Boulder Weekly sent candidate questionnaires to all state primary candidates. These are their written responses, edited for length and clarity. Find a full list of candidates and questionnaires here
Office: Colorado House of Representatives, District 10
Campaign website: friendsoftinamueh.org/
Relevant experience
Boulder Valley School District science educator for more than 30 years
Member of Colorado’s Pension Review Subcommittee
Planned Parenthood of the Rockies board member and chair of its political action arm
President of the Boulder Valley Education Association
Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association (PERA) Trustee
PhD, MA, and BA degrees in biology from CU-Boulder
Volunteer involvement in local and statewide campaigns and civic issues
Priorities
- Public education
- Affordability for workers and families
- The shift to clean energy
Lightning round
Yes or no answers only
Do you support the state’s elimination of local occupancy limits? No
Do you support ending the state’s prohibition on local rent control? Yes
Do you support more density in your jurisdiction as a way to address the affordable housing crisis? Yes
Do you support the Front Range train as the state’s highest priority for passenger rail? Yes
When was the last time you paid rent? How much was it?
~1994, $800/month
If you count the CU dorm, Kitt West, I paid rent at six different places in House District 10. One apartment was behind the now-non-existent Denny’s on Baseline, and the next was on Goss with three other roommates (illegal). In the next one on South Walnut, I climbed a ladder to a loft which the landlord called a bedroom (if anyone came to inspect, I was supposed to deny living there — also illegal).
Then I moved to a condo on Edison, and finally to an apartment near Eisenhower where my roommate and I put a very high percentage of our miniscule paychecks toward rent. My yearly taxable income was about $16,000 then, and after conferring with my old roommate, we remember we each paid $800 per month — it was a stretch. That was in about 1994.
What would you say are the top issues facing HD10, and what are your plans to address them?
- Public education. Although Boulder is fortunate to have generous taxpayers willing to fund our BVSD schools, resources are still inadequate to meet the growing needs of our students. The percentage of students with special needs is actually increasing, without the increase in funding to accommodate the growing need. This legislative session saw some positive steps toward appropriate funding, but I’d like to work toward a dedicated funding stream for public education that doesn’t have to compete each year for General Fund resources.
- Affordability for workers and families. Improving the standard of living for workers can help people meet the cost of living. Low- and middle-income Coloradans need good unions! Collective bargaining for all workers is a proven way to shift people from one income level to the next. Additionally, retirement security is important so aging residents can afford to stay in their communities. I’ll work to promote collective bargaining and to ensure the security of PERA, our public pension system, for the over 43,000 members in Boulder County.
Housing is a basic human need, which shouldn’t be completely at the whim of the market. I’d support ideas like fair approaches to rent stabilization, incentives for landlords who keep rent affordable, increasing ADUs or taking good ideas from Boulder like our Housing Legacy Program and subsidizing deed-restricted properties.
- Clean energy. I support Colorado’s participation in Community Choice Energy to help reach climate goals. Embracing CCE can help Boulder achieve our 100% renewable/carbon neutrality objectives, while other communities could significantly increase use of clean power.
Developing green energy infrastructure on a large scale is imperative to reduce our climate and environmental impacts. The Inflation Reduction Act opened the door for research, innovation and infrastructure projects, but the U.S. needs an all-out focus on clean energy ASAP.
How do you plan to balance the necessary evolution of our transportation system with current realities of car-dependency such that people who have to drive aren’t too negatively impacted, but people who don’t have to are encouraged to make other choices?
We have finite resources and space for new infrastructure, so I think it will be best to prioritize and do certain things well instead of too many things poorly. For bike and pedestrian paths, cities should build or manage practical networks so people can reach the most important areas safely along dedicated or separated paths, but cities probably can’t prioritize new paths on every street.
If cities consider removing auto traffic lanes to create alternative mode lanes, careful and data-driven thought should be given to how much it would exacerbate congestion. Some congestion at rush hours is probably unavoidable, but excessive congestion is frustrating, time-consuming, and might even increase pollution if gas-fueled vehicles spend more time idling.
Some people probably avoid cycling because of safety concerns, so we should emphasize safety education campaigns and consider programs like Boulder’s Vision Zero and Core Arterial Network for safety in physical design. The state’s Revitalizing Main Streets program is a good example of how we can foster multimodal transportation systems (multimodal includes driving) that work well for unique downtowns with unique characteristics.
Colorado has challenges with transit. While the legislature has debated statewide legislation, most of our transit organizations are district-based like RTD. We should continually examine priorities, since transit works very well when there is demand at both the starting point and the destination. We’ve all been on packed buses from Boulder to DIA, for example. But we also need to be realistic about the heavy costs, including employees, vehicles, maintenance and infrastructure. It’s promising that the state passed several bills this year to better fund transit, and I’d like to hope it will be enough to enable better service frequencies and make transit appeal to significantly more people.
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 D10?
For HD10 specifically, I think it’s actually possible for us to do a lot of mitigation with resources we already have within reach. This includes state and local funding, plus the federal government contributes through FEMA mitigation grants. In 2022, local voters passed a county fire mitigation tax plus a new city climate tax that could be used for fire mitigation. City utility ratepayers will probably fund much of the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project. Local property owners pay a mill levy to Mile High Flood District that can be used on flood mitigation projects in Boulder and throughout the district.
Our General Assembly has passed many bills over recent years including funding for mitigation, and we should continue to look for opportunities because proper mitigation can be well worth the cost if it prevents more costly damage due to natural disasters. With state programs, it’s important to remember there will be competition for grant funding because we have a very big state with wildfire-prone forests, and the potential for other disasters. Also, disasters don’t respect district boundaries — for example, a wildfire or flood that could impact HD10 might originate in HD49. It’s important to have grants available for individual projects, but also state or regional planning through entities like our Natural Disaster Mitigation Enterprise to identify top priorities and hopefully minimize the greatest risks for catastrophic damage.
We face an uncertain future due to climate change and we might have to adapt to a certain extent, plus the specific risks will probably be different every year. But with planning and foresight, we should be able to mitigate for things that are reasonably foreseeable, like flooding potential near the many drainageways that run through HD10.
How does JEDI factor into your policy making?
For the “J” part of this acronym, I think the famous image of Lady Justice holding scales is a good place to start, because the scales symbolize balance. As a policymaker, it will be essential to consider how to make sure laws neither punish offenders excessively nor enable people to victimize the innocent with impunity. I don’t believe justice always has to refer to punishment, and we should look at alternatives including preventative justice to possibly keep people out of trouble in the first place, and restorative justice to help make victims whole without employing potentially harmful punitive measures. But I will not deny there are crimes that rise to the level of deserving punishment, again with balance to make sure the penalties match the severity of the violation.
For the EDI part of the acronym, I was trained in DEI as a BVSD educator. BVSD has a program called Excellence Through Equity that really spoke to me because I want everyone to succeed and have access to pathways to that success. Equity efforts done right can provide the individualized support a person might need to prosper or flourish, and it’s important to remember individuals don’t necessarily have the same needs to reach the levels to which they aspire. I know Diversity and Inclusion are vital if we want a well-functioning society. With strong levels of inclusion, people who might have otherwise shunned civic engagement can be encouraged to seek active and participatory roles and lend their talents to improving our institutions or structures. Among the many benefits of diversity, it brings unique perspectives and voices into group dynamics, potentially ensuring decisions or policies are more comprehensive as we consider the potential harms or benefits of any proposal.
What efforts do you make in your daily life to consider and understand people with different lived experiences from your own?
I’ve done this as an educator on a near-daily basis for the past 30 years. People might think of Boulder as a wealthy monolith, but my students and their families through the years have come from most walks of life, including recent immigrants who spoke minimal English, families struggling due to poverty, students with challenging home situations and students facing sexual identity questions/issues, to name a few.
I’ve had lots of experience working with people with different lived experiences. It’s given me a framework to help recognize what people might be going through and to think about ways to demonstrate care and empathy and to help when possible. I always start by listening respectfully to gauge the kind of assistance that will be appropriate and welcome.
Responses to challenges without consideration of lived experience and cultural differences can exacerbate problems. Successful approaches require relationship building and authentic engagement to inform comprehensive solutions.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something, and what was it?
When Bedrooms Are for People was first proposed, I saw it as a renters’ rights initiative. Having lived illegally with more than three unrelated roommates (as a young CU student, I didn’t actually know that was illegal because it was so prevalent and not really explained in lease agreements), and having lived in a “room” that definitely didn’t have a closet or emergency egress, I thought passing Bedrooms would shine a light on some Boulder landlords coaxing naive renters into un-occupiable spaces.
After watching the debate about that initiative, it was clear that investigating rental unit conditions and landlord behavior wasn’t really the intent of the proposal, and there was no clear path to ensuring increased affordability. In fact, after the Boulder City Council adopted a watered-down version by increasing the number of allowed occupants, a landlord I talked to said, “Great, I’ll just make more money.” Although I initially thought the idea had promise, I was eventually disappointed.
What question would you ask a fellow candidate on the ballot?
A question for the other HD10 candidate: On a fundraising letter, you wrote “This is not the job I have always wanted,” definitely referring to HD10, and that you have “sacrificed my wage-earning years” to hold the HD10 job. What is it that you really want to do?