City of Boulder Council Candidates (2025)
I am voting for Boulder City Council Candidates Lauren Folkerts, Matt Benjamin, Nicole Speer, and a possible vote a fourth candidate. You can vote for up to four in the 2025 election.
Boulder’s city leadership has changed a lot since the 2021 election, when Lauren Folkerts, Matt Benjamin, Nicole Speer were first elected. Boulder’s previous City Councils were famously NIMBY:
Under previous city councils, Boulder was largely the City of No — no action to address our housing crunch, little change to improve transportation, and a city with a cost of living that continued to rise and push out families and less-privileged people. These are big challenges and I won’t pretend that they could be fixed in just four years. But in so many ways, I believe our city is moving in the right direction to tackle our biggest challenges.
Lauren Folkerts, Matt Benjamin, and Nicole Speer were leaders on the most accomplished city councils in decades:
- Supporting and approving a measure to establish Boulder’s public library district
- Supporting and approving a measure to move Boulder’s local elections to even years
- Supporting and approving a measure to set future council’s pay based on the median city wage
- Supported Colorado’s law to end discriminatory housing occupancy limits statewide in Colorado
- Established Boulder’s first citywide minimum wage
- Established a city program for rebates on e-bikes
- Ended city-mandated parking requirements
- Expanded housing on transit corridors
- Established the Core Arterial Network to improve transportation
- Improved safety for people walking, biking, busing, and driving
- Established a transportation maintenance fee (first proposed in the early 2010s) as a permanent funding mechanism to improve maintenance on roads, bike paths, multi-use paths, and sidewalks
- Expanded housing options for townhomes, duplexes, and Accessory Dwelling Units
What are the biggest challenges that the next city council will face?
Every city council has known challenges and unknown challenges. Here are a few things that the next city council will certainly be grappling with:
- Additional focus to allow more Middle Income Housing to be built in Boulder
- Reduced city budget for social services
- Reduced funding for homelessness services (ARPA)
- Continued reduction in sales tax revenue and impacts from federal spending cuts
- Potential loss of federal transportation funding
- Continued demographic shift to older and wealthier populations
- Continued steep drops in school enrollment:
What organizational endorsements do these Boulder City Council Candidates have?
Should you vote for a fourth candidate, and who might you consider?
I’m undecided on voting for a fourth candidate, so I’ll outline how I’m thinking about things. Of the other candidates in the race, I can put them into two categories:
Candidates backed by conservative-leaning groups:
- Mark Wallach
- Jennifer Robins
- Rob Kaplan
Candidates with limited group backing and fundraising:
- Rachel Rose Isaacson
- Maxwell Lord
- Montserrat Palacios
- Rob Smoke
- Aaron Stone
Mark Wallach
Mark Wallach is an incumbent city council member first elected in 2019. Mark has relatively strong support in the community from more conservative circles, and will likely be re-elected in 2025. From a policy perspective, he has opposed nearly all of the accomplishments of the current council I listed above, along with some other notable positions:
- Opposed a measure to establish Boulder’s public library district
- Opposed a measure to move Boulder’s local elections to even years
- Opposed a measure to set future council’s pay based on the median city wage
- Opposed supporting the groundbreaking statewide housing bill in 2023 and elements in 2024
- Opposed Colorado’s law to end discriminatory housing occupancy limits statewide
- Opposed Boulder’s transportation maintenance fee to improve our city streets, paths, and sidewalks
- Opposed allowing duplexes on transit corridors
Many people in the community appreciate Mark’s willingness to dig into details around policy and budgets, which I believe he will continue to do well if re-elected. It’s difficult for me to vote for someone who has been so oppositional to many of the important changes I have supported or worked on directly.
Jennifer Robins
Jenny Robins is a candidate who ran previously in 2023. I have appreciated that Jenny has considered running again, and got the opportunity to interview her several times during the election cycle, which was helpful. I think Jenny is a solid candidate, although generally her positions in general are a bit more conservative that what Boulder needs. We need transformational thinking to keep making progress on our housing challenges. We need to continue to move away from a transportation system that favors private car usage. We need to be aggressive on worker protections and increasing wages. We need to push forward on our progress to make Boulder a more inclusive community. I think Jenny is capable and qualified for the job, but I am looking for candidates wanting to make systemic change.
Rob Kaplan
Rob Kaplan is a first-time candidate and I’ve had the opportunity to talk with him for several hours total on several occasions during the election cycle. Rob is a relative newcomer to local politics, and I have appreciated him diving in — meeting with as many people as possible, learning, and wrestling with new ideas. Based on his experience and my interactions, I get the sense that Rob is practical and cautious, but wanting to listen and open to being persuaded.
While Rob is not quite as progressive as typical candidates I support, he’s taken some positive positions that resonate with me. In fact, he hasn’t been endorsed by Boulder Elevated, perhaps because they think he is *too* progressive. Rob’s experience as a firefighter and a blue collar worker in the city, as well as his current experience as a father of a student in CU would be very relevant to a member of Boulder City Council. I appreciate his approach and his demeanor, which will be some of his strongest assets if he gets elected.
Rachel Rose Isaacson
Rachel Rose Isaacson is a candidate that brings a different perspective from all of the candidates I’ve discussed so far. She is younger and has a lot of energy to center the needs of a younger generation in Boulder — representation that is strongly needed on city council. I think Rachel has a lot of potential, although I have struggled to get a sense that she is ready to lead on tackling Boulder’s biggest challenges. In conversations about housing, transportation, the budget, and other areas, I think Rachel needs more focus on what policy changes she would lead on to make the change she hopes to see. I think a strong combination of honing this vision and working to learn how to effect change in a city government would help Rachel become a stronger candidate.
Maxwell Lord
Maxwell Lord is an interesting candidate. He’s also one of the younger candidates running, which I appreciate. It’s very difficult to start from a limited level of involvement to become an effective candidate quickly. From my perspective, Max has not been particularly supportive of the city’s direction on housing policy or transportation, although I did not find his critiques very compelling. In general I think I’m aligned with Max’s values, but I think he needs more clarity on the kind of change he wants to see and to figure out how to effect that change.
So how do you decide if you want to vote for a fourth candidate?
Based on what I’ve outlined so far, I strongly support Lauren Folkerts, Matt Benjamin, Nicole Speer for the work they have done and will continue to do. Mark Wallach, the fourth incumbent, will likely be re-elected, as the other candidates in the race are unlikely to have higher levels of support than Wallach. My challenge in voting for a fourth candidate is that it may displace one or more of the three candidates that I would most like to win. But maybe you see things differently. Good luck!
Additional Reporting, Commentary, and Sources
All Candidate Profiles – Richard Valenty
All Candidate Profiles – Boulder Daily Camera (Voter Guide)
Where Boulder City Council candidates stand on key issues – Boulder Daily Camera