recognize that it was the voters who approved it in the first place, moved it forward and ultimately stopped it. But city council put it on the ballot, put the funding question on the ballot and authorized the spending that, again in hindsight, could’ve been spent in so many other ways to help our community with energy efficency. As well as all the council and staff time. I supported the effort–it was very well- intentioned. But if I knew then what i know now…
Funding the $16 million project, half paid by Boulder, for the 30th and Colorado project was a terrible use of money as was all the money spent on the planning and implementation of the Baseline project. Funding some of the new bike lanes that are mostly separated from the street on 30th and on Colorado were improvements over the on-street lanes. Proudly announcing the first fully protected intersection at 30th and Colorado was one of the city’s worst decisions.
I most celebrate the cumulative changes Council has made to housing & land use. I really appreciate this question because it is a good reminder to step back and recognize that progress. Over the last decade, council(s) moved away from strict occupancy limits, made it significantly easier to build ADUs, relaxed single-family-only zoning to allow more duplexes & triplexes, moved away from rigid unit-count requirements toward rules based more on building form & floor area, and streamlined the approval process for permanently affordable housing. There is still a lot more to do, but these are meaningful changes. The decision I most regret is the recent airport decision. Not because I am certain the airport should close. My own view on that has genuinely shifted over the last year. But I am very confident we could have explored ways to make the airport self-sustaining, and we did not even try. We are talking about 180 acres of publicly owned land in one of the most land-constrained cities in the country, and this council effectively made a decision for all future generations about what they can do with that land. And they made the decision at a moment when aviation itself is changing dramatically, including through vertical takeoff and landing technology. A decision that consequential deserved a much deeper community conversation, far more transparency from staff, and an honest examination of what was possible before we foreclosed those options. We know that Santa Monica was able to stop accepting FAA grants and still generate $8-$10 million for its community. We foreclosed all other options forever. I am still so blown away by it.
I most celebrate Council’s 2023 package of housing reforms, particularly eliminating exclusionary occupancy limits and expanding opportunities for accessory dwelling units. These changes recognized that Boulder should not dictate whether unrelated adults may share a home and that our existing neighborhoods can accommodate more housing choices without sacrificing what makes them special. The reforms advanced affordability, personal freedom, and more efficient use of homes and infrastructure we already have. The most regrettable decisions are a hard choice between Boulder’s preservation of exclusionary, overly restrictive, and unnecessarily complicated land-use regulations, or the city’s expansion of its facilities portfolio without adequate strategic planning for the full lifecycle costs of those public assets which has led to a ~400 million dollar backlog and potential loss of local recreational services. The current state of Title 9 has contributed to many highly devastating impacts: housing scarcity, displacement, commercial vacancies, our difficulty in adapting to changing community needs, and the growing unaffordability of our community. Due to these challenges, younger generations and families have been unable to stay rooted in Boulder, leading to many in-commuters and the closure of schools. As we decline in population, we are also seeing a loss of vibrancy in our local economy, and the loss of tax revenue to support our public services. Additionally, Boulder’s accumulation of ~75 buildings without a long-term strategy (until 2021) to determine which facilities were essential, how they would be maintained, and how replacement or renovation would eventually be funded, has led to an enormous challenge facing our community today. Every major investment creates long-term obligations, and those obligations must be evaluated before commitments are made. Council should understand the full lifecycle cost of a project, identify sustainable funding sources, and determine whether existing assets could meet our needs.
Big fan of ending occupancy limits. Not a big fan of the airport straw poll. Bonus point for landing Sundance.
I am excited about the new comp plan, for the emphasis on middle type housing, nature as a system, mitigating for climate change and supporting the local economy. Progress in these areas might help attract more young, middle income people to come to and stay in Boulder. While I am reflecting with 20/20 hindsight, I think the Alpine/Balsam project may have been a mistake. I do believe the intention of consolidating city workers in one place was good, and, at the time, the decision makers did not know that vacancy rates would increase and construction costs would skyrocket over the next decade. Moving forward, we need to be transparent about the impact of the project on our budget, while making the most out of the building to benefit the community.
Wildfire resilience is the decision I most celebrate. When the wind picks up over Boulder, there is a distinct rise in anxiety — and a periodic glance west to check for smoke. Taking prudent, cost-effective action to harden the city against fire is exactly the kind of decision-making I applaud. The decision I most regret is CU South. I recognize the need to provide flood mitigation; however, the “price” paid in this case was too high.
Both decisions relate to a deeply personal interest of mine: Boulder’s relationship with its police. My stepfather, who helped raise me from age seven, was a police officer. At home, I experienced the love and care of a police officer, which shaped my appreciation for those who serve. Law school also taught me that our constitutional rights and liberties necessarily place limits on police authority. I therefore believe strongly in both effective policing and meaningful accountability. The Council decision I most celebrate is its 2020 adoption of Ordinance 8430, which created the Police Oversight Panel following a Boulder officer’s confrontation with Zayd Atkinson as he cleaned outside his own home. The officer eventually drew his gun. Watching the video, I could not help asking, “What if Mr. Atkinson had been my son?” Creating the panel was a courageous, forward-looking act that reflected Boulder’s values. Its work helps define what our entire community expects from its police and provides a structure for accountability and public trust. The decision I most regret came last year, when Council unanimously rejected a neutral arbitrator’s recommendation of a 6% police pay increase and maintained the city’s 4% proposal, a difference of approximately $450,000. When parties jointly select a neutral arbitrator to help resolve an impasse, the arbitrator’s recommendation should carry substantial weight, even though not legally binding. Good-faith arbitration requires a genuine willingness to reconsider prior positions. City Council’s rejection of the arbitrator’s recommendation is having repercussions, as Chief Redfearn cites losing members of Boulder’s Police force to neighboring jurisdictions where the pay is better.
I’m not sure.
What I most celebrate: The package of housing reforms made over the last few years, which include legalizing middle housing, duplexes, triplexes, and cottage courts, through the Family-Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods ordinance, alongside eliminating parking minimums and ending occupancy limits tied to family relationships. Together, those overturned decades of land use rules that had banned anything but single-family homes almost everywhere in Boulder. It’s the single biggest structural change I’ve seen council make, and I was proud to help lead it. What I most regret is how the process played out on the Downtown Development Authority. I stand by my vote. But what we got wrong was spending so much time and involving so many people without being what the actual hinge points were going to be for the decision early on. For example, if we’d had a clearer discussion a year ago that the question was going to involve whether to give a voting group of less than 3 percent of the city’s population the choice of reallocating $60 million in funding voters citywide had already approved for specific purposes, it would have completely reframed the conversation. It would have focused the council, staff, and partners much more constructively on what it would take to get there, and set expectations more realistically. One lesson for me is to be more careful with a process built around gate-style checkpoints, questions like “should we keep exploring,” unless there’s real clarity about what the final gate will actually look like. So for big questions going forward, I’ll push even harder to front-load the hard questions instead of discovering them late and burning time, trust, and goodwill. Getting this right is fundamental to creating a predictable and effective government that people can trust and rely on.
Every day I celebrate CAN. There is so much to be proud of. CAN is built on Vision Zero, the recognition that a majority of our serious and fatal crashes happen on arterial streets, and the commitment that no one should be killed or seriously injured on our streets. And although we haven’t gotten there yet, we need to keep trying. We’ve completed the 30th and Colorado protected intersection and underpass, which I use and love. On Baseline between 30th and Foothills Parkway, we became the first city in the U.S. to install tall concrete curbs protecting our bike lanes, replacing striped buffers and flexible posts with real physical separation, and some of those curb sections even have murals by a local artist. As a side note, I recently toured this area with our transportation team and was so impressed with all they do. I love the Baseline protected bike lane and use it all the time. We will soon be actively working on Iris Avenue and Folsom Street. I am very excited about that. Removing dangerous slip lanes has been part of nearly every one of these projects, making intersections safer for everyone, not just cyclists. It’s a genuinely comprehensive, connected network coming together corridor by corridor. I regret that it takes so long to fix things, like our land use and zoning issues. I regret how long it takes to bring new, great ideas to fruition. For instance, we all want a permanent Farmer’s Market. However, the time from when we started talking about it to when we actually have one will be years and years. I regret that I cannot instantly solve all the issues you bring to me. It’s true that business and government are not the same, as my friends on city staff tell me. However, I strive to help Boulder become a better place to live, to do business and to thrive, one problem at a time.
Is there anything else you want us to know about your candidacy and how it relates to Better Boulder’s mission?
I am all for a better Boulder, too! I’m running to help make things better and I do not claim to have all the answers, but I have confidence in my ability to ask the right questions and listen. I can help bridge interests and lead us to better days ahead!
I share your goal of creating more high-quality, affordable, safe homes!
I strongly suggest that you contact me at Lee4Boulder@yahoo.com and request my campaign’s comprehensive document which covers my positions on city’s approach to transportation. While this is not your major concern, it directly affects the livability of Boulder. I mostly do my errands on foot or by bike and certainly know about bike paths and bike lanes. Given the city’s financial situation vanity projects that increase congestion and confusion, decrease safety and totally devalue arterial roads fundamental purpose – moving traffic efficiently – are a very poor use of limited city funds.
I would encourage you to read, or even just skim, my thesis. You can find it at jillforcouncil.com. It is an extensive history of Boulder’s land-use decisions over the last 150 years, and I think much of what I found will resonate with Better Boulder’s work and values. In addition to decades of public service and advocacy, I spent years studying how Boulder became the city it is today. My work chronicles how our land-use decisions shaped housing, who gets to live here, and the economic and social outcomes we are dealing with now. I poured an enormous amount of time, heart, and frankly my own money into producing something I hope will be useful long after this campaign is over. This is a side of me that many of you do not know. I did most of this work quietly and out of the public eye for four years before I brought it into the light. I also completed it through remarkable hardship, including my kid’s dad almost dying and me being a single parent, my own father falling ill, and multiple major surgeries and injuries of my own. More than anything, I hope you will take a look, because it probably tells you more about how seriously I take these issues, and how I would approach them on Council, than anything I can fit into this questionnaire.
I understand Boulder’s affordability crisis both professionally and personally. I am a 29-year-old Political Economist with a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Leadership, a renter, and a worker at a small local restaurant. I see and experience firsthand the challenges facing independent businesses and working people, and I will approach these challenges with the urgency they demand. I would bring Council lived experience, technical training, and a commitment to coalition-building. Boulder’s challenges cannot be solved through rigid political camps or zero-sum thinking. I am running to pursue practical “win-win-win” solutions that expand housing choices, support local businesses, strengthen climate and wildfire resilience, and help working people remain rooted in the community where we live, work, and love for generations to come. I have worked in politics and public service for more than a decade, including legislative policy development, constituent services, environmental education, and on local and state campaigns. My background in political economics helps me understand Boulder’s structural challenges and how our city can better work to strengthen our local economy. My graduate training in public budgeting, policy analysis, strategic planning, and public leadership would also bring valuable expertise to Council as it confronts a structural budget deficit, a substantial facilities-maintenance backlog, and the need to improve foundational city systems. Better Boulder’s mission resonates with me because housing, transportation, economic vitality, climate action, and social inclusion are not competing goals. Thoughtful policies can advance them together. When people can live near jobs, services, transit, and community spaces, households spend less time and money commuting, businesses gain a more stable workforce, emissions decline, and neighborhoods become more vibrant and connected. Allowing more housing types and making city processes efficient, transparent, and predictable creates opportunities for people across different ages, incomes, and stages of life. Learn more: www.RachelRose4Boulder.com
Fundamentally I want to make Boulder government work better for the people that live here, I want to have an independent nonpartisan authority in place to audit how the city is doing its job, and I want us to really focus on wildfire prevention before we get into the weeds around climate policy. But most importantly, I want people with big ideas around housing and affordability and revitalizing downtown or opening a business to not have to worry about the city standing in the way of it. We’re a city of driven people: entrepreneurs, triathletes, students, and scientists all working hard to be the best at what they do. We should have a city government that embraces that energy and works with us, not against us.
I continue to align with many of the Better Boulder priorities, including a livable, vibrant city. My husband and I moved to Boulder from New York City almost 25 years ago, specifically because Boulder wasn’t too suburban, you could walk and bike to restaurants and stores, access hiking, find jobs, and were able to buy a house and raise kids. I want Boulder to continue to provide this opportunity for younger people, including my now young adult kids, by providing attainable housing, continuing to improve local and regional transportation, and supporting local employment. And, as we all face climate change, I want to ensure Boulder is prepared through wildfire resilience, water management, healthy eco-systems and trust in local government.
Yes, as mentioned answering the questions, I am in broad agreement with goals of Better Boulder. If elected, I would seek consensus through a pragmatic common-sense approach and not out of any specific ideology. I would work to gather community input much earlier in the process. Recently, it has felt as though council has already made up its mind on an issue and then asks staff to develop three to five “options.” After sitting through extensive and passionate public comment, Council ultimately selects Option 3 with minor changes. The process can feel less like a genuine response to community input and more like an illusion of choice. Thank you for considering me for your endorsement.
My candidacy is grounded in a vision of Boulder that thrives for everyone. We chose Boulder in 2011 as the best place in America to raise our family and pursue our careers. Fifteen years later, I still believe it is, but I recognize that Boulder has become increasingly unattainable for many young families and others who want to build their lives here. Better Boulder’s focus on housing affordability, economic vitality, thoughtful land use, and climate resilience closely aligns with my priorities. On City Council, I would work to turn our community’s thoughtful plans into tangible progress toward a sustainable, vibrant, and inclusive Boulder. That work must include regaining trust in city government through visible results and accountability. I support independent performance monitoring to determine whether city programs are meeting their goals and where improvements are needed. Our budget should prioritize the core services residents expect, including public safety, climate adaptability, and responsible infrastructure investment. I also support expanding missing-middle and permanently affordable housing near transit while thoughtfully pursuing incremental development in the Area III Planning Reserve. On homelessness, Boulder deserves credit for beginning to implement the recommendations of the 2025 Homelessness Strategy Update developed with Clutch Consulting. I would support sustained attention to that work and measurement of the results. My background as a civil trial lawyer has prepared me to learn and understand complexity on a wide range of topics, advocate on behalf of people and businesses, and work toward consensus. My approach to public service will be pragmatic, focusing on outcomes. My vision is a Boulder that continues to be a place of remarkable beauty and shared community values of inclusiveness, where people of all ages, incomes and backgrounds can thrive.
I am here because Black, Indigenous, Latino and other people of color deserve to have representation. Low-income families, and families raising children with disabilities deserve to have a voice and be part o decision making. I would like to ensure that we are at the tables that deliberate over things that impact us more adversely than others in many cases.
Better Boulder’s 2023 endorsement meant a great deal to me, and it matters even more now, because the work we care about is entering its hardest phase. Zoning reform on paper is the easy part. Turning it into real homes, through Title 9 and everything underneath it, is where it could stall out, and the fight has gotten tougher, with a harder climate for investments. This is a moment when your endorsement matters the most, to help protect a trajectory that’s still unfinished. Housing and transportation are what first drew me to council. I ran because Boulder’s land use was working against us, banning duplexes and ADUs almost everywhere, tying housing rights to family status, and mandating parking lots instead of homes. I’m grateful for having had the chance, backed by Better Boulder, to help legalize capacity for more than 15,000 additional homes, end Boulder’s discriminatory occupancy limits, eliminate parking minimums, make access to opportunity, not vehicle throughput, the legal goal of transportation planning, and lead the Core Arterial Network’s traffic-calming redesigns on Iris, Folsom, and North 30th as one of its architects. I’m running to finish that work. I want to turn the BVCP and Title 9 into homes people can actually move into, and keep building the kind of Boulder where families, workers, and seniors all have real options to stay. That’s the same future I think Better Boulder is working toward, and I’d be glad to keep building it together.
I have been strolling down memory lane since deciding to run for re-election and mulling over how much (or how little) I have changed in the five years I have been on Council. In 2021, I knew nothing about land use and zoning. Nothing. But I developed a lot of relationships in this community that helped me learn. I studied hard, visited development sites, and met with as many constituents as possible. I feel Better Boulder and I are well aligned. You entrusted me with your endorsement in 2023, and I hope you will do so again in 2026.