Fort Collins for the 99%

Fort Collins is too expensive! Working people are being priced out of the city that runs on their labor. Over the course of the campaign, we have talked to hundreds of voters about the issues that matter most to them, and by far, the most significant issue for residents of Fort Collins is the cost of living crisis. Analysis from CSU’s Regional Economic Development Institute found that more than a quarter of the city’s workforce cannot afford to live in Fort Collins, an economic reality that also risks severely harming small businesses through staffing shortages. 

We need to build a local economy for the 99%! That means developing a robust, green economy, powered by union labor. My economic platform recommits to raising the minimum wage in Fort Collins, pledges to fight for the right of all workers to collectively bargain, and recognizes that we will not have a solution to our city’s revenue crisis until TABOR is rescinded and we can tax the rich.

Raise the Minimum Wage

Fort Collins must guarantee its workforce a livable wage. In 2019, the Colorado State Legislature passed HB19-2110, allowing a limited number of communities to raise their local minimum wage.  In 2021, Fort Collins City Council made exploring a minimum wage increase one of their priorities. It took until 2023 for council to bring the minimum wage increase to a vote, which ultimately failed 4-3. In the city’s survey, 68% of employees said that they are not able to save money or respond to emergencies with their current income. 63% of respondents said that they had received one or fewer raises in the prior five years, most of which were less than $1/hour. The minimum wage in Fort Collins is over $10 less than the livable wage, and there’s an even bigger gap for tipped workers.  The minimum wage needs to be raised, without a larger tip offset. As a city councilor, I will make it a priority to ensure that we are investing in our local economy and allowing every person in Fort Collins to be able to afford surviving here.

Workers’ Rights & Good Union Jobs

Unions play a critical role in ensuring fair workplaces by giving workers a seat at the bargaining table. Unionized workplaces result in higher wages, stronger enforcement of health and safety laws, and improved benefits. The Colorado Protections for Public Workers Act (PROPWA), passed in 2023, protects state municipal workers from retaliation for engaging in collective action and union organizing. However, PROPWA does not require the municipality to recognize or collectively bargain with a municipal workers’ union. Since PROPWA passed, several groups of Fort Collins employees have sought to unionize, but have been denied recognition by the city, even when they demonstrated majority support. As a city councilor, I will promote the rights of Fort Collins’ public workers, and local workers generally, through the following measures.  

• Develop a framework for municipal union recognition similar to Denver’s Referred Question 2U that it passed last year, which would guarantee a clear path to collective bargaining rights for the workers who make Fort Collins run.

• Reaffirm the rights of city employees to protected speech, concerted activity, and full participation in the political process while off-duty and not in uniform, bringing Fort Collins policy into compliance with PROPWA.

• Transition from low bid contracting to best value contracting for city projects to guarantee that city dollars are spent more efficiently on high quality contractors.

Tax the Rich

Many of the funding shortfalls that Fort Collins faces are being exacerbated by overly restrictive prohibitions on revenue generation mandated by the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). While city councilors have no direct authority over statewide tax policy, if elected, my lobbying at the state legislature would focus on replacing TABOR with a fair tax policy that ensures that the ultra-rich pay their fair share.

Every resident of Fort Collins deserves the right to feel safe and welcomed in our community. However, the national political climate and the actions of the federal government under the Trump administration have created a culture of fear among vulnerable communities and undermined public safety. 

ICE raids in and around Fort Collins have driven entire communities into the shadows, disconnecting our neighbors from school, healthcare, and other essential services. Trans people throughout our city fear being targeted by the federal government simply for existing as their true selves. Unfortunately, national upticks in intolerance and hatred can also inspire acts of violence and harassment as evidenced by the 2017 vandalism of the Islamic Center and the anti-Black text messages sent to Poudre School District students last year.

Students and other community members have been demanding that the city protect vulnerable communities against the increasingly authoritarian encroachment of the federal government. It is time that our city leadership reflects those demands and stands firmly in support of every community under threat from the federal government. My approach to protecting the most vulnerable communities in Fort Collins begins with tackling hate and with developing true community safety.

Fighting Hate

According to the city’s 2024 Community Survey, 61% of surveyed residents positively rated the city’s openness and acceptance of people from diverse backgrounds, an improvement from recent years, but still below ratings from 2017 and earlier. This suggests that there is still much work to do to create a welcoming environment in Fort Collins. Oftentimes when local resources or legal protections are available, vulnerable community members may not know where they reliably find that information. As a city councilor, I will prioritize the following strategies to fight hate in Fort Collins:

• Ensure that city resources are not used to enforce external laws that would criminalize the identities of vulnerable groups such as trans people, immigrants, or people of color.

• Compile a publicly-available list of local resources pertinent to trans people and conduct a public information campaign to disseminate information about these resources, similar to New York City Council Bill 1200-2025.

• Use city platforms to educate community members on their rights and how to legally protect themselves from federal abuses of power under Trump.

Community Safety

A proactive and evidence-based approach to community safety must simultaneously address the root causes of criminal behavior and tackle threats to public safety and public health that pervade the status quo. City infrastructure can be redesigned to ensure safer streets. City policy can be updated to incorporate more housing-first and harm reduction strategies. Studies show that economic inequality is one of the largest drivers of crime, which means delivering on an agenda of affordability is also an essential part of making our city safer. As a city councilor, I will prioritize the following strategies to improve community health and safety in Fort Collins:

• Fully resource the city’s Mental Health Response Team and explore opportunities to develop a civilian crisis response approach, similar to Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program, which can divert low-risk calls without significant safety concerns to a team of dedicated mental health professionals and social workers. This will free up time and resources for Fort Collins Police Services to focus on the most serious emergency calls.

• Pursue a housing-first approach to the crisis of homelessness in Fort Collins by enacting the recommendations of the city’s 2025 Human Services and Homelessness Priority Platforms, focusing on preventing residents from falling into homelessness, preserving shelter programs, and providing permanent supportive housing with wraparound services and medical care.

• Fully implement the recommendations of the city’s 2023 Vision Zero Action Plan by promoting alternative modes of transportation, adopting road diets, and installing traffic-calming infrastructure that will reduce motor vehicle fatalities.

• Decriminalize homelessness in Fort Collins by rescinding the city’s camping ban and car camping ban and by ending the destructive practice of encampment sweeps. This will ensure that city resources are focused on assisting individuals experiencing homelessness rather than hassling them. 

• Maintain funding for Fort Collins 911 (FC911) so that emergency services remain fully staffed and ready to respond to the hundreds of thousand of calls they receive annually. 

• Work with our state legislative partners to end the statewide prohibition on supervised use sites, and then, focus on the development of these sites locally and on the application of additional harm reduction strategies.

• Invest in well-lit streets that reduce risks of crime without the need for surveillance technology.

• Promote career development programs, community centers, public parks, and public gyms that limit crime by creating safe gathering spaces in a diversity of neighborhoods and by building financial and social stability. 

The price of housing has skyrocketed in Fort Collins over the past few years! According to the city’s most recent Housing Strategic Plan, the gap between wages and housing costs continues to widen, threatening thousands of working people in our city with displacement. More and more of our friends and neighbors are facing the pressure to move to Loveland, Windsor, and other surrounding towns. This crisis is plunging families into poverty and pushing already vulnerable populations into homelessness.

Fort Collins must treat housing as a human right, not a commodity. We need to build dense, affordable housing and ensure that renters and homeowners alike are protected from the encroachment of speculative corporate interests. The city’s updated Land Use Code includes some important steps toward promoting housing density and affordability, but several other beneficial provisions were stripped from the final version after previous updates were repealed. City leadership has the power to make it less costly and complex to build the housing stock that we need. To address the housing crisis, I will focus on expediting the development of affordable housing and strengthening the protections that guarantee stability to members of our community.

Build Affordable Housing

Fort Collins is not building nearly enough housing to meet growing demand. The city’s most recent Housing Strategic Plan in 2021 estimated that an additional 7,265 units were needed to meet the demand for affordable rent, and it’s likely that this number has only increased. CSU’s Regional Economic Development Institute found that Fair Market Rent increased by 50% between 2010 and 2020 while wage growth fell far behind. According to the city’s own Housing Data Dashboard, a supermajority of households making less than $50,000 per year are significantly cost-burdened by the price of housing. Ballooning housing costs are pushing an increasing number of residents out of homeownership and increasing the percentage of renters in the city. Meanwhile, older residents that want to age in place are finding it more difficult to downsize.

Our city’s housing shortage is uniquely pronounced when it comes to affordable housing. The 2015 Housing Strategic Plan pledged that 10% of the city’s housing stock would be composed of deed-restricted affordable housing for households making less than 80% of area median income by 2040. By the release of the 2021 Housing Strategic Plan, Fort Collins was 708 units behind pace to meet that goal with only 5% of housing stock being affordable. An updated memo from a council work session in early September 2025 reveals that affordable building has slowed even further with only 5.5% of existing stock affordable. The shortage is even more disproportionate for units intended to be deeply affordable. The city’s 2020 Social Sustainability Gaps Analysis found that there was more than a 2,500-unit shortage in rental units available for incomes below $25,000 per year. This affordable housing shortage is causing residents to rent up or buy up, further exacerbating the percentage of our community that is cost-burdened.

As a city councilor, I will prioritize the following strategies to address the housing shortage:

• Expand incentives for affordable housing development, especially in Low- and Medium-Density zones around Old Town. These incentives were included in the Land Use Code updates passed by council in 2022 and 2023, but they were stripped after those updates were repealed. Recommitting to these incentives is necessary if Fort Collins is to meet its affordable housing development goals.

• Make it easier to build in Fort Collins by streamlining the development process and modernizing building requirements. Recent state legislation encouraging the development of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) is an important first step that should be built upon. Abolishing parking minimums and easing building height limitations will reduce the cost of housing development and allow for more diverse housing options around the city.

• Restrict speculative investors from buying-up large numbers of homes for corporate profit. Analysis from Roots Policy Research reveals that investor ownership of single family homes, townhomes, and condos in Fort Collins has increased significantly since the 2008 financial crisis. It’s time that our city leadership enact reforms so that working families don’t have to compete for homeownership with out-of-state corporations.

• Extend the affordable housing deed restriction term from 60 years to 99 years or more. These affordability guarantees were initially part of the city’s Land Use Code updates, but requirements were scaled-back after repeal.

• Build on state legislation that grants Fort Collins the public right of first refusal to purchase affordable multifamily properties by developing an implementation process that can integrate into the city’s existing housing policy.

• Work with our partners in the state legislature to provide tenants the right of first refusal for cooperative ownership of multifamily properties. Existing state legislation provides mobile home park residents the opportunity to purchase the parks where they live before other buyers. These rights must be strengthened and expanded to other forms of multifamily properties.

Protections for Renters & Homeowners

In addition to being financially impacted by the housing shortage, renters and homeowners in Fort Collins are also vulnerable to being taken advantage of by bad actors.

Far too many Fort Collins residents are facing eviction or foreclosure without adequate access to legal representation. According to the Colorado Judicial Branch’s dashboard on eviction filings, of the over 1,200 eviction cases tried in Fort Collins court in 2025, tenants were represented by an attorney only 1.1% of the time. 

Price hikes and lack of legal protections are negatively impacting the well-being of our neighbors. The Colorado Health Institute’s 2023 Colorado Health Access Survey found that 49.5% of renters in Larimer County reported 8 or more days of poor mental health in the previous month, more than three times the rate at which homeowners reported poor mental health.

Analysis from the Colorado Fiscal Institute has found that landlords and property managers across the state are using rent algorithms to artificially drive up the price of housing through anti-competitive collusion.

As a city councilor, I will prioritize the following strategies to address lack of housing protections:

• Ensure that the city’s Eviction Legal Fund is being appropriately resourced, and bolster awareness of  this resource throughout the community so that all renters are able to know their rights.

• Work with our partners in the state legislature to repeal the statewide ban on municipal rent stabilization, and work to implement rent control in Fort Collins.

• Encourage our state legislative partners to revive efforts to ban rent-setting algorithms and expand Colorado’s “for-cause” eviction protections.

• Work with Larimer County to make the Senior Homeowner Exemption permanent, and expand the exemption to allow downsizing within the county. 

Climate change is an existential threat to Fort Collins and our surrounding neighbors. The Cameron Peak Fire in 2020 showed the acute risks that warming-exacerbated natural disasters pose to our local community. Three out of every four buildings in Fort Collins are vulnerable to fire risks. Transitioning away from fossil fuels is an imperative for our community’s survival.

Fort Collins needs a Green New Deal! We must build an environmentally sustainable and climate resilient city and a local economy full of union-protected, green jobs. Bold policies such as New York’s Build Public Renewable Act and Boston’s Green New Deal show that the green energy transition can be an opportunity to develop a robust, sustainable economy with abundant jobs and strong labor protections. My climate plan envisions a Fort Collins with walkable green neighborhoods,  public transit for all, and no more fossil fuels. 

Green Walkable Neighborhoods

Dense, walkable neighborhoods are more environmentally sustainable. By discouraging driving, extending tree canopy and other forms of shade, and improving energy efficiency, green mixed-use neighborhoods mitigate our city’s environmental impact and adapt to our changing climate. Fort Collins has several mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods like Old Town and West Elizabeth, but we still have work to do to combat urban sprawl. As a city councilor, I will prioritize the following strategies to help transition Fort Collins to a denser, greener city:

• Encourage the development of mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods that will decrease car-reliance and our city’s carbon footprint.

• Incentivize building deeply affordable, multi-family housing which relies on comparatively less energy than single-family development.

• Abolish parking minimums so that new housing in our city is not tied to environmentally destructive infrastructure.

• Reevaluate our trash hauling contract and implement composting programs in the city.

• Implement water conservation strategies identified in the city’s 2025 Water Efficiency Plan, including a daily sprinkler watering window. Limit potentially wasteful uses of water such as data centers.

• Carry out the recommendations of Rooted in Community, the city’s 2024 Urban Forest Strategic Plan by investing in tree planting to expand shade throughout Fort Collins.

• Expand protected bike lanes throughout Fort Collins.

Public Transit for All

Building with a sustainable city in mind means ensuring that as many residents as possible can commute to work, attend school, and get groceries without relying on driving. That means we need to ensure a robust public transit system across Fort Collins. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Transfort has provided free access to bus routes all across the city, welcoming many new riders and ending potentially-dangerous fare checks. Unfortunately, our local public transit system still faces significant service gaps and funding shortfalls. As a city councilor, I will prioritize the following strategies to expand our city’s public transit:

• Fully staff Transfort by working with state legislative partners to secure long-term, stable funding for public transit in Fort Collins.

• Increase frequency and reliability of existing bus routes, and develop additional east-west bus routes along growing thoroughfares so that Fort Collins can be a 15-minute city.

• Encourage creative ways to promote alternatives to driving through programs like Shift Your Ride.

• Work with our governing partners in Poudre School District and Thompson School District to ensure that transit maps prioritize route access to and from our community’s schools. The Taft Hill & Blevins bus stop is a great example of how students’ needs can be integrated into our transit planning.

• Incentivize the development of deed-restricted affordable housing along transit corridors so that working people can afford their home and commute easily to work.

No More Fossil Fuels

Fort Collins has made ambitious promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable energy, but the city is lagging behind its commitments. Despite reaffirming its goal to reduce carbon emissions by 50% in 2026 and 80% in 2030, the City of Fort Collins Climate Dashboard shows that the city has only reduced 27% of its emissions as of this year.

Fort Collins is also one of four owner communities of the Platte River Power Authority (PRPA), which has also committed to reducing 80% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. In 2023, state legislators–including Fort Collins’ State Senator Cathy Kipp–sent a letter to PRPA, expressing concern that it is overcommitting to fossil fuels and will fail to reach its 2030 target. Despite these warnings, the Larimer County Commission approved PRPA’s request to install 5 new natural gas turbines at the Rawhide Power Plant. While the imminent decommissioning of the local coal plant is encouraging, it is concerning that PRPA will be unable to meet its 2030 goals and our community will still be reliant on fossil fuels. I am the only candidate running for city council who has publicly opposed this decision to purchase new fossil fuel infrastructure. As a city councilor, I will prioritize the following strategies to decarbonize Fort Collins:

• Recommit to the climate goals outlined by Fort Collins’ Our Climate Future plan that require reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80% and achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030.

• Urge the PRPA to take its carbon mitigation goals seriously and commit to the build-out of significant renewable power capacity.

• Expand incentives for the electrification of new builds and remodels.

• Support a fee on large commercial and industrial users of methane.