Boulder Weekly sent candidate questionnaires to all primary candidates in local and state races. These are their written responses, edited for length and clarity. Find a full list of candidates and questionnaires here
Office: Boulder County Commissioner, District 1 (incumbent)
Campaign website: claireforbouldercounty.org
Relevant experience
Boulder County Commissioner, 2021-present
Executive Director of Colorado Center on Law and Policy* (CCLP), 2013-2019
*CCLP is a statewide policy advocacy organization whose mission is to advance access to health care and economic security of low-income Coloradans through advocacy, education, coalition building and litigation.
Colorado House of Representatives, HD13, 2007-2013
25 years as a practicing attorney in the field of land use and local government, civil litigation and criminal appellate litigation.
Service on the board of Boulder Housing Partners, Boulder Planning Board, Boulder County
Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee and Boulder County Housing Authority
Priorities
- Mental health (increasing services with dedicated revenue stream; particular focus on children and adolescents, substance use, crisis intervention and stabilization, underserved populations)
- Affordable housing (distributing funding, acquisitions, ownership and homelessness prevention, with focus on low-income workers, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, families and seniors)
- Transportation (multi-modal trails, increased transit, safety improvements, strategic plan)
There are many things I want to work on, some of which are wholly internal to Boulder County government and some of which are more outward facing. I am listing three, but these are not to the exclusion of supporting other vital work in Boulder County to address climate change, wildlife and native plant habitat preservation, supporting agriculture and promoting racial equity.
Lightning round
Yes/no answers only
Do you support the state’s elimination of local occupancy limits? Yes
Do you support implementation of rent control locally? No
Do you support requiring more density in Boulder County as a way to address the affordable housing crisis? Yes, but not in unincorporated Boulder County
Do you support the Front Range train as the state’s highest priority for passenger rail? Yes
What are you most proud of from your most recent term?
- Pandemic response. Supporting Boulder County front line staff who worked through the pandemic in areas of child protection, food security, rental assistance, public benefits enrollment, public health, public safety, road maintenance and so much more to take care of the most essential public needs during a time of anxiety and heightened need. Along with that, I am proud of the way we distributed ARPA funds to address the most pressing needs identified by Boulder County’s most vulnerable residents.
- Marshall Fire response. All of the Marshall Fire response efforts including securing unprecedented FEMA assistance for private property debris removal and a 90/10 federal match, supporting case management for distributing financial assistance, enacting land use code provisions to support expedited rebuilding, rebating sales and use taxes for construction materials, and responding personally to a myriad of individual needs as people rebuilt from a devastating disaster.
- Sales taxes. Securing voter approval for four dedicated sales taxes: an extension of a transportation sales tax for multimodal transportation improvements; a new sales tax for wildfire mitigation; a new sales tax for emergency search and rescue response; and repurposing an expiring sales tax for affordable housing. Before the end of my first term, I hope to have also secured voter approval for a small property tax levy for mental and behavioral health care.
It is difficult to limit my response to three things when the past 3.5 years have included action on many significant issues for Boulder County such as ending the mine that fed the Cemex Cement Plant, passing gun violence prevention ordinances, changing our budgeting process to address employee compensation before addressing other funding needs, and open space remediation from the Calwood Fire.
When was the last time you paid rent? How much was it?
My former husband and I bought our first house in Boulder in 1987 for $127,000. Before that we rented a house in Martin Acres. I don’t remember what the rent was but it was affordable for two people earning entry-level salaries. We rented an apartment in an old building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Denver when we first moved to Colorado.
I am fully aware of how fortunate I am to have been able to buy a house in Boulder. When I moved to Boulder, households with a modest income could afford to live here. One neighbor was a mechanic and another was a machinist at Rocky Flats. Our Table Mesa house rapidly appreciated in value, which allowed us to make a large enough down payment that our monthly mortgage payments barely increased when purchasing a larger house after we had children.
Were it not for the fact that I bought a house here in 1987, I could not be a homeowner in Boulder today.
Top three issues facing Boulder County, and what are your plans to address them in a way that differs from the current approach?
- High cost of housing. The most direct action Boulder County can take is to preserve and develop more housing that is affordable to people at or below 60% of Area Median Income through the Boulder County Housing Authority. This will create more housing opportunities for lower-paid service workers and people who are unable to work for whatever reason. It will not address the market conditions that are causing the lack of housing affordable to middle income earners. We should use a portion of the newly approved affordable housing tax to expand Boulder’s affordable homeownership program. Additional for-sale multi-family development is needed, which I believe can be most sustainably provided in municipalities. To address the high cost of construction, local governments should donate land or reduce development fees in exchange for affordable deed restrictions.
- Lack of adequate funding for human services. More funds are needed to prevent eviction, provide child care assistance, provide child protection services, address food insecurity and more. Boulder County has a small dedicated funding source for this, but it isn’t sufficient. I have proposed a direct cash payment program for low-income households with young children. Studies have shown this to be an effective way to end poverty. We also need to get the federal and state governments to address this statewide and national need. Finally, we should consider repurposing expiring sales taxes for human services.
- Environmental stresses caused by climate change. Boulder County needs to optimize its use of the voter-approved sustainability tax, continue to vigorously resist additional oil and gas extraction, and support the shift to electrification that is powered by renewable energy sources. None of these are new ideas. We need to remain focused on the ultimate goal and be strategic in our investments.
What do you believe the county’s role should be in addressing and/or leading the response to regional crises such as housing and homelessness? What, if anything, would you like to change about the current role the county plays?
Across each of these areas, I believe the county is serving the appropriate role of a county government. We just need to have more resources so that together we can serve more people. What is missing, though, is enough developments such as the new Bluebird project that can house those who are hardest to house because of mental illness and substance use disorders. The county housing authority should partner with Boulder Shelter for the Homeless and Mental Health Partners to development at least one similar project.
As is often observed, homelessness is a housing problem. If there were adequate housing at affordable rates with the services required to help people at risk of homelessness, there wouldn’t be a crisis of homelessness.
I believe the county has a critical role in supporting regional solutions to both of these crises. Housing and job markets are regional and no single municipality can address the cost of housing and causes of homelessness on its own. We are already working regionally through the Boulder County Housing Authority, which develops and preserves affordable housing throughout the county. The increase in state funding together with voter-approved local funds can help us step up the pace of housing development.
Boulder County also coordinates the Regional Housing Partnership, which brings together housing departments across the county to collectively achieve the goal of 12% of housing stock being permanently affordable. Through this partnership, we can bring efficiencies and consistency to inclusionary housing regulations and streamline utilization of housing vouchers throughout the county.
In addition, Boulder County hosts Homeless Solutions for Boulder County, which works with the city of Boulder and Longmont to connect unhoused people with housing and supportive services through outreach and coordinated entry services. Other communities in Boulder County should be encouraged to join this effort.
What is the ideal balance of local action on transportation vs. continued reliance on RTD? What should the county’s role be in providing local transit and/or transportation solutions?
Residents of Boulder County need RTD to provide regional transportation services between communities in Boulder County and other parts of the District. Given the geographic size of the RTD and the need to serve everyone from transit-dependent dense Denver neighborhoods to more auto-centric communities, RTD cannot meet all the demand. Its Service Optimization Plan to restore service following cuts in the pandemic illustrate that problem.
The city of Boulder’s Hop, Skip, Jump, Bound, etc. demonstrate that local transit can be successful. RTD contributes most of the funds for those routes. This model supports more robust use of the regional service councils (Boulder County is one such council) that RTD is now funding in limited amounts. I think RTD should distribute more funds to regional service councils that can use those funds together with local sources and state/federal grants. These distributions would have to be balanced with RTD’s obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to serve minority and vulnerable populations.
Boulder County secured federal ARPA funds to provide some of this kind of local service by funding a bus between Boulder and Lyons, the Climb bus to Gold Hill, free circulator service in East County, supporting the Hop and soon a circulator bus in Gunbarrel. With grant funds for a county-wide strategic transit plan, we can determine whether these are the right services and seek additional funds to expand local service.
If the legislature approves SB24-230 with new funding for local transit agencies, I want to consider having Boulder County along with its municipalities and adjacent communities become a Regional Transportation Authority so that we are eligible for a portion of those new funds. That, together with the county-wide transit plan and RTD distributions would allow us to adequately serve our county.
Given the realities of a changing climate and limited government resources, how do you plan on balancing mitigation and adaptation for already-impacted populations in Boulder County?
The voters of Boulder County approved a sales tax in 2016 that is dedicated to sustainability, climate action and resilience. We are able to fund programs that help property owners use less energy, support building electrification, soil health projects, environmental justice, zero waste programs, renewable energy and more. These local funds allow Boulder County to seek federal grants through the Inflation Reduction Act to bring additional resources to Boulder County such as the recent $5 million grant award to install EV charging stations throughout the county with a particular focus on lower-income communities.
I am fully behind Boulder County’s efforts to increase the energy efficiency of mobile homes and older housing stock that is owned by low- and middle-income residents. We are making similar efforts with respect to encouraging EV ownership.
As the planet warms, it is evident that in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing energy consumption, we also need to mitigate the effects of extreme heat on people who don’t have air conditioning or who work outside. We need to increase the tree canopy to provide shade and reduce the heat island effect from all the hardscape infrastructure. Low-income communities suffer disproportionate impacts of climate change and should be disproportionately benefited from public spending to offset the impacts. Providing seed money for organizations that are working on environmental justice is an essential part of this work.
We need to make our infrastructure resilient to extreme weather events and increasing amounts of rainfall. It took over 10 years following the 2013 flood to rebuild damaged roads and trails and rehabilitate open space habitat. While Boulder County does have some resources to fund this kind of mitigation, we are seeking to hold the major oil companies responsible for these expenses in ground-breaking litigation.
How does JEDI factor into your policy making?
Before I was elected to be a Boulder County Commissioner, I was the Executive Director of a nonprofit policy advocacy organization that advocated for access to health care and economic security for low-income Coloradans. Our work was grounded in addressing systemic barriers to health equity and economic security, which required that we scrutinize the systems that fed disparities in the social determinants of health and trap people in low-wage service jobs. We sought to tackle the racial wealth divide and the policies that created historic income inequality. The organization I led recognized that systemic racism underpinned and supported the conditions that we sought to ameliorate. We could not do that work effectively without grounding our advocacy in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.
I strive to bring that same scrutiny to the decisions I make as a county commissioner. We make decisions on compensation and benefits, organizational matters, personnel, contracts for major projects and programs and services delivered by county departments. Our policy decisions have a direct impact on the quality of life of people in Boulder County. We oversee a $600 million organization. In all of these matters, we need to be considering what the implications are with respect to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.
In 2022, the commissioners approved the creation of a new Office of Racial Equity with a staff of four people who were charged with working on racial equity within Boulder County government.
I recognize that political power in Boulder County has always been dominated by white people and that many people of color do not feel their voices are heard or valued. For my part, I am pleased that we are elevating community engagement and language access to try to bring better balance to our decisions. We have a long way to go.
What efforts do you make in your daily life to consider and understand people with different lived experiences from your own?
In my view, it is my duty as an elected official to understand people with different lived experiences from my own. That’s what being an elected official is all about, and I could not do my job well if I only acted from the perspective of people like me.
I have benefited from a tremendous amount of privilege — as a white woman, as the child of two parents who both had college degrees and as one who was able to graduate from college without debt. I did not legislate on behalf of my demographic when I was a State Representative, and I try not to make policy decisions through the lens of my demographic cohort as a county commissioner.
Attending community events is one way to understand other people’s lived experience. I meet with community-based organizations that serve people who have been marginalized by our economic and political power structure. I read a lot of policy materials to inform myself about the human services and community services programs that Boulder County provides and how we can improve them.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something, and what was it?
Recently, in voting on a management plan for a new Boulder County open space area, I voted to remove trails that staff had planned in one area out of 1,400 acres of open space. I took that position because of letters and testimony sent to the Board of County Commissioners that asked for stronger protection of bird nesting areas than the management plan called for.
After the hearing, I reflected more on the outreach our Parks and Open Space staff had done to communities that don’t often use our mountain open space properties. These communities wanted recreational opportunities that were welcoming to families in a natural area that wasn’t a city park.
After considering the community input and the work our staff had done, and after visiting the site yet again, I came to the conclusion that I had made the wrong decision. Because the management plan had not been finalized, I requested that a portion of the trail that I had earlier voted to remove be restored to the plan (continuing to remove the trail through the area I viewed as the most critical piece). I came to see that I needed to honor the community engagement our staff had done and reconsidered whether they had struck the appropriate balance between habitat preservation and recreational access.
I try to keep an open mind and not form firm opinions without thinking through carefully all aspects of an issue. I read the messages people send us and listen to the testimony they provide. Because of this, I have changed my initial opinion that was just based on reading our staff memo on land use cases. I also try to be open to compromising when another commissioner has strong beliefs and I don’t have similarly strong beliefs.
What question would you ask a fellow candidate on the ballot?
Candidates are typically asked what their position is on currently pending hot-button issues or on recent controversial decisions. But that often doesn’t tell a voter how a candidate would vote once in office on the myriad of issues that will arise in the future. I also find that candidates are asked for their position on issues that aren’t relevant for the particular office they seek. So I think it is as important to know how a candidate thinks, how they make decisions, what the foundation is for their view of the world — and more specifically the area for which they seek to enact policies — and how well they know what the job is and what it takes to be successful in that position.
To get at that, I would ask broad open-ended questions about what they read, how they make decisions, what people or ideas have most influenced them and circumstances in which they have had to collaborate and compromise.