Really want to honor and celebrate the contributions in the culture of our Indigenous peoples who have been in these lands for a very long time, and still are.

So thank you for joining me in really honoring and celebrating this day.

I'm sure I put it on silent mode.

Go ahead and check just to make sure it's our thing out the door.

You came in, uh, and then off through the hallway and up.

And um, also just want to know, mention this when we get started.

But thank you in advance for helping make sure this is just a really safe and comfortable and respectful space.

Um, so we'll ask in the script uh once we start to refrain from applauding, booing, making noises.

We just really find that that just creates a better environment for everyone in which candidates can hear the question and you can hear all of them.

And at the very end of the forum, I'll invite everyone to join in and celebrating all of the candidates.

So if you can hold your applies until then, that would be great.

Um, Joe, anything else?

Okay.

Then if you all are ready, I think we're ready.

Great.

Welcome to the City of Lafayette City Council Candidate Forum, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Boulder County and Sister Carmen Community Center.

My name is Elizabeth Crow.

I'm a proud member of the League of Women Voters of Boulder County, and I'm pleased to serve as your moderator for tonight's forum.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization.

For 105 years at the national level and 94 years here in Boulder County, the League has encouraged informed and active participation in government.

The Sister Carmen Community Center provides comprehensive basic needs, services, and resources to the most vulnerable residents in East Boulder County.

Through their family centered programming, Sister Carmen promotes health, safety, well being, and economic stability for people experiencing hardship.

Neither the league nor Sister Carmen support or oppose political candidates or parties.

And now onto the forum.

The Lafayette City Council consists of seven members who are elected on a nonpartisan basis in odd numbered years.

Terms are staggered, so the council always consists of experienced members.

Four seats must be filled each election year.

The three counselors with the highest number of votes serve four year terms, and the fourth receive serves a two-year term.

Ten candidates are running for these four seats.

The forum for tonight will be as follows.

Each candidate will have one minute for an opening statement.

We will then begin with questions that have been submitted from the audience, including those that have been submitted by the Lafayette community online prior to tonight.

Audience members may submit questions by writing them on index cards available from our volunteers.

And thank you.

Please raise your hand if you need a card, a pencil, or a pen.

Once you have written your question, please catch the attention of our volunteers and give the card to them.

Questions should be addressed to all candidates rather than directing a question to only one or two particular candidates.

And I ask that you submit your questions very early in the forum so we can try to kind of group them and get as many answered as possible.

Our screening team here will provide and uh possibly combine several similar questions into one question on that topic.

And we'll also ask the candidates to answer as many questions as time permits.

In most instances, each candidate will have one minute to answer the question.

However, if we go longer than that, probably not shorter.

Um I'll announce that at the front end, and our timekeepers will help notify you when it's uh time to time to wrap it up.

Again, to our audience members, please do not interrupt or disrupt the forum.

This means refraining from clapping, booing, you wouldn't do that, um, or otherwise showing your approval or disapproval of any candidate.

The candidates are seated in the order that they will appear on the general election ballot.

And now for the opening statements and the questions.

For the opening statements, we'll begin with candidate Gianola, and again, you'll have all have one minute to respond.

Please go ahead.

Thanks.

My name is Adam Ginola.

I've been a Lafayette resident for 19 years and a community volunteer for about half that time.

In my day job, I'm an attorney for a small business.

My priorities are community and sustainability.

I focus on community because that's what we are.

We're we're residents, we're volunteers, we're neighbors, we're artists, we're business owners, we're workers, we're parents and friends.

And I think we want to preserve the character of our community and what makes Lafayette great.

Uh we welcome everyone and we strive to help each other out, uh, even if we get cut off in traffic.

Uh there's a lot of things that come under that umbrella.

Uh, we want to leave the planet better than we found it.

Thank you.

And Candidate Errington.

Hi, uh, I'm Luke Grington.

Uh, I moved to Lafayette in 2013.

Uh, one of the reasons was it was, you know, it was a small town, lots of open space.

I mean, we we like the kind of trajectory that the city was going in.

Um, we've been here and can we continue to be here for the foreseeable future.

I have a nine and a 14-year-old, and they go to school and you know, bike around.

Uh they really enjoy everything that is Lafayette.

Um, a few years after I moved here, I got to start participating on the Open Space Advisory Committee, which I've been on for eight years.

Uh, and then the following year I was able to be elected as a commissioner to the Urban Renewal Authority, which focuses on downtown, small businesses, the old town project area.

I mean, my background is in commercial real estate.

Um, that's what I helped bring to the table.

Uh, I've always wanted to volunteer and contribute.

That's one of the reasons I'm up here.

I want to be part of city council.

Uh, I really just want to, you know, contribute to the whole place that we call home.

Thank you.

Candidate Barrell.

Hi, everybody.

My name is Josh Beryl.

My pronouns are he, him, and L if you speak Spanish.

Um, I am a cishead white male, but I've considered myself an ally for many years, including um believing really strongly in reproductive rights, um, helping our minority communities, including our immigrants.

Um, recently I've learned more about how many fixed income folks we have living here in Lafayette who really um need a voice on the council and need somebody to be speaking out for them.

I was a high school teacher for 15 years, um, a little bit in Jefferson County, where I worked to develop an English for speakers of other languages program at Alameda Alameda International.

Um, and then I worked in Denver for 10 years, and I really learned the importance of leading with my values and wearing my heart on my sleeve and trying to do the right thing at every turn, and that is why I'm here running for council.

Thank you.

Candidate Ryan.

First of all, I want to thank the League of Women Voters and Sister Carmans for putting this event together.

I think it's great awareness uh for the community uh to really get a good idea of what the candidates are doing and thinking of.

Uh, personally, I've been involved in the community since 2011 and presently have a business located in town.

Through the years, I've done a lot of volunteer work and especially with the chamber and supporting small business growth.

I feel I can really help the council and the community with my business background in construction, manufacturing, imports, tariffs, and fiscal responsibility.

Uh I am very excited about uh being part of this uh election and will put all my time and effort uh to continue to be a voice of the people, representing Lafayette for the people.

Thank you.

Candidate Tapia Vega.

Uh, thank you so much, and thank you all for being here.

Thank you to our residents.

Thank you, of course, to the League of Women Voters and Sister Carmen Community Center.

My name is Saul Tapia Vega, and I am a current member of City Council.

Uh, one other uh group of folks that I want to thank is our city staff for being here.

Uh I see you in the back, and I know if you're watching us at home, it's thanks to our IT team.

So thank you all so much for being here.

Uh, my campaign is simple, and the reason I'm here is simple.

It's because I want to continue the work I've been doing over the last two years.

Uh, I'm proud of everything I've been able to achieve over the last year as a member of the city council uh in making our city more affordable, in being responsible with our growth and supporting our small businesses, as well as representing every member of our community.

Uh, and really just building a resilient and sustainable future for the city of Lafayette.

So I'm very, very proud of the work I've done over the last few years, and I'm ready to keep that work going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And candidate Glenn.

Hi, uh, I'm Rob Glynn.

Um again, as you heard other uh candidates say, just thankful for this platform and opportunity to be able to communicate as candidates to share our thoughts.

Um I always bring up first, like I'm from New Orleans, uh, and one of the reasons I bring that up is when my wife and dog and I came here to Colorado.

We were passionate in what we found here in Lafayette.

Um it just reminds us so much of what we loved back home.

Uh, culture, diversity, inclusiveness, and then also just the historic preservation.

Uh, that's key components to what I see future opportunities for the city.

I've had a lot of feedback around our vacant commercial spaces and the redevelopment we can do to bring amenities to the community.

That also brings more revenue for the city to give back to the our citizens.

And if there's somebody who's really in touch with the affordability and the struggles people have in affordable housing in Lafayette, I can help that.

Thank you.

And candidate Fullier.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Kyle Bolier.

Thank you as well to the League of Women Voters and to Sister Carmen's.

It's a privilege to be here with the league.

This is a group I learned about when I was a child in homeschool from my mom, which is also why I'm here.

Not because she forced me to run for local office, although she was encouraging, but because I learned a sense of justice and activism from her, whether it was the ills of apartheid in South Africa in the late 80s, early 90s, or it's what's going on today.

She will be at the No Kings protest this Saturday in North Carolina, and I hope all of you in this room and watching, and hope everyone in the council will join us for the first No Kings protest, or sorry, the the second No Kings protest here in Lafayette.

I think defending our democracy starts at home.

This is a scary time in this country.

You mentioned that the league is nonpartisan.

Support for women's rights and women's voting feels partisan these days.

So I hope to bring my experience in national security policy with USAID, the FBI to defend women's rights here in Lafayette, defend our community, make us more resilient to the economic and political shocks to come.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Jensen.

Hi, my name is Anne Marie Jensen, and thank you to the sponsors of this.

And inclusivity is really important to me.

I have Spanish-speaking family members who are from other countries.

I have LGBTQ folks in my family, and that inclusivity matters to me.

I was a small business owner for 20 years, representing nonprofits in the government affairs world and advocating for them.

And since I've lived in Lafayette for 11 years, I've been on the planning commission, livable Lafayette Task Force, the East Lafayette Advisory Committee, the Land Use Working Group, the WOW Board, and now I'm on the Board of Habitat.

I want to take all of those skills and background and put them to use for the city of Lafayette.

I have retired from working and I have the time and energy and experience to make that work.

Thank you.

Candidate Gallegos.

Good evening.

My name is Crystal Gallegos, and I've been a Lafayette resident for about 10 years.

I'm a current city counselor, and the past two years have flown right by, and I'm not ready to say goodbye yet.

I'd love to show the city what I'm capable of as an experienced counselor.

By day, I'm a substitute teacher and mama for.

And my priorities for this upcoming term are responsible growth, maintaining our community's character, supporting our small businesses, and encouraging new businesses to take a look at our vacant commercial spaces.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

And candidate Watson.

Hi, my name is Mike Watson.

Um I'm up here because I think, like a lot of you, I think there's something wrong with our democracy right now.

And if we don't do something quickly, I don't think we're gonna have it for very much longer.

And that's pretty high stakes for coming into a city council.

I recognize that.

But I started thinking about this 19 years ago as a 23-year-old kid.

I just got back and got gotten back from Iraq.

Um, and I started questioning what I was seeing in our country.

And specifically, there seems to be a difference between what we say our values are and what our actions show our values to be.

Let's actually like do that here in our community.

Let's build something that's worth saving and not just simply pay lip service to a bunch of ideas and have endless committee meetings.

Let's get out there and solve these problems, starting at home and then take it nationally if we have to.

Thank you.

Thank you all for those opening statements.

Um, now we'll start with the questions from uh community members and audience members.

And we'll start this first question with candidate Arrington.

It is a question from our uh partner for the forum tonight, Sister Carmen.

Lafayette.

I'm sorry, thank you for reminding me.

Let's actually do um 90 seconds for this one.

Lafayette used to be considered an affordable option for housing in Boulder County, and this is no longer the case.

We've lost many families who have had to move out of our community due to the affordable housing crisis.

How do you think Lafayette has been addressing this issue?

And what do you have and what ideas do you have or solutions that you would advocate for, including for families?

So affordable housing, I mean, this this is a big question.

This is not just Lafayette's issue.

Um when I moved here in 2013, we were in the kind of path of growth.

And if honestly, if I were to try to buy here again, I don't know that I I would be able to.

I do think density in the right places is one potential answer along corridors that make sense.

I do think apartments and the mobile homes and those types of communities and areas give options to people.

So you know, making sure that those you know don't disappear and go away or get redeveloped, or um, you know, kind of uh put constraints on them via you know code considerations or you know not allowing EDUs.

I think those give people options so that they if they want to live here, they can.

If they if they work here and they want to be here, then they have that choice.

Uh right now I don't know that there is a whole lot of choices.

Um it's you know, it's something we have to work on.

I I think the city wants to do better uh in that regard, but uh I think options and density in the right places is the place for us to start.

Thank you.

Thank you, Candidate Barrel.

Affordability is clearly an issue uh facing our community.

Housing can be considered, I consider it a human right, and we need to be addressing this if we're doing right by the people who live here in Lafayette and the people who will be coming to Lafayette.

Um our city is growing, the entire front range is growing.

That is not news to anyone.

Um, and we have to face the reality that we need to do this responsibly.

So certainly having a variety of housing options, I believe is helpful to the affordability crisis, if you will.

Um, I think we need some uh in some cases creative solutions, in some cases hardline solutions, solutions.

I'm open to uh rent freezing.

I would love to see a city level participation in funding section eight housing.

Um I think that we can increase the percentage required for affordable housing when we do have large developments coming in.

Um the city of Boulder is up to 25% requirement on uh developments that are greater than four structures, so I don't think we need to go that high, but I think we need to seriously consider um those types of requirements and making sure that everybody has the opportunity, uh especially people who work here, uh, to earn that living wage and be able to sustain a comfortable life here.

Thank you, candidate Ryan.

Well, affordable housing is uh a very big issue in our community because it is expensive to live here in Lafayette.

And if I am on city council, I will definitely monitor every area of it to make sure there's new programs and new affordability uh and follow through with it.

Uh one thing that I do feel as on the state level is proposition LL, which is healthy school meals for all.

We have an opportunity to vote to grab Tabor money and put it back into the school system and to feed our and feed our kids healthier meals, better nutrition.

So personally, I think everybody should vote that way to put money back into our community for our students.

Thank you.

Canada Tatia Vega.

Amazing.

Thank you.

So I'm I'm gonna start this question off by saying that this is absolutely a crisis.

We have an affordability crisis in the city of Lafayette, and uh the question kind of addressed something that's been happening in our city over the last last decade really, which is that families unfortunately are moving out.

Working families can no longer afford to live in our city, and I know that firsthand, everyone I graduated high school with is no longer in this city.

Uh I was fortunate enough to go to one of the amazing Centaurus High School here in Lafayette, and all the people I graduated with are gone.

And it's not because they wanted to leave, it's because they couldn't afford to stay here.

Um this is just it's gone too far.

We need to do, we need to have comprehensive solutions for working families in this city uh because it's just unaffordable.

But I'll go about it in two ways.

One, we we do have to address affordable housing.

Um, and we we've done we've done a lot so far.

I think Lafayette has kind of positioned itself uh as a leader in this space.

We can look at Willoughby Corner, which is the largest affordable housing product of its kind across the state of Colorado.

We can look at our affordable housing fund, we can look at projects such as uh La Luna, um, which is the Mount View Mobile Home Park that the city uh gave a 99-year repayable uh forgivable loan to in order for them to kind of set their price of living and set their costs going forward.

Uh so things like this need to continue.

We need to keep putting our money where our mouth is in terms of affordable housing, but for me, it's about affordability as a whole.

But for me, it's about affordability as a whole.

We need comprehensive solutions.

The cost of child care is also $2,000 a month per child in Boulder County.

It's not just about housing.

For me, affordability is a comprehensive issue that doesn't require one size fits all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Lennon.

So you just hit on some great topics.

I think there's two things you gotta separate in when we're talking about affordable housing.

You have rental versus ownership.

We talk about rental.

I mean, Willoughby Corner somewhere covers both of this, and it is a great project where we need more units within Lafayette.

It was smartly done, water rights were brought to it, or it wasn't using Lafayette's water rights, it's efficient, and there's some controlled rent in there, and then there's also some opportunity with townhomes and ownerships.

With that said, even with those rents, they're still not fully affordable.

And when you get into what actually controls that ability, it's the AMI, so the average median income that's decided by the state and the county.

So it gets a lot deeper than just Lafayette itself.

But I will throw that out there.

Um he stated, I mean, a lot of uh when you talk to workers within Lafayette, they say they can't afford being here, and that's where kind of the rental issues come into play.

ADUs can assist in that, incentivizing people, especially in old town or wherever they have land, adding dwelling units can be a big proponent to that.

The ownership piece, um, one of the things the city did recently was buy two Boulder Housing Authority uh properties, uh, and they were gonna get them repaired, and then there's another regional authority that'll be setting the pricing for the sale of those, which can help.

But ownership is difficult across Colorado as a whole, not just here in Lafayette, as I'm pretty knowledgeable on that and know the woes of buying a home in Lafayette in Colorado.

Thank you.

And Canada Bolier.

This is a tremendously difficult topic because there are no easy solutions, right?

You build 10,000 new housing units, all of a sudden you've radically changed what Lafayette is and what makes it special.

You tear down our beautiful open space to build more houses, all of a sudden, where does all the wildlife go?

And we don't have those buffers against wildfire.

So there's there's no easy solution here.

So I think I'll talk a little bit about philosophy and really agree with a lot that it's been shared.

Uh, and also with Anne Marie, I'm gonna steal your thunder because she's gonna talk about inclusionary housing ordinances, and I'm a huge fan, so you don't have to talk about that.

But I think taking a step back, like Lafayette has changed a lot, just as all of Boulder County, all of the front range, all of the state of Colorado, right?

Radical change the past 10 years, which in a way is good because people want to live here.

There's jobs here, there's opportunities here.

But we are in this very difficult moment where what what gives, right?

We've we are suing the state right now because um they want to add many thousands of housing units, and we're like, that's too many.

But then we say, how do we add more housing opportunities here?

For me, I I really think we need to explore areas where we build up.

We have a height limit in town.

No one wants a 10-story building on public road, but are there areas around major corridors as has been said, say 287, or others that we could explore building up and in order to get more residences that way.

Is it also possible to invest in a bit more bus rapid transit and public transportation so that residents can get around a little bit more swiftly?

Um, and lastly, I know there's efforts ongoing for zoning reform to allow different mixed-use housing for folks to meet them where they are in different moments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And candidate Jensen.

So I've been working on affordable housing for 25 years, and it is complex.

And it is also, as Saol mentioned, related to other things.

Livable wage, child care.

It's unaffordable here.

So, but there are a laundry list of things, and Lafayette has done very well.

We have the highest percentage of affordable housing of any city in Boulder County.

We haven't quite achieved our goal of 12%, but we are on our way.

And we've done some really good things, and Willoughby Corner is one of them.

And uh, there are people here uh who served on the advisory board with me to help make that the uh the asset that it is.

And inclusionary housing is important, but we only have a few large parcels left in Lafayette, so that's not gonna get us a lot of housing.

We need to look at infill development and redevelopment.

We need to look at things like buying more helping folks who live in mobile home parks buy their mobile home parks.

We know we need a diversity of housing types, and I agree that home ownership is really important.

One of the things we haven't looked at is a land trust and whether or not we can partner with the land trust to help buy some of the land so we can get the housing built more effectively.

Um, and I agree with some folks around here who have said that we should target our rental for people at 60% area median income and below because the market is already taking care of things above that.

Thank you.

Candidate Gallegos.

So this is a great question, and I just wanted to start it off by saying if it wasn't for the generosity of one of my family members, I couldn't afford to live here.

So I have a family member who owns a couple of properties in town and is renting to me under market value so that I could have a great place to live with my family.

So I think we do need to continue the great work that we are doing.

We've done great with Willoughby Corner.

It is only the beginning, eventually there will be that phase two and homes for purchases.

And I do think we need to continue the great work behind ADUs.

I think this is another way to bring more people into the community at a housing rate that most people can afford.

And that's it from me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Watson.

Thank you, ma'am.

Um I moved here in 2015.

I lived in five different rental properties for five years.

Um I was on public assistance uh while I was going to grad school.

Uh I worked uh at a low-paying startup to kind of uh hone my skills a little bit after I graduated.

Um in 2020, I was lucky enough to land a good job using the help of the GI Bill, I was able to buy a place in town.

I'm amazingly fortunate to be able to live in a community like this.

Um I was renting though, there wasn't a lot of help coming from the city.

Um there was I had a few wannabe slum lords as landlords, and there wasn't anything that we could any place in the city that we older boulder had some place where we're uh a tenant could call to report like hostile action from their landlord.

Lapaya doesn't have that.

I don't think they I just think to this day they still don't.

Um the other side of this is that this is not a problem that's being inflicted on us from the top down.

This is one that that we're kind of creating ourselves.

Like every behind every single like unaffordable house, there's a landlord who just makes the decision to rent at market rate, and we know from from from numerous studies that the market rate is being determined by algorithms by by Zillow and other like large rental corporations, and that it's frankly unsustainable for most working families.

And if we're gonna really want to tackle this problem, really want to solve it, we're gonna have to dig in and eventually maybe anyway.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Okay, and candidate G Mill.

Thank you.

I mean, everybody else has already said all the ideas that we can come up with.

So I'm not sure what else I can add, but I'll say, you know, we do have a lot of tools in our tool belt.

You know, we'll be willough corner is an amazing development, even if some of the units there really are market-rated and aren't really affordable housing.

Um, you know, I think we need to protect what affordable housing we already have, and we can do that through revisions to the land use code.

For example, we can protect our mobile homes from being redeveloped.

We can help our mobile homes kind of buy their property and create a uh cooperative kind of housing uh development.

Uh I think we need to think about you know, creative solutions for incentivizing developers to provide additional affordable housing.

How can we do that?

Uh, I don't think anything is really off the table at this point.

The the mixed types of housing, I think is is something we need to think about.

Uh, and really the idea for me is is the infill, the ADUs, the kind of different housing types, you know.

We don't have a small tiny home park, but maybe that's something that we can try to figure out how to create.

Uh it really is a broad problem with lots of solutions that we can try.

Uh we can see what works.

Thank you all for the first round.

Uh, for the next question, we'll start with candidate Barrel.

We'll do 60 seconds or one minute for this question.

How would you support policies or funding that remove barriers to arts participation, especially for underrepresented communities in Lafayette?

Fully, fully support them.

Um, I think that we have to prioritize where our funding goes.

Sometimes we act and talk around city government as if there is no funding, and it's simply a matter of priorities.

But I think in a time of um facing fascism in our country, uh creation is a radical act, and it is absolutely important to do everything we can to foster through public programs at the public library, at the recenter, in schools, um, for our minority kids as well as as all of our kids to get them uh creating, feeling good about themselves and and putting their ideas into the world.

Thank you.

Candidate Ryan.

Well, I'm for uh policies or for funding art arts programs, and if you look uh uh with our town right now, we actually have a few programs that are uh funded by and uh a co-op with the community arts hub, which is very involved with our with our community on the arts side.

Um I think we need to continue to do that.

We should speak to them because they have a um there they have a finger on the pulse and they know exactly where the community is and where we should go as far as arts uh and and reaching the community in another way.

Thank you, candidate Tapia.

Thank you so much.

Uh so first and foremost, Lafayette is an art city.

I don't think you have to kind of it's really easy to figure out, you just have to walk down public road and you can kind of see all the amazing murals and sculptures that we have.

Um I have been lucky enough to for the last a year as a city council member, I have been the liaison to the Lafayette Cultural Arts Board as well as the public art committee.

So I have uh been in been part of key conversations that have been talked about the art that is on display within our city and about the future of art within our city.

Uh, this is something that I wholeheartedly love.

Uh I love the arts.

It gives us a real sense of community, and for members of our community, for members of our city that you know come from come from communities and come from backgrounds that are largely disenfranchised or underrepresented, it really gives them a sense of belonging.

So art is something that is near and dear to my heart, and something that I will always push and always vote for when I'm a member of council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And candidate Glenn.

Nothing but positives about policies for funding and arts.

He mentioned the two committees.

I had the opportunity of going to the open house uh a month ago where I got to meet with these two different boards and commissions, and one of those was specifically uh prioritize about grant writing and opportunities for our local artists and those opportunities.

So there's already kind of some great action going towards that.

Uh the other group, as you talked about, focuses on the different art installations, which you can walk up and down so many parts of our community.

There's new murals left and right, and the beauty of some of these murals and and how they support the history of Lafayette and in the community and the diversity of that Lafayette and the importance of that.

So again, I would nothing but support policies or funding that go towards that.

Thank you.

And candidate Believer.

Thank you.

Uh unfortunately, once a theater kid, always a theater kid.

So also a big proponent of the arts.

I think listening to folks from the community in terms of what access uh they desire.

And everyone has mentioned the the tremendous art along public road, but there are many other pockets of our town that would really benefit from a bit more investment, diversification of art.

So identifying pockets, listening to folks where they would like some spot some uh some arts investment, I think would be uh a really key element.

You know, we're gonna be refurbishing the Arapahoe Theater in the in the not distant future, so that's really exciting.

Something I mentioned at our last forum is how to use the arrival of the Sundance Film Festival as a forcing mechanism for us to increase our investment in the arts and also to really lean into Lafayette as a as a brand.

We have a strong regional brand, but outside of Boulder County and the front range, no one really knows Lafayette.

But if we're gonna have new artists, tourists coming into Boulder for the Film Festival, how can we draw them and their dollars over here in a more diverse uh arts enterprise would really help?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Jensen so I volunteer at the Lafayette Arts Hub from time to time, and my granddaughter uh is actively in the theater program as a theater kid.

And uh I really value that program, and I do know they have some scholarships for a lower income folks, and I know that there are other programs throughout the community that have scholarships, but we could look at that, we could determine if we're meeting the need, if we're turning people away, if if the activities we have available are available to everyone, and can we be more inclusive?

But I do foresee that in the near future we're gonna see both state and federal cuts that are gonna impact our community.

And back when that happened at the state level, maybe 10 years ago, maybe more.

We did something called the backseat budgeter where we allow people to try to make a budget and see what they would cut.

And I think we need to involve our community as we go forward because I think it's gonna get worse before it gets better, and we may have to trade off certain things.

Thank you.

Candidate Gaikos.

So sadly, we live in a world where education budgets are being cut all over the state.

So sadly, many districts look to the arts, and that's where they cut first.

So it is important to have a creative outlet outside of school that children can go to.

So I think here we have our arts and education program where some of our even local Lafayette school teachers have requested funds through the city to help move their projects forward.

I'd love to continue that program.

Sadly, funds are limited, and we receive more application requests than we have funds allowed, but I think we do the best we can with what we have.

I love the murals around town, and something that makes me excited this time of year is seeing all of the Halloween windows on our small businesses.

Thank you.

Candidate Watson.

So I don't think that culture and art is necessarily top-down endeavor.

I think that this is something that humans just naturally do.

You get out of their way, you give them the the space to be creative, and people will be creative.

I've um sunburned from walking around town so much over the past couple days.

Um one of the things that has struck me, whether we're whether I'm in a rich neighborhood or a poor neighborhood or anywhere, is how much creativity people have taken with their yards, their their windows, the way they decorate their house, the little sculptures and the gnome gardens that people put out.

Um so I don't think we have remotely any problem with with artistic expression in our community.

Um the question is why is the sort of mainstream art that is in public places?

Why is that dominated by kind of a more of a top-down approach?

Uh perfect example of this.

There's a there's a pocket park that's being put in on public road right now that's at the cost at a cost of one million dollars.

Um that's definitely something we have enough gardeners and creative people in our community to where we can take charge of that ourselves.

You want to build culture?

That's how we build culture.

Thank you.

Canada Dina, thank you.

I mean, we do have an amazing arts community in Lafayette.

It really is one of the things that makes Lafayette special.

Uh I've been supporting the arts community through my work in sustainability with Arts Lafayette and the Arts and Cultural Resources Department.

I'm also a member of uh the board of directors of Kaleidoscope, um, a local art incubator, uh, helping local artists have a place to create and grow.

Um, I think the city can prioritize you know art funding directly within the city budget, but I think we can apply creative solutions throughout the community.

You know, we've got a lot of kind of art-based businesses in town, we've got a lot of uh kind of arts community centers.

I'd love to put together some uh scholarships uh from some of these groups.

Uh I think the community would come together and and really fund this if we asked them to.

Thank you.

Uh the next question will start with Canada Bera.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Canada Harrington, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, what he mentioned about kaleidoscope, I mean, it was something that is important, it really does kind of fuel artists because you it's not a not a one and done type thing.

Um Lura, I mean, art, I mean removal of blight, prevention of blight.

That was a big that's our that was our focus.

I mean, in art downtown on South Public is a really key component to that.

I mean, it gives character, I mean, you know, we like the diverse and eclectic nature of our old town, and we we lean into that.

Um, I really hope that now that you know the renewal authority is you know, sunset and the DDA is gonna be taken over, that they make that a priority too, because it would I would hate to see those things fade.

But you know, funding for that is important.

I I'm always in favor of it when it's available.

Um shouldn't be the first thing that gets cut, really should be something that we you know makes our town.

Um, it gives us our character, and you can't manufacture that character, it's just there, and you don't want to let it die.

Thank you.

Next question will start with candidate Ryan.

What is your position?

We'll also do this for um 60 seconds.

Yes, thank you though.

Um 60 seconds for the next question.

What is your position on the proposed annexations, such as 119th and baseline, Arapahoe, and US 287?

How do you approach decisions like these that often have competing priorities, such as open space, affordable development, traffic, etc.?

Well, uh, I'm uh very strong, I'm very strong about open space and believe in it.

I think it's really important for our community to uh continue to save our open space.

Uh it makes a lot of uh sense in different uh in many areas uh besides uh wildlife.

Uh it's definitely really good for fire mitigation and other areas uh that that do make a difference.

Uh I do feel that uh uh you're getting pulled in a lot of different directions, and as city council, I definitely would have to study it and look at it to really see which uh which direction uh uh the residents want to go uh because really at the end of the day, I represent the community, it's not my decision.

Thank you.

Candidate Topiavega.

Uh yes.

So first and foremost, I just want to say that as a sitting uh member of City Council and as someone who hopes to continue my time on city council, I cannot publicly speak on any of the annexations.

Um I actually all of us have been warned against this, so I won't speak to the annexations in particular, but I will speak to my campaign and what I want to do and what I've been doing, which is responsible growth.

Uh, I think our city is not adversary growth, but that is for every city in the front range, and that's for every city across the state.

Uh, but when we grow, we need to do it responsibly, and that means reaching out to our community, seeing what our community needs, a community-driven approach to not only fit our needs but to fit our future.

We want to build a sustainable and resilient Lafayette.

We want to build a Lafayette that fits our needs today, but also fits our needs in the future.

And yes, this means looking into open space.

Yes, this means looking into pretty much everything across the board that we have now is the way it is, and that small town feel that we have is because our council has done an incredible job of already making sure that when we grow, we do it responsibly.

That's one of the tenets of my campaign, and it's something that I hope to continue doing as I go forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Glenn.

I appreciate you kicking off because there's the forefront, there's a lot going on when it comes time to those annexations and information.

But we'll say in general, I am humongously pro-open space.

Uh, I had the opportunity to go on an open space tour with chair recently, and there's a lot of beautiful uh areas that I didn't even realize were there.

Um that's where my thought is.

But as you I mean, even if you go to my website to learn more about my running and platform, it's really important as we make smart growth.

We do need additional growth in units, as we heard her talked about affordable housing, and there's never like perfect places for that, but we're gonna need to be very smart on where we do that.

We talked about great ideas on redeveloping our already vacant spaces, and then also dwelling units, tiny homes, our um and mobile home parks.

Uh, these are all sources to help towards that larger goal of focus on sustainable smart growth.

Thank you.

And candidate volley.

Echoing Rob's thanks of Saul for for hitting the piece on what we've been admonished not to get into.

So I'll just talk about philosophically.

Um very much agree on the priority of protecting open space.

That's what makes Lafayette special.

Um, but we do need to explore how we grow and invest.

I agree that infill is a is a key element to prioritize.

For me, I'm really interested in resilience.

And some of that resilience comes to from keeping defensible space around where people live.

And that could be open space, it could be broad areas.

Um, coming back to a good chunk of Netherland burned down last week.

It's a miracle that the fire didn't spread further.

It's only been we're coming up on four years after the Marshall Fire.

We've had a lot of rain lately, but we are a vulnerable community to peri-urban wildfires.

And so thinking about how we can really invest in resilience, uh, it would affect any decision I made on annexation or another business investment.

And then lastly, coming back to a point that's been raised earlier about how many workers who work for the city cannot afford to live here.

Uh, so that needs to be front and center.

We want our labor to be able to thrive and live within Lafayette rather than having to commute.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Jensen.

So there is a natural tension between preserving open land and building.

We can't we can't do both of those things.

And I think our open space board has done a good job of identifying key parcels that have wetlands or wildlife or other natural elements that they want to preserve, and I have a lot of respect for that work.

But as Saul said, we need to grow smart.

Affordable housing continues to be a problem.

We got to find a place for it.

But sprawl is not the answer.

And and moving towards the edges of town is is sort of the definition of sprawl.

And so to the extent that we can redevelop and develop infill, I think that's better off, and we can be smart and and do more mixed-use development so that people can get out of their cars.

Thank you.

Candidate Gallegos.

So I'm also a sitting council member, so I can't comment specifically on those specific parcels that were mentioned, but I can give a general overview of my thoughts.

Um, there are not many parcels of land left in Lafayette.

And I also believe in responsible growth.

We shouldn't approve every single development that comes before us.

We do need to think about it.

We need to make sure that any development is balancing the needs of the community and advancing our comprehensive plan.

We also need to make sure we have the infrastructure to support any new development.

I love our open space.

I live within walking distance of Wanaka Lake.

I visit it often.

And I couldn't imagine a world without our open space.

But at the same time, we do have a comprehensive plan and some affordable housing goals that we're hoping to achieve.

Thank you.

Candidate Watson.

Like everybody else, I need to insert my legal ease disclaimer on how I will approach every single problem with an open mind.

And I will not uh I will be open to the discussion in a quasi judicial setting.

Um that being said, um, I mean, how many parking lots do we need in in at the expense of the paradise that is around us?

Um, I mean, this is Indigenous People Day or Columbus Day, depending on which side of history you you want to be on.

Um, but uh I was wandering around Boulder one time, and there was there was some random homeless guy came up to me and wanted to talk to me about the the curse of Chief Daiwat.

I was new to the town, I didn't know anything about it.

Um, and I think we're living that right.

Like this is a beautiful area, and because of the beauty, everybody wants to move in.

As and as more and more people move in and we develop our businesses, we just pave over everything.

We have nothing left, I think.

Just a concrete canyons and then monuments of glass and steel.

Like let's let's preserve our green space.

Let's keep keep Lafayette livable, not just for the humans, but also for the animals that call Lafayette at home.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate G Dela.

Thank you.

Thanks everyone for the uh doing the work of the lawyer up here.

Um when I look at developments, I look at what is the community vision for Lafayette.

What what do we want Lafayette to be?

You know, we rewrote our comprehensive plan a few years ago, and that really outlines the plan that the community has for Lafayette.

What do we want it to look like in the future?

So I think we revisit that when we're on council and we look at that as kind of our guiding light.

Um for me personally, you know, with sustainability being such an important thing for me.

I think the focus on infill, the focus on adaptive reuse, uh ways to kind of re minimize the energy that is put in to uh developing um the best things that we can do to kind of from the sustainability standpoint.

We also have a land use code that we can dedicate a bigger part of new developments uh to the public land dedication.

Thank you.

Candidate Earring.

I'm a big open space advocate.

Um part of LOSAC.

I mean, we have been fortunate and I've been fortunate to be around when we've got to purchase some key parcels of land, including Wanna Centennial Farm, some of the areas around 119th.

Um we were able to secure a buffer around the parcel of 119th that exists currently to help you know keep the edge of town, you know, feeling like it's the edge of our town and not kind of blend in with surrounding communities because we we like having you know, knowing that this is Lafayette, this is not Lafayette.

I mean, that's important to me.

I think it's important to a lot of people.

Um open space is always a very thing that ranks highly when you ask residents what they want.

It's one of the reasons we're here.

I do think with the public land dedication, there are tools already in place to help make sure we can maintain open space and get money to purchase these things.

Um so it's a very high priority, it needs to be in the right place.

Not everything needs to be open space, but a very pro-open space acquisition and maintaining that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Barrel.

The open spaces in our town are a big part of why people live here.

Uh, we love to go for a jog, ride our bikes, walk our dogs.

Um there's a woman on South Boulder who walks her goats sometimes, but that's not particularly open space.

Um but uh it's not just people that use that space, as we've heard some other folks mentioned uh there's wildlife.

Um there's that animals that's also flora.

Um, there's plant life that needs that space and the nutrients that they get from those areas.

Um we have uh wetlands as well that need to be protected.

Um these things have to be taken seriously, and of course, there is this push and pull, this tension of development that we've heard about that exists, but I don't think we can just cow to large companies and big corporations that want to develop our town and put up big buildings, especially when those are not what the community wants and it's not benefiting the people uh who live in those neighborhoods.

Thank you.

For the next question, we'll start with candidate Tapia Vega, and we'll do 60 seconds for this question as well.

If the bond ballot measure passes this November, there is a small space at the recreation center for seniors.

What do you envision for the future of the current senior center building?

Amazing.

Thank you for the question.

So the bond itself is something that I think is incredibly important topic.

And I truly appreciate the fact that we're talking about this in a forum because I think it's incredibly important.

Everything from the service center that our public works department works out of to this building, and of course, to our rec center.

I think it's these are these are upgrades that are that are needed for our city.

And looking at the building that we're in, these are upgrades that we want to make sure we get to in a proactive manner.

Talking about the seniors and the senior center and what we potentially have at our in our redevelop rec center, I think it's something that we really need to look at.

So as we grow and as we develop into the future, the largest population that is growing exponentially is our older folks.

We want to make sure that as a city, we not only have the services that allow them to age in place and to do it and to thrive in place, but we want to make sure that we have the space for them to actually go and be part of these city programs.

We will look at the IDEA program that we pass in these last two years of my time in city council.

That equity, that diversity, that inclusion, but mostly that access is something that we need for all members of our community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Lunn.

Can I get clarity?

So it seemed like the question was surrounding what plans are for the update of the rec center and that they're gonna add space for the the senior center, and then what are we doing with the current senior center?

Just to be clear.

I can read the question again.

It was once submitted online, so I don't want to try to interpret.

If the bond ballot measure passes this November, there is a small space at the recreation center for seniors.

What do you envision for the future of the current senior center building?

Um I can tell you they're they're somewhat outgrowing that current uh senior center, which by the way, a lot of things have already adapted um to older adults is the term.

Um the older the senior uh advisory board has been already changed to the older adult advisory board.

And fun thing is ever since I've gone to that open house of just fallen in love with that group because guess what?

I will be on the the type tomorrow morning, and I've been on several hikes with older adult group.

Uh and I've walked in there and gotten to see Dana, who is phenomenal, who's the director of the senior center and what she does.

She called me to confirm I was going on that hike tomorrow.

But if anything, they need more space.

I could tell you that.

So I don't know the details, but I love the older adult community and have been excited that they've accepted me in hanging out with them as of lately.

Thank you.

Candidate Balear.

Thank you.

I'm jealous of the hike you're going on, Rob.

So we'll see if I can crash that.

Um a couple things on this one.

One in terms of how to use that space, I would defer to the community that uses it.

So I I don't think I should decide, but I think I would want to know what do they want to do with it, where do they want to go with that?

Um, something I'm I'm really concerned about, particularly given the large population of seniors or older adults that we have in Lafayette, is that we're looking at significant cuts to Medicare and Medicaid coming up in the next couple of years, which will disproportionately affect older folks and disproportionately affect women because women live longer than men.

And so thinking about what can city council do to look around the corner and prepare our town and our senior citizens for resilience as those impacts arise, whether that is is investing more in the senior center at the rec center or otherwise.

Um but that's something I think we really need to be very mindful of uh as a city government.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Jensen.

So my friend Bob Majin, who's on the senior advisory board, tells me that the senior advisory board has requested that they not have a net decrease in square footage.

And they fear that this small space at the new rec center is going to be less space actually than they currently have.

So I would like to respect that wish and to say, at least to start, let's look at the programming that's going on in the two locations.

And it may be that we need both.

And I think that's pretty sort of objective kind of decision.

You can look at how space is being programmed and does it sit empty or is it being used and make a decision based on that?

So at this moment, I wouldn't do anything.

I would use both and see how it goes.

Thank you.

Candidate Gaigos.

So I'm not yet an older adult, so I would want to defer to the older adult advisory board, which is the new name for the senior advisory board, to see what their vision is for that space and how to utilize it.

It would be unfair for me to make a decision.

Again, we do approach everything thoughtfully on council, but we do look to our advisory boards for a reason.

We value their input and it's very important to this community.

I do I do hope that both spaces remain because I do see the benefit of programming at both locations, and I hope that continues going forward.

Thank you.

Candidate Watson.

I mean, what I do is just walk around and talk to the elder members of our community and see what you guys want.

I mean, it's not for me to tell you what sort of facilities you should have.

You definitely shouldn't lose square footage, especially as all of us are going in that direction.

Um I think listening is probably the most important part of government, um, especially in a case where you have a community that uh I assume knows kind of what sort of services you would want.

Um, and I would just listen on a broader note for the for the bond measure.

Um, I don't like how it's uh lumped together the three projects all in one.

I I don't remotely think this building is is at the end of its life.

We're this is a fine building, and I don't want to waste 34 million dollars of taxpayer money to to rebuild what already works.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Gianullah, thank you.

Uh I agree that we should reach out to our older adult community to see what what they want to do with the existing building.

Um, in addition to expansion at the recenter, there might also be an opportunity to add services and programming for seniors at the new city hall if if that gets uh developed.

So uh again, I think we should reach out to that group, look what makes sense at the different locations.

You know, it would be nice to have something on this side of town and not just on the kind of northern end of public roads.

So, you know, expansion at the new city hall, I think is is a good opportunity.

Thank you.

Canada Arrington.

Uh I've seen some of the renderings for the rec center.

I mean, I I really you know broadly with the bond measure and the three buildings, I do wish it would be spread out or would have been spread out potentially, uh, but they are 30, 40, 50 year old structures.

Um, they are at or reaching the end of their useful life.

Um, the city was also very different when they were built.

I mean, the population, I mean, the older population is you know several times what it was, so I think it's important for us to kind of push the reset button on that.

Um the city will continue to grow.

There's more people that want to be here.

I think it is an important resource.

So uh I really don't I hope that they are getting at least what they had before.

I hope that they've evaluated what the population needs are and they're leaning into that.

I think that's it's critical for us.

So uh I think it's needed.

I think we should make sure that you know we talk to them, understand what their needs are and what they want to have it programmed with.

Uh but I am in favor of all of the bond measure for all of it.

I think it needs to happen.

Uh, I do wish if I could push the rewind button, it'd be spread out, but I think this is our best path forward.

Thank you.

Candidate Barrel.

Um, of course, listening to any community that's involved in the decision, or that's going to be the primary stakeholder in the decision is a crucial element of governing, and and I would certainly hope to do that as a member of city council.

Uh, but as long as we're given the opportunity to dream and what programs would we like to see, or would we maybe imagine for ourselves if we were older adults?

Um, we mentioned we talked about the arts before.

I think keeping the mind and body active are so important.

Um, I would love to see um things like uh English classes uh for speakers of other languages, perhaps Spanish classes for those of us who grew up speaking English.

There are opportunities to um do lots of cool and fun things.

Um my dad lives in a not specifically older folks area, but they um bring in experts on all sorts of different things.

He's taken up bonsai is his big hobby.

He spends hours a day doing that and absolutely loves it.

So I think there's um really cool opportunities to use both spaces.

Thank you.

And candidate Ryan.

All right, well, first of all, I can really relate to this question because I'm a senior citizen.

So uh I I've been to the senior the existing senior center, and I do think with the new project and the remodel that we need both buildings.

Uh we shouldn't close the existing one because as our community grows, everybody's getting older, and I think we need to utilize uh both areas and with planning and designing it.

I think we should need to speak to uh Dana at the senior center and and the staff to find out exactly what's needed, and if we're keeping both locations, try to be a little versatile on what we design in the new one so we can have uh a multi-pronged uh investment for our elderly in the future.

Thank you.

For the next question, we'll start with candidate Glenn.

And the topic is sales tax.

Lafayette sales tax is the highest in Boulder County.

Do you see this as a problem?

Why or why not?

And we'll do one minute for this question.

Overall, uh, yes, because it's only going to increase more our total taxes when we think about what's coming up with the the Boulder County uh sales tax increase that you see on this ballot, which I think a lot of those are important, those measures.

Um with that said, being somebody who I've been in small businesses, I've opened up in Colorado and understanding one thing I didn't even really know until recently somebody brought up that was a bookkeeper that there's websites out there that people search where can I buy something cheaper from a sales tax standpoint?

And that's scary if we're one of the highest sales taxes because we only want to encourage more uh transactions here in Lafayette because that revenue is only gonna help our citizens, and we want to encourage more purchasing with our small businesses here.

So overall, I'm not in favor of further, hopefully, sales tax increases were very high.

Thank you.

Candidate Belier.

I think it's a complicated question because of the decision analysis involved.

So if you were to level set Lafayette's sales tax with the next highest, I would love to hear from city department staff what sort of change in services would that lead to.

What would the businesses and average spenders, well, how would that affect them if the effect is negligible relative to the impact on city services, then I would say, well, but let's keep it as is.

But if they were to show me if we were to bring it in line with the rest of Boulder County, yeah, we'd we'd lose out on some tax revenue.

But that would be a real burden lift off of our businesses.

Then I think that's that's a decision to explore making.

Um I actually looked this up because Frank brought up this question in the last forum.

Uh, and and the sales tax is the highest in the county, but it's pretty negligible.

I know that adds up over the course of a lot of business, but it is pretty negligible.

We're not at 15%.

So I think taking a step back and asking ourselves what services does this pay for?

Are there areas where we can tighten up?

And do we really need to be the highest in the county, or can we bring ourselves in line?

Those would be good questions for a future council to consider.

Thank you.

Candidate Jensen.

I believe we are approaching the limits of the sales tax without it becoming an economic problem for us, and I think we have to be careful about increasing it further.

But I've spent some time with young people recently, like teenagers, young 20s, who have encouraged me to rethink everything, and who have like things we take for granted and things we've been doing.

Maybe we can just think about all of our taxes.

Like we have, for example, uh, taxes that are in perpetuity that maybe their purpose has changed over time, and we we still have a dedicated fund for that.

So I I don't think it's an imp it is a difficult question, but not an impossible one, and I think it may involve some reassessment of what we've been taxing and how we've been taxing, but I do think we are close to the limit of what we can reasonably do without a problem for us economically.

Thank you, Canada Gaygos.

So this is a tough question.

I would say yes, our sales tax is a problem.

I know there is a ballot question from the county asking to increase our sales tax to cover a mental health program, which does sound necessary, but should that pass?

It would actually bring our sales tax above Denver, which does seem even more problematic to me.

I was recently talking to a community member who told me that she likes to grocery shop at the New King Supers in Firestone or Frederick because they have no sales tax.

And since she drives an EV, the price of gas is negligible to her.

So I don't want us to become a community where everyone now is doing their grocery shopping elsewhere because they know they can go somewhere else and pay a smaller tax rate.

Thank you.

Candidate Watson.

Um, based on what I know about the issue, uh, I would say probably not really a problem.

I think the bigger question is is whether we are getting our money's worth out of the taxes and services that the city takes in and offers.

Um from an outsider's perspective, I would say you would say no, we probably need to do a little bit better job managing our budget as a city.

Um that's just based on my experience with various levels of government and various businesses, and there's waste everywhere.

Um, and I think the way we solve this is by really getting in touch with our community and asking people what the people want the city to do for them.

Um, and we structure our policy and we structure our expenditures based on what people actually want us to do.

Um, listening is the first foremost and most important part of government.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Gianullah.

I struggle with this question uh because our tax rate really is pretty comparable to you know the next highest tax rate.

I think it's 0.05% is the difference.

Um the things that uh drive our tax rate higher than our neighbors are things that Lafayette residents are passionate about.

You put a tax on the ballot and it almost always passes.

It's kind of surprising.

Lafayette residents really care about their their community members, they care about open space.

Uh, you know, the reason that all these taxes are on uh uh that the tax rate is so high is because our citizens have passed them in the past.

Is it a problem?

I mean, I think it's getting pretty high.

Nine percent is is pushing, I think, the limits of what people think is normal, but it's not because the the citizens aren't passionate about you know what we're funding.

Thank you.

Canada Errington.

Uh sales tax, I mean you know, I guess I'll I'm gonna lean into what he said is what are we getting from it?

You know, people are voting for it, they're they're approving it.

I mean, I I have voted for you know most of these things too, and I'm willing to pay it because I feel like the the exchange we're getting for our open space legacy fund tax, it allows us to buy that stuff.

It you know, provide city services.

I mean, you know, if we want the bond measure in the Rectioner and the City Hall and you know the uh maintenance stuff.

I mean, you know, we we do we are choosing this.

Um I think it really is more, you know, we need to look at the sales tax generators.

Yes, losing King Supers was was a terrible thing.

Um they have terrible sales service, I try not to go there.

Um but you know people want to be here, people want to spend money in our town, um, and they're willing to you know make those choices.

So I mean, if we need to you know evaluate where what our sales tax is at, I think it is a question to the people again to put it on the ballot if we want to you know sunset some of these things.

So I'd like to view it from a different perspective.

Thank you.

Candidate Barrell.

The sales tax is high.

Um, I can see how that is an issue and how it can become more of an issue as we move forward.

So it definitely is something to uh monitor and keep an eye on.

Um and I certainly don't want people to choose to shop elsewhere outside of our city because they can go someplace that doesn't have sales tax.

Um, but I would also choose people to shop at our local businesses rather than shopping at King Supers.

Um, you know, if I'm equidistant between 287 and baseline and 95th and baseline, I'd rather have people going to Atlas to pick up their things that they need for an evening.

Um just because they're a local business and supporting local business seems like the way to go.

If we have these large companies and corporations that are um doing business in our town, I think they should be paying a greater share of the taxes.

Um I would love to see that happen.

We have certain goods that do not bear sales tax, as they should not, but that means that we do have flexibility in the way that we uh implement sales tax, and we need to be creative with it.

Thank you.

Candidate Ryan.

Well, I've heard a lot of people complain about Lafayette sales tax, and it is getting high.

And as our other candidates said, um, it's really the community that's voting it in.

So, you know, there's gonna be items that keep going on on ballots because the community wants it.

And it's gonna be up to our community to vote it down.

And I really feel that we need to take it um to the community to really find out and speak to them, town hall meetings to see where they want to be.

But if they're voting it in, really a city council, we just have to facilitate it.

Thank you.

Candidate Topiavega.

Thank you.

So a high sales tax, uh, reaching the top of Boulder County and looking at the state, uh, seeing one of the highest sales tax in our city is a problem uh for a couple different reasons.

I will start with Lafayette at its heart and soul has our small business community.

And as someone who sat on the board of directors of a chamber of commerce, I understand small businesses and I understand minority businesses.

I understand how difficult it is for a business to just make it in any city across the front range.

Uh, but an increased tax, an increased sales tax in the long run does hurt our businesses, and we must make an environment in which our businesses can actually survive and also thrive.

On top of that, I grew up in this city.

I I'm a first generation American, I'm a Latino.

I grew up in a low-income community in this city, and sales tax don't just hurt businesses, they hurt our everyday residents.

Uh sales tax, we need to be very, very responsible with how we do sales tax.

They have got to the ballot, they they are gonna continue going to the ballot for different things, but uh looking at sales tax, it is too high.

It is an issue, it's an issue for our businesses, it's an issue for our residents, and we must be responsible about how we look at this going forward.

Thank you.

For the next question, uh, we'll do a minute, and we'll start with candidate bully.

And the question is, how do you intend to improve pedestrian and cyclist access and safety in our city?

A couple weeks ago, I was lucky enough to go with several of the fellow candidates on a city-led bus tour where we looked at a number of unsafe intersections.

Uh, the city has really good data uh mapping where accidents and collisions occur.

So, one thing I would love to see that more publicly available.

So, you know, when you have a beef with an intersection, you feel is unsafe, you can go easily look and see, oh yeah, I'm right, other people are seeing this as well.

Another thing that everyone I've talked to in the community who has little kids is very, very emphatic on uh more protected bike lanes.

Um there's been some really horrific accidents in Boulder County in the in the past year.

Um so more protected bike lanes to ensure that the kids commuting, that folks on bikes are safe.

I think is something we should invest in.

I'm also a little bit concerned by the skyrocketing increase uh of children on e-bikes that uh can go unbelievably fast.

I know this is dangerous for the kids, it's dangerous for cars, it's dangerous for pedestrians.

So I think we need to explore an ordinance to bring that uh in line.

I don't know if we need to explore uh insurance or licensing, but somebody's gonna get really hurt, and I want us to get out ahead of that curve.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Jensen.

Well, this issue has surprised me in that every place I've gone as a candidate, it almost always comes up.

People are concerned that our community is not safe.

It's a big deal out there.

And so I spent some time trying to understand what we're already doing, and I found it really difficult to figure that out.

Uh even as a person with a background in government relations.

We have multiple funding sources, we have multiple plans, and trying to figure out if this intersection that you'd like to see a crosswalk at is going to be improved in the next five years or so is really, really hard to figure out from the city's website.

And I get why that's complicated, but I think we can do better at helping people understand if there's a pipeline and if there are things are gonna get improved, and frankly, we got to put some more money into it.

We are not putting enough money into safety, and we have to.

Thank you.

Candidate Gallegos.

So I am a mom of four, and my youngest child is six, so I do care deeply about safety.

Um right now he does have the ability to walk safely to Wanaka Lake with his older brother, but I don't live near any highways or very busy corridors.

I'm also an elementary school teacher, so I care deeply about the safety of our children exiting schools.

I think we have done a great job with the Vision Zero Action Plan and the multimodal transportation plan and identifying those areas in need of improvement.

And we also have our regional collaborations with commuting solutions, the Highway 7 and Highway 287 coalitions, all with the goal of getting safely to work using all different types of transportation.

Just one last thing.

Um, if you happen to notice a crosswalk light out, please report it to the city through public works.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Watson.

I mean, this is one of those that I think is just an unbelievable, unbelievably complicated question because you have multiple people, some on some on foot, some bicycle, some on road, uh, and cars, like and everybody's trying to share the road.

And like it's a hard problem to answer because it's genuinely a hard problem.

Um of that, I think there's there's kind of a knee-jerk reaction that a lot of people have that we need to prioritize pedestrian bike traffic.

And I'm entirely in favor of putting bike and pedestrian corridors through the city.

But there's also some things like there's a few of the crosswalks that had really serious accidents last year or earlier this year uh over near Indian Peaks.

Um, where there's there's you go there.

There's no business, there's there's no reason why a crosswalk should be there.

Like you have like three roads going down into one road and a train track ahead and rush hour traffic, and like that's an accident waiting to happen, and that's on like the the city for not really properly looking at that, analyzing it and being like, whoa, there's there's just too much happening here, and people are driving to work, they're distracted, they're listening to the radio show when like something's gonna happen.

Thank you.

Candidate Gianullah.

Thank you.

Um, I I do think we need to focus on more protected bike lanes and multi-use paths and trails.

You know, most of our neighborhoods are accessible by trail or have trail access, but not all of them.

We should be able to walk from one neighborhood to another without having to walk along a major road.

Um, and that just isn't the case right now for every single one of our neighborhoods.

So I'd love to see our trail system just expanded.

Um I also do have a B in my bonnet uh about the e-bike situation in town.

Uh I see it less in Lafayette.

More of our neighbors in in Erie and Louisville seem to have a bigger problem than we have.

Uh but we it is concerning.

I walk on the Col Creek Trail and there's a giant sign that says no motorized vehicles, and I pull my hair out when a kid buzzes by me at 25, 30 miles an hour.

Um, I think that the parks department has some uh speedometer or uh you know radar guns that they're starting to use.

So I'm excited to see some changes coming uh to safety on our trails.

Thank you, Candid Arrington.

Uh I don't know.

I think one of the ways that we can improve um in a bike and pedestrian, you know, safety is I mean, our trails and our connectivity.

I mean, we actually do have really great connectivity.

I mean, there's an app that shows you how you can get to various trails in neighboring communities from ours because I mean, most of the people are, you know, not just in Lafayette, they are you know going across, they're part of the county, they're you know, some of them are commuting to work.

Um, so I do think the city is doing in the open space is doing really good at that.

Uh, I think they continue to strive to add more connectivity and you know, just connect the dots there.

Um, I I do think you know, e-bikes, yes.

That's my daughter has one, she's proven that she's safe on it, but you know, open space trails, they want to, you know, they want to have speed limits, they want to have it treated like that, they are want to enforce that.

They, you know, actually found that people on regular bikes are actually moving faster than a lot of e-bikes on average.

So it's an interesting kind of twist, but you know, we want people to be able to be outside, use our trails in open space, and you know, feel free not to just get in the car and drive around.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Barrel.

Um, we have questions of access and we have questions of safety.

It's a lot to tackle in six seconds, but I'm gonna go for it.

Um, I would love to see um more underpasses in some of these high traffic areas, also protected bike lanes specifically in high traffic areas.

I was reading an op-ed uh today about self-absorbed drivers.

Maybe the word was narcissistic that was used there, and um, I fear that uh that's only gonna get worse as time goes on.

I think in terms of uh bicycle regulations, including e-bikes, I do have regular old cyclists flying by me when I'm out for a job with the dog or whatever, and it's somewhat horrifying.

Um, every now and then someone says on your left, which I do appreciate.

Um, but uh regulations and enforcement are gonna cut it, unfortunately.

Um, I just don't think uh giving tickets to people who are speeding on the multi-use trails is gonna be enough.

We have to educate folks, we have to educate parents, we have to educate kids.

Um, we can have fun programs.

Maybe we can pay for some Denver Broncos to come and demonstrate what it's like to wear a helmet.

Um, we had something called Safety Town where I grew up, where you got to sort of like play a pedestrian, play a bicyclist, play a car driver, and learn that way.

Thank you.

Candidate Ryan.

Well, the first thing I would do since I'm very hands-on is get on my bike and ride all the paths and and trails and see where the problems are first hand, and then identify it, put it on the website, and let the community know and get feedback from them.

I think that's really important.

I would also ask my fellow councilman to join me on the bike right now.

Um, but I I would do that and and about the e-bikes uh that are like supercharged.

Uh the police are addressing it because uh I've spoken to them recently, and they are monitoring Wanaka Lake, which uh is uh has a lot of speeding by e-bikes on there, and it is a little dangerous.

So they are taking the radar gun and issuing tickets uh if they catch you, and they have actually um taken some of these bikes uh and confiscated them and contacted the parents to make sure uh that this is illegal and they're aware of it because a lot of parents aren't.

They talk to the kid and say, hey, yeah, buy this, Ted.

Thank you.

Candidate Tapia Vega.

Thank you.

So there's a few moving things here for me.

Uh, first and foremost, we can talk about the trails in our city.

And uh I I hear it all the time about e-bikes coming down 30, 40 miles an hour on the trail.

There's someone walking by, and unfortunately they get into an accident or very near near miss.

And this is something that we have started looking at as a city council.

We of course implemented a speed limit within our trails, and something that followed suit a lot of uh municipalities around the region also did this after we did because it's something that you really need.

But if we look at pedestrian and bike safety just around the city, I think the city's done an incredible job in our multimodal approach.

If you go down South Boulder Road, you'll see uh the protected bike lanes and the the expanded sidewalks.

This is something that we need citywide.

Uh on top of that, uh Councillor Gallegos talked about the vision zero.

This is something that I'm really really proud of that we finally implemented here in our city.

That's gonna not just allow for pedestrian and cyclist safety, but just driver safety as a whole.

Uh, but to me, this is something that's incredibly concerning.

This is something we need to keep working on, and it's something that I've worked on for the last for the last two years, and I will continue to work on my tunnel council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And candidate Len.

Yeah, one of the things uh say when looking where to live in Lafayette and I'm privileged on is living in Old Town.

Uh, the beauty of that is I love the ability of just, especially back in the day, I worked a lot of hours, and on the weekends, it was just great to park my car and know I could accessibly get everything I could imagine by either walking or biking within a five-minute distance.

Uh, which if anybody ever wants to meet at E Simpson or the Red Queen or one of those little coffee shops, I love walking to them uh and getting my exercise, whether it's snowing or raining or not.

Uh, with that said, there is opportunities to improve.

Uh, as Kyle mentioned earlier, we've gotten some great education when we went on that city bus tour, which everybody citizen-wise, if they're available, was invited up to a limited amount of spots, but it gave us uh information that they are working on a lot of things, but I do think there's opportunity for communication and transparency of what those projects are and why those are the priorities and the order they are.

So I swear I think we have opportunity in going forward and in budgeting and improving our walkways and biking.

Thank you.

Well, we've got about just a little over 10 minutes left.

So last question, and we'll start in reverse valid order, uh, starting with candidate Watson and go this way.

Uh the question is oftentimes council members are focused on timely issues that need immediate response.

What is one big picture long-term element of your vision for Lafayette?

And if elected, how would you work to make it happen?

I mean, the environment, obviously.

I think that that's probably the most pressing issue that faces humanity right now.

Um I think that that how we solve that is kind of the more important question because how we solve the environment, how the issue with the environment, I think leads into a lot of the ways that we we can solve other problems as well.

Um, and the way we solve the environment, like the sustainability issue of the city is by trying to get more people involved in protecting it.

Um we are the first line of defense for any development project for any time where we're dealing with with uh concerns with development versus environment.

It is our citizenry that is kind of the first step of protecting the environment.

Um yeah, just mobilizing people, getting people comfortable getting in front of city council and voicing your opinion.

Getting city council out of these chambers, getting us off the dais down here, getting us out round table in the middle of the room, um, just out in community.

Thank you.

Candidate Gaygos.

Could you repeat the question one more time?

Oftentimes council members are focused on timely issues that need immediate response.

What is one big picture long-term element of your vision for Lafayette?

And if elected, how would you work to make it happen?

So, as far as the immediate response part of that question, something that I'm passionate about is accessibility.

I encourage everyone in the community to reach out to me either by phone or by email.

My phone number is posted publicly.

Um, feel free to reach out to me anytime.

I had the opportunity to meet someone in the middle of the night when they were experiencing a noise complaint because I wanted to experience what they were experiencing at that level.

And I will work tirelessly for this community and will reach out to whoever I need to reach out to to make something happen.

I also am conversational, not fluent in four languages.

So if that is something you are concerned about, I will use whatever language skills I have to work with you.

Thank you.

Candidate Jensen.

Well, I hate to repeat, but I think sustainability is key.

And I wrote down three categories.

Water, I think we can help people get rid of their bluegrass lawns and replace them with other things.

And I've done that and I learned some things.

Um I also have solar and a heat pump system and learned some things from doing that.

But I'll also, you mentioned it in the bicycle.

We have too many gaps that make it hard for people not to use their car, either in the bike or the pedestrian path or for safety reasons, they choose to take their car.

I know I take my car to a place I go frequently because there's no safe crosswalk to get there, and and I get in my car because I can't get there without feeling I'm gonna get hit.

So I think uh all of those are part of sustainability, and I I think there's some things I can be proactive on on all of those things.

Thank you.

And Canada Billier.

I think a long-term project really is increasing our investment in solar energy, and I say that cognizant that this is a weird time in our country and the state and federal benefits on solar are disappearing.

Um, my wife and I were lucky enough to put solar on this year, and the city didn't make it easy on us, and Excel Energy didn't make it easy on us.

And so the degree to which we can help folks, particularly in the in this time where funding credits are are declining, make it easier with permitting, really encourage, oh, you want to do this kind of development, you've got to put solar panels and just kind of require that because energy costs, I'm sure we've all seen this, are going up.

And with the artificial intelligence data centers that are being built all around the country, those are going to eat up a lot of energy.

At the same time, hopefully, our fuel combustion vehicle fleet will be transitioning to electric in the next 10, 20 years.

So we're gonna need more energy there, uh, which I think dovetails very nicely with Anne-Marie's point on transit, right?

Bus rapid transit.

If we're able to have buses moving throughout the region that are electrical, that gets more people out of cars that gets more people in rapid transit, and we have the electrical infrastructure ahead of time rather than waiting until the technology arrives.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Glenn.

Yeah, if I had to look at a long-term large issue that is kind of in front of us right now is our opportunity of renewing and preserving.

Uh and that goes into covering sustainability, but then also using the spaces we already have to be filled, whether commercially or residentially, and how that redevelopment works for the community, but what it's gonna do is bring amenities uh that we all seek more of.

Um we have great restaurants and and retail here, but there's still opportunity for more, especially as we're growing.

Uh we've grown a lot in the last decade when it comes down to population and those needs.

Um with that said, goodness of sustainability when you're redeveloping renewing, as you would already know.

We're we're not bringing in new resources to achieve that.

Um and then you also brought up water, which I think is crucial.

I love is there any the opportunities of exploring incentives around more zero escaping, less irrigation use and preserving our water for the long haul.

Thank you.

Canada Tappia may get out.

Thank you so much.

So long term, what I really want to build is a resilient Lafayette.

Uh there's a few different aspects that go into that.

Obviously, a few of the members of this diet have already spoken about the sustainability.

And we want to build a sustainable city going into our future, going into the future of climate change.

Uh, there's a few other things here for me is uh affordability and access, access to city programs uh citywide for all our residents, and of course affordability.

I've spoken about affordability a little bit tonight, and I only have a few more seconds left, so I won't get into it too much, but just building an affordable city that fits our residents across the board.

Uh further, uh welcoming an inclusive city.

Uh today we all love the city of Lafayette, and we do because of the people, the people that currently live here, the cultures that kind of come here, mix and build a beautiful, beautiful city that we all love.

The community is the way it is because of the people who currently live here.

We want to make sure that that city is resilient towards the future and fits the needs of not only the residents of today, because yes, we are talking about the immediate response issues, but the Lafayette worked 30 years, 40 years, and 50 years down the road.

So for me, it's just building a resilient Lafayette.

Thank you.

Candidate Ryan.

Well, I think the town's uh long-term vision is uh the action climate plan, which was established last year in Lafayette.

It covers seven different areas, which a lot of the candidates have mentioned before, such as transportation, water, um, recycling, all those are areas which uh long range need to be followed through because it's it's for our next generation.

Um but I also feel what's very important is fiscally being fiscally responsible with our money uh for the community because we can't waste money.

We can't put it in programs that aren't effective.

And uh it's important because we pay a lot of tax dollars in.

So we want to make sure it's very useful and put in the right spot, and that's where my strength of being fiscally responsible will help.

Thank you.

Candidate Barrel.

Thank you.

This is short-term and long term.

One of the things that has prompted me to run for city council and is extremely important to me, is that everybody who lives here in Lafayette feels safe.

Um, literally.

Um, I don't want people to fear getting taken out of their homes in the middle of the night, getting picked up off the street.

I don't want people who are unhoused and living here or passing through to be fearful of themselves getting picked up off the street.

I would love to see a shelter for unhoused people, mutual aid programs as opposed to criminalizing those folks.

I would love to see an anti-discrimination uh ordinance or laws for LGBTQ plus uh IA plus folks.

Um the laws that we pass say a lot about what we care about as a community and suggest our values, and I think that goes a long way to helping people feel safe here.

Um I want to support our fire department.

Um they need uh money for FTE, only one of the firefighters uh full-time firefighters can actually live here.

Um, and I would love to thank you.

Thank you.

Candidate Arrington.

Uh I mean, long-term and big picture.

I mean, I think really is the character of our city.

I mean, you know, we we you know what defines Lafayette.

Um, I mean, it's it's the reason that you know 10-ish years ago I moved here, and I'm kind of thinking about what is gonna happen in the next 10 plus years because development along Arapaho and baseline, I mean, you know, 119 that is really gonna start to define what Lafayette is and you know what we feel our community stands for.

Um, you know, I think some of the things we talked about was our our art focus.

I mean, our downtown.

I mean, that you can't manufacture that.

That you know, it's it's the culture that's here, and we want to we want to keep that going.

We don't want to be just a you know Disneyland or made up kind of area.

We want to we have history here, we want people to experience that.

So, I mean, you know, our open space and wildlife, I mean, it is the character that defines our city, and I want 10 years from now to still feel like I did 10 years ago when I moved here.

Thank you.

And candidate Gianola.

Thank you.

I mean, I think Councillor Tapia Vegas said it best that developing a resilient Lafayette is what we need to focus on.

Yes, we have to adapt to a changing climate, but we also have to adapt to a changing economy.

Um, with respect to climate, you know, we can't control climate change just by the work that we do in Lafayette.

So we really do need to adapt.

We need to uh increase our protective buffers against fire, we need to plan for water long term, uh, we need to address heat heat island effects with respect to a changing economy.

We need to think about bringing wages up for our essential workers.

We need to think about how can we help our small businesses survive a downturn.

Uh there are things that we can do as a community to come together and survive these crises, crises and uh grow as a community.

Thank you.

And thank you all very much.

Thank you.

That's the end of the forum.

Questions went fast, didn't it?

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