Acting locally to mitigate climate change and its effects, creating more affordable housing for people from all walks of life, and revitalizing commercial centers, especially downtown Louisville, rank as my top three goals as a City Councilor. Achieving these interconnected goals will secure a thriving Louisville for generations to come.

Presently, the effects of climate change pose the greatest threat to our environment and, therefore, to ourselves: our environment sustains us, including the economy to which we all contribute, so we must sustain our environment. As a City Councilor I will lead our efforts to meet the City’s science-based climate goals. In particular, building upon my work as a former member of Louisville's Sustainability Advisory Board, I will ensure that the City supports businesses, like Parma Trattoria, in doing their part, for instance, through the City’s forthcoming commercial decarbonization grant program.

Like many municipalities across Colorado and the nation, Louisville desperately needs more affordable housing. In particular, some businesses have concerns about their ability to hire and retain employees as many people who work in Louisville cannot afford to live in Louisville, and many businesses would benefit from the expanded customer base provided by more housing. Louisville joined a Boulder County-wide effort to increase the County's percentage of affordable housing units to 12% by 2035. As a City Councilor I will continue to work resolutely towards this goal. 

For most residents, especially of Ward 1, revitalizing downtown Louisville is top-of-mind. I envision a downtown economically revitalized, culturally reinvigorated, and sustainably redesigned, home to well-established businesses, new restaurants and shops, diverse residences, and thriving arts, brimming with pedestrians and bicyclists. As a City Councilor I will continue to work enthusiastically with all stakeholders to achieve this vision, captured in part by the Downtown Vision Plan and forthcoming Comprehensive Plan.

As Louisville’s governing body, City Council's primary role is to make decisions on behalf of the City. While City staff make most day-to-day decisions, City Council makes most high-level decisions. These decisions — ranging from policy to development to planning — inform subsequent decisions made by staff, boards and commissions, residents, business owners, and visitors.  

In making decisions City Councilors have a great many responsibilities. First and foremost, City Councilors have the responsibility of representing their constituents’ best interests. Such representation requires attentive and respectful listening to constituents' thoughts, questions, and concerns followed by voicing these interests to the relevant parties. City Councilors bear much the same responsibility towards business owners and visitors. Equally importantly, City Councilors have the responsibility of working towards the City's mission, developed by the City's residents and businesses to advance the City's best interests, and planning for the City's future, envisioned in the City's Comprehensive Plan. As part and parcel of such work, City Councilors have the responsibility of ensuring that City staff ably and responsibly run the City, especially by proficiently providing the services on which residents, businesses, and visitors rely. City Council must ultimately ensure that the City runs within its own means, respecting financial, staffing, and other constraints. In all decision making City Councilors also have the joint responsibilities of upholding local, state, and federal law and respecting the rights of all relevant individuals and groups. City Councilors should also consider regional, national, and global constraints and necessities, historical and socioeconomic contexts, and the wellbeing of the natural world. To ensure equitable and inclusive decision making, City Councillors should be consciously thoughtful, open-minded, and deliberative.

City Council has a further role in serving the community — residents, business owners, and visitors — beyond representing them in decision-making: City Councilors should assist community members in their interactions with the City. As a City Councilor I have strived to always assist community members from helping to resolve business contract misunderstandings to helping to remediate impacts of infrastructure installations.

In a vital economy all of its constituents — businesses, organizations, employees, consumers, and government — should enjoy the fruits of economic activity. These constituents' economic vitalities are intimately interconnected: for instance, thriving businesses support the City's fiscal sustainability, and well-paid employees consume more goods and services. As a City Councilor I will keenly bear in mind these interconnections as I continue to work towards my priorities for economic vitality. 

Revitalization of greater downtown Louisville, building a thriving, inclusive, and equitable economy for all of its constituents, and transformation of the McCaslin corridor rank as my top three priorities. I have discussed aspects of downtown revitalization in another response. To build a thriving, inclusive, and equitable economy in Louisville, we must address a host of issues that will increasingly hinder our economic vitality if not confronted, most especially housing affordability for people from all walks of life and adaptation to, mitigation of, and resilience to climate change. Since I touch upon these two issues in another response, I turn to my third priority.

The McCaslin corridor has immense potential for transformation into an urban economic center surrounded by vibrant neighborhoods, social gathering spaces, and an arts scene all fused together by much more walkable and bikeable connections. To realize such a transformation, the City should ride the recent wave of revitalization: Biodesix occupying the former Kohl's, Relish reimagining the former Sam's Club, a King Soopers Marketplace approved for the former Lowe’s, and the University of Colorado redeveloping the former Cinebarre. As a City Councilor I proposed convening a McCaslin corridor task force following the Comprehensive Plan update, and I will work enthusiastically with all stakeholders to achieve such a transformation.

The different constituents of Louisville's economy face different obstacles to economic vibrancy, and these different obstacles pose different challenges and require different solutions. Since I represent Ward 1 on City Council, and many of my constituents have concerns about downtown Louisville’s economic vibrancy, I focus here. Various aspects of the downtown business landscape present obstacles to economic vibrancy. For instance, downtown rental rates are notably high, downtown foot traffic has waned in recent years, historic buildings create charm but add constraints, the employee pool largely comes from outside—often well outside—of Louisville, and City processes do not consistently support beneficial development and redevelopment. Extrapolating from this list, I rank competition from nearby municipalities for businesses and customers, a shortage of affordable housing for young families and working professionals, and problematic City processes as the top three obstacles to Louisville’s economic vibrancy. 

To address these obstacles as a City Councilor, I will continue to pursue the following strategies: invest in branding and visibility campaigns highlighting our community amenities, local businesses, unique character, and welcoming atmosphere; support activation of underutilized properties like the parking lots along Main and Pine Streets for new and creative uses; reinvigorate the performing and visual arts scene; improve and expand bicycle and electric bicycle infrastructure; establish better last-mile bicycle connections to downtown; collaborate with businesses to strategically locate electric vehicle charging stations; plant more trees, shrubs, and flowers to create resilient gathering spaces; work to secure passenger rail service; encourage and support development of commercial spaces with upstairs residences or offices; encourage and support denser residential development surrounding downtown; and revise the City’s planning processes, development codes, and design standards to ensure consistency, predictability, expediency, and sustainability.

I have discussed the successes and struggles of Louisville's businesses with a variety of community members including small business owners, property owners, local developers, City staff, PACE advisors, and members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Business Association. Although I currently serve on City Council’s Finance Committee, I pay attention to my fellow City Councilors’ activities on the Economic Vitality Committee and the Louisville Revitalization Commission, and I often attend meetings like the regular Business Beats organized over the past year.

As a City Councilor I will communicate more clearly to businesses, particularly in Ward 1, that they should contact me with thoughts, questions, and concerns, that I will assist their interactions with the City (as far as I am legally permitted), and that I will advocate for their interests as appropriate. I will also intensify my interactions with businesses not only through official avenues like those mentioned in the previous paragraph, but also informally as a community leader. Furthermore, I will continue to work diligently to resolve issues for individual businesses and structural issues for many businesses while helping them to reduce their environmental impacts.

Over the past year in particular, I have supported the Louisville business community by approving the Downtown Vision Plan, backing CHIPS and enterprise zone designations, enhancing the City’s business assistance program, streamlining certain development review processes and internal financial procedures, and endorsing the forthcoming commercial decarbonization grant program. I have also supported the Louisville business community’s future by committing to development and design code revisions and representing its interests in the Comprehensive Plan update.

An economy consists of all of the activities related to the production, sale, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within a specified area; its constituents include businesses, organizations, employees, consumers, and government. Louisville has several primary economic centers, specifically greater downtown, the South Boulder Road corridor, the McCaslin Boulevard corridor including the Centennial Valley, the Colorado Technology Center, the AdventHealth Avista Hospital complex, and, in the near future, Redtail Ridge. With the expansion of delivery services and work-from-home policies, Louisville's neighborhoods have evolved from centers primarily of economic consumption to decentralized areas of varied economic activity. Louisville's economic centers are home to more than a thousand businesses and organizations, and many more businesses and organizations operate throughout Louisville directly or indirectly. Louisville's economy is notably varied: from decades-old, family-owned to major, multinational companies, from industrial baking to space technology, from a Parkinson's foundation to a regional hospital, Louisville is home to a diversity of businesses and organizations. Located between Boulder and Denver along the US 36 corridor, Louisville’s economy enjoys strong regional connections with thousands of employees, many highly educated, commuting into the City. Louisville’s high quality of life, rooted in its community amenities and spirit, serves to attract these employees and their employers. 

Louisville's economy is relatively strong for a city of about twenty thousand residents: for instance, our economic activity rivals that of our now larger, faster-growing neighbor Lafayette. Louisville's economy is still recovering to some extent from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Marshall fire and catching up to some extent with recent competition from neighboring communities. I foresee a brighter future foretold by filling of some notable vacancies, planning for downtown vacancies, reconstruction of the commercial buildings lost to the fire, residential development and redevelopment in greater downtown, and the forthcoming Comprehensive Plan’s vision.

The people of Louisville—residents, business owners, visitors—are the City’s greatest asset. For nearly one hundred fifty years these people have created the city that we all now love. Their spirit, perseverance, and effort created the many other assets that we all now cherish: communal amenities (like the library, golf course, Recreation Center, and Memory Square pool), family-friendly parks, expansive open spaces, extensive system of paths and trails, diverse local businesses, excellent public schools, and, perhaps above all, our charming historic downtown. Over the years these tangible assets have intermingled with the intangible assets of Louisville’s people to create a committed, passionate, wonderful community. A myriad of actions bear witness to our community: creating and sustaining community organizations from the Chamber of Commerce to the Bee City USA Committee, planning and realizing community events from Pints in the Park to the Turkey Trot, volunteering for City boards and commissions, and caring for neighbors after the Marshall fire. The City itself has often helped to nurture our community by maintaining a dedicated staff, providing reliable services, and governing responsibly. As a City Councilor I will continue to keep Louisville thriving by protecting what we love and building what we need.