I'm running for Boulder City Council to bring vision and common sense to a polarized community. We lack compelling long range plans for where we want and need to go. Council is making policy reactively, not proactively. Neighbors are in a fury. Development seems random and piecemeal. Major projects like the Transit Village are missed opportunities. We should be innovating. We are antagonizing our business community and our neighbors and missing chances to move forward with CU. We can do better.  We need to coordinate our business, educational, scientific and neighborhood interests towards common goals. We face real problems, that need real solutions that bring consensus to our divided community and we need to act now.

I want to challenge Boulder's environmental, business, education, artistic and scientific communities to work together with our residents and neighbors towards building a sustainable future. The planet is warming, the international economy is under stress and we are running out of oil.  We cannot embalm ourselves in this condition, either locally or globally. The climate demands that we change course to drastically reduce our carbon footprint. We need to use our economic engines, our businesses, our scientists and our artists to make necessary changes in the best way we can. We need to develop a shared vision, a plan for our future, that Council can execute over the next 50 years. We cannot waste time on crisis management or micromanagement.

Good plans and strong leadership can create community consensus and inspire action. As I travel around our town, region, country and planet, I am struck by how tribal people can be, despite their common interests. No matter where I go, or at what scale I work, there are always special interest groups that focus on just one aspect of a problem, without considering the whole system. Myopic views make problem solving very difficult. Sometimes it's politicians across the aisle, or neighbors across the street, sometimes its people in a different church, town, county or country, sometimes its our own children or parents who challenge our beliefs. In every case, no matter how simple or sophisticated, people take sides on issues, become passionate, defensive and righteous.  Opinionated special interest groups form the building blocks of our communities, but sometimes checks and balances can cripple progress. We need strong plans and strong leadership to guide today's actions.

We need more diplomacy in Boulder so we can solve our most persistent problems like affordable housing, efficient transportation, economic competitiveness and great environmental stewardship. As an architect, neighbor, teacher, Board member, consumer, citizen, friend, husband, son and Dad, I find myself in the middle of warring tribes every day. Diplomacy is always my first job - teasing the common ground from a battleground. Sitting down across a table, over a contract, with a committee, comparing notes, stepping back, finding the bigger picture, calming nerves - these are the first steps of any project. 

In Boulder, we are lucky to have a complex mix of Universities, scientific labs, entrpreneurial businesses, larger corporations, non-profits & NGO's, activists of every stripe, artists, very wealthy and fairly poor citizens and 25,000 students driving each other crazy. We need strong leadership, diplomacy and a shared vision to get this group to work together.  My life's work involves resolving differences between competing interests and finding a shared vision for projects and plans of all scales & types. I want to share my experience with a forward looking council.