Did You Know?

Growing up, I learned to do what needs to be done, and don’t make a big deal about it. Here are some things you might not know about my work as a Boulder City Councilmember.

Led the city to adopt financial strategies to provide the best services for the lowest costs. Prompted a public conversation about how to budget Boulder’s buildings and infrastructure for the long term by co-writing an op-ed with Mark Wallach on the scale of Boulder’s $500 million-plus deferred maintenance backlog across 75 public buildings. Pressed for budgeting approaches that lead Boulder towards long-term financial sustainability, building on my Financial Strategy Committee work. Championed new city commitments for a cross-departmental customer experience hub. Held big decisions to high standards, calling for the proposal for a downtown development authority and a forever commitment to the airport to be evaluated against strong financial criteria before approving. See here for my perspective on how to make Boulder financially strong.

Co-authored Council’s 2026 wildfire workplan priority. Proposed creation of a cost-benefit list of measures, representing half the work council adopted for the 2026 workplan item to improve wildfire protection (the other half is a home hardening hub) which it is now implementing. The initiative creates a foundation for council to consider new large-scale action beyond new building standards. Building on that, now advocating to establish hardening goals and a plan to significantly increase community-wide protections, while creating a wildfire hardening marketplace bringing providers of turnkey affordable services to homeowners, renters, and landlords to implement projects that collectively protect the community from destructive fires.

Led Council’s push to minimize the damage from power shutoffs and hold Xcel accountable. Pressed Xcel directly after its April 2024 mass shutoff affected 55,000 residents, then authored council’s formal 2026 statement of expectations and correspondence to Xcel, covering wildfire mitigation transparency, grid reliability investment, and accountability for shutoff decisions. Now pushing the city’s power resilience initiative toward a concrete roadmap for grid hardening, undergrounding, neighborhood-scale generation, and state policy advocacy so Boulder has options when the grid doesn’t deliver.

Brought clear, holistic thinking and leadership to advance major reforms for housing and related affordability. Have consistently supported land use reforms to allow and encourage ADUs, duplexes, other multiplexes, and cooperative living arrangements that bring down the cost of housing and create housing that better meets people’s needs. As part of that, have been a leading voice for policy to integrate housing, walkability, transit, and neighborhood shops and services. Authored ordinance 8702, making access to opportunity the legal goal of transportation planning, also integrated into the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, and have been Council’s leading voice to improve public transit frequency and reliability near home while advancing 15-minute neighborhoods. Now advocating to update Title 9 of city code to turn these reforms into homes and infrastructure built. Co-led council’s direction to update the Climate Action Plan elevating the role of housing.

Have been Council’s leading advocate to advance transformational climate solutions while making life better. Co-led Council’s decision to update and strengthen Boulder’s Climate Action Plan, Led numerous initiatives that have helped to meaningfully pivot Boulder towards fuller climate action while improving our options for housing, transportation, electrification, and more. See here for more.

Led Council’s push to protect Boulder from coal ash pollution. Authored the city’s formal correspondence to Xcel demanding independent, real-time air quality monitoring at the Valmont cleanup site, tracking particulate matter, heavy metals, and radioactive elements beyond permitting minimums, and helped strengthen Boulder’s official coal ash position in its 2026 intergovernmental policy statement while working directly with state legislators. Continuing to hold Xcel and other industrial actors to strong, independent monitoring standards.

Led the push for worker cooperatives and fought to keep wages rising for Boulder’s lowest-paid workers. Voted to raise Boulder’s minimum wage to $15.57 with built-in 8 percent annual increases, opposed 2026 tip credit changes that would have cut pay for the city’s lowest-paid workers, and led the effort to make worker cooperatives a city program area. Working to keep expanding worker cooperatives as a genuine path to local ownership and stability.

Led the push to stop Boulder’s use of Flock license plate cameras. Said since 2026 that Boulder should stop using automated license plate readers (“ALPRs”), and backed the changes that have already tightened the city’s agreement—a 30-day data retention cap, no sharing or selling of city data, access controls, and pausing new contracts. Pushing council to adopt one surveillance policy with clear principles for how, why, and when the city uses this kind of technology, so decisions stop getting made vendor by vendor.

Helped get pesticides off BVSD school grounds. Played a leading role in a parent-led effort to launch a partnership with Boulder Valley School District converting school grounds to pesticide- and herbicide-free, climate-resilient landscapes. Continuing to push city policy to treat school enrollment, family affordability, and healthy school environments as connected problems, and to expand childcare access beyond the families lucky enough to find scarce spots.

Helped save Alaya preschool. Helped Alaya, a 50-year old Boulder gem at risk of closing when its property came up for sale, by elevating its fundraising effort and work with the school as it navigates city permits.

Co-led council’s workplan on bicycle security. Co-authored with Tara Winer Council’s 2026 priority initiative to reduce bike theft and increase ridership citywide with a combined focus on bicycle parking infrastructure and problem-solving policing.

Led changes to council meeting procedure that restored order after months of disruption. Helped craft reforms addressing a breakdown in council meeting operations after 19 recesses and multiple rescheduled agenda items, restructuring comment timing and format while protecting residents’ rights to speak. Continuing to protect council’s time for the biggest decisions, pushing to delegate more routine business, like most landmarking, to boards and commissions.

Championed the city government’s shift to focus on outcomes while improving service delivery with concrete controls. Helped create a streamlined review category that lets routine permits skip mandatory Planning Board review, a critical area of work that goes beyond policy reforms and takes responsibility for the user experience and costs associated with uncertainty and hassle. Have been a leading voice in support of the city’s wider shift toward outcomes-based budgeting, moving from earmarking money for departments to evaluating programs and investments by what they deliver. Now advocating for a cross-departmental customer service hub, so residents get help without bouncing between departments.

Championed acceleration of Boulder’s work to implement best practice for financial stewardship.  Have pushed to develop a published long-term financial strategy as part of my role on Council’s Financial Strategy Committee. Now pushing to also extend the city’s strong standards and controls for buildings which have been in place since 2021 to all capital investments as well as other big commitments that have financial implications prior to decisions.

Held big decisions to high standards. Have approached major decisions by insisting clarity on big-picture success measures, which led to voting no on council’s 4-4 split referring a downtown development authority to voters and voting against council’s 5-4 decision to accept FAA grants that created perpetuity obligations on airport land without a sufficient analysis of liabilities and alternatives. Now pushing for the creation of long-term financial health dashboard that major commitments are evaluated against.

Held public office hours every Thursday to make city government accessible. Paired weekly office hours with my own website’s progress report, journal, and viewpoints pages, modeling the transparency I want from the rest of city government. Continuing weekly office hours as one piece of a broader push to make Boulder’s government transparent and accountable by design.