Boulder has a council-manager government. Nine of us set policy together and the city manager runs the organization. The mayor has one vote, chairs the meetings, and speaks for the city.
The work described below reflects a shared effort. I have identified where I drafted a proposal, advocated for an issue, or cast the sole vote. I have also credited the colleagues, organizers, and voters whose leadership made this progress possible.
2015
Elected to City Council
I ran on housing, transportation, and climate.
2017
Cooperative housing became legal
I helped draft the ordinance and pushed for the amendments and extra hearings it took to get through. Co-ops that had operated in a gray area for years finally had a legal path. The licensing system we built turned out to be far too complicated, and in 2025 I supported scrapping it for straightforward health and safety standards.
Sanctuary city protections
Council guaranteed access to city services regardless of immigration status and limited how far the city would go in assisting federal immigration enforcement.
Tax relief for local brewers and distillers
We repealed the manufacturers tax that had been hitting Boulder breweries, distilleries, and wineries.
2019
Reelected to council
Police oversight
I worked with Councilmember Mary Young and the NAACP on choosing an oversight task force. When council voted to exclude Sammie Lawrence, a Black resident who had been arrested while filming police, I was the only member who voted against it. That task force led to the independent monitor and the oversight panel we created the following year.
2020
Winter shelter, open every night
I brought this proposal in 2019 with Mayor Suzanne Jones and it failed. I brought it back in January 2020. Council agreed unanimously to keep severe weather shelter open nightly through March 31, instead of only on nights that crossed a temperature threshold. The added cost was roughly $40,000.
Slower residential streets
Speed limits dropped from 25 to 20 mph.
Police Oversight Panel created
A directly elected mayor on the ballot
More than 78% of voters approved it.
2021
Appointed mayor
My colleagues selected me in November.
Racial Equity Plan adopted
By the city’s 2024 report, over 2,500 employees had gone through training and 98% of departments had equity teams.
2022
Voters passed a dedicated climate tax
Roughly $6.5 million a year for electrification, resilience, wildfire mitigation, and microgrids, with equity priorities written into it.
Gun safety ordinances
Assault-style weapons, large-capacity magazines, ghost guns, a minimum age of 21, restrictions near schools and other sensitive places, and a 10-day waiting period. Councilmember Rachel Friend led this one.
An independent library district
After years of argument, voters approved dedicated funding.
East Boulder Subcommunity Plan
The framework for thousands of future homes on the east side.
2023
Elected mayor in Boulder’s first direct mayoral election
Occupancy limits raised
From three unrelated people to five. Colorado did not require this of us.
The electrification ask
In June I asked our climate staff to come back with a building code requiring full electrification, which went past where they had landed.
CARE began responding
Clinician and paramedic teams started taking selected lower-acuity behavioral health and medical calls instead of police.
2024
All-electric new construction
Council adopted the code unanimously. At the time Boulder was the largest city in Colorado requiring new homes and commercial buildings to be built without gas.
The residential growth cap, repealed
It never worked the way it was supposed to.
Boulder’s first local minimum wage
It started at $15.57 and has risen every year since. Councilmember Lauren Folkerts wrote the ordinance.
Faster permitting for small business
Something I had been raising since my first council retreat. A median seven-month approval process came down to weeks.
Alpine-Balsam broke ground
217 homes planned, 157 of them permanently affordable.
2025
Parking mandates, gone
I have been working on this since my Planning Board days more than a decade ago. Boulder went further than state law asked and eliminated minimums citywide.
Occupancy limits, gone
Decades of family-based restrictions replaced with plain health and safety standards.
Wildfire building standards
Fire-resistant construction and defensible landscaping in an expanded wildland-urban interface, which grew from about 4,600 properties to more than 16,000. Existing homes are still not covered, which is the obvious gap.
Sundance chose Boulder
A ten-year agreement starting in 2027. Visit Boulder, the city manager’s office, state officials, CU, and business groups did the work of landing it.
After the Pearl Street attack
I spoke for Boulder through the national and international aftermath. Council meetings had been badly disrupted for months, and in July we changed the meeting rules. Disruptions dropped sharply. The same rules shortened public comment and ended video of commenters, which people are right to argue about, and we should have dealt with it sooner than we did.
2026
Tipped wages
I voted against slowing the scheduled base wage increases for tipped workers.
The climate math
Independent analysis says we need to roughly double our pace of emissions cuts to hit the 2030 goal. That is the job in front of us.
Important work ahead
The next two years
My priority now is to build on the work we have already started: moving approved housing into construction, accelerating progress toward our climate target, and continuing successful programs like the day services center at the All Roads shelter so more people can benefit.
