Matt Benjamin

Matt Benjamin, a self-described freelance astronomer, is making his second run for Boulder City Council in 2021, but this time around with more city-related experience and name recognition under his belt, which he sees as a strong selling point given the significant turnover coming to Council after the election.

“I’m running because we need thoughtful leadership that will allow us to be a more inclusive, diverse and welcoming community, now and into the future. We are losing four council members with a combined, I believe, 25 years of institutional knowledge and experience. Going through this COVID pandemic has exacerbated most if not all of the issues we face in our community, and certainly introduced new ones. Experience is really key as we try to come out of this pandemic and we try to not only lift up our community and those that have been affected and continue to be affected, but also as an opportunity to pivot towards perhaps a brighter future,” said Benjamin about his reasons for running in 2021.

SHORT LIFE STORY

Benjamin grew up in Malibu, California, but believed he was never meant for the L.A.-area life and enjoyed spending time with family in central Idaho, where he fell in love with the wilderness and learned how to ski. He came to Boulder in 2001, and graduated from the University of Colorado with degrees in astronomy and astrophysics in 2005. He went on to work for about 11 years with Fiske Planetarium at CU-Boulder (leaving in January 2017), most recently as Education Programs Manager, which involved managing students and teaching them how to be effective educators, and taking on marketing and business management responsibilities since the planetarium had bills to pay.

He ran for Council in 2017, saying at the time he wanted to be a part of making change in governing and in encouraging those disenchanted with the process to become involved. The first-time candidate finished 11th in a race for five open seats, but he continued to stay involved with civic affairs after the election.

In 2018, he was selected as a member of the city’s Election and Campaign Finance Working Group, which eventually contributed to putting a wide range of election-related measures on the 2018 ballot and eventually into city law. In 2019, he became executive director of a new organization called “The Coalition,” which at the time was an advocacy group involving combined input and participation around support of Council candidates and ballot measures from other local organizations including Better Boulder, Open Boulder, South Boulder Creek Action Group, and Boulder Progressives. He has also served as a Board member with Open Boulder. In 2020, Benjamin led the successful “Our Mayor, Our Choice” initiative campaign, under which Boulder will directly elect its Mayor beginning in 2023, using Ranked Choice Voting. He was also recently selected as a member of the city’s Flood and Stormwater Master Plan Working Group.

Today, Benjamin works as a professional photographer, specializing in wildlife and astrophotography, and selling or licensing his images for either digital or print. He will also do science education consulting. He was part of an effort to create the nation’s first “International Gold-Tier Dark Sky Reserve” in central Idaho, and said he has since worked with other communities on creating their own dark sky reserves or parks, or adopting lighting ordinances to limit light pollution. According to Benjamin, the dark sky experience has helped him in part because he worked with multiple stakeholders and levels of government, plus he found the intersections between science and policy to be personally rewarding.

ON THE ISSUES

Housing: Like a number of candidates, Benjamin referred to Boulder’s situation as a “housing crisis,” with key concerns including availability and affordability. He said the housing challenges have made it tougher for younger people to afford housing in Boulder, and for one piece of evidence noted that school enrollment is down for neighborhood schools located west of 28th Street – plus future school closures might be possible since these areas have a generally aging populace and school populations aren’t being replenished.

There have been a number of Boulder-scale large local housing projects either proposed, in the public process hopper, or in some stage of completion in recent years – for example, the Boulder Armory project in north Boulder or the Waterview project in east Boulder, among others. Benjamin said he believes the city should continue investigating new projects to help meet the housing demand, and it should keep a focus on locating new or expanded housing on or near transit corridors because it helps create a beneficial synergy if housing makes using transit or alternative mode transportation convenient.

Projects can get contentious in Boulder, and Benjamin says public input for these projects is beneficial and necessary, but there should be balance, and he does not support public process that he equates with a “public veto.” He believes housing decisions should be made in the context of broad community goals, not just narrower localized focus, with honest negotiating practices and without toxicity. He also said he would not eliminate single-family zoning across Boulder, but would be open to investigating potential alternatives, such as zoning that would allow duplex/triplex housing in certain single-family areas. He said it’s possible that building duplex/triplex housing might allow for some home prices to be in the six-digit range instead of seven digits ($1 million-plus).

CU-South: During this interview in late August, Benjamin said he supported the CU-South annexation agreement as it stood, though he believed there were a few what he called “relatively minor” details yet to work out. He believes approving the agreement is necessary to get flood mitigation work going in the nearer future, which should help protect residents in or near the South Boulder Creek floodplain against events like the 2013 flood. The current agreement calls for mitigation to protect against a 100-year flood, and Benjamin is aware that a number of people believe this is insufficient given the impacts climate change can have on weather event intensity, but said in his opinion the floodwater detention areas and physical barriers in the 100-year plan will help buy time if there is a more extreme event, giving people a chance to evacuate in case of a serious threat.

Benjamin said the August version of the annexation agreement would have provided a number of items that he supported. This includes addressing a common complaint that CU doesn’t provide enough housing in town by planning for perhaps 1,100 housing units, agreeing to build housing units with scalable building heights to avoid obstructing sight lines, designating more than 100 acres of the property as Open Space, and that the new housing could help reduce vehicle miles traveled for residents who might work or attend school in Boulder and might not be able to live in Boulder at present.

He does not support the “Let The Voters Decide On Annexation of CU-South” ballot measure, saying if this initiative passed the process might need to “go back to the drawing board,” which he believes could delay flood mitigation. He also supports Council adopting the annexation agreement before the 2021 election, partially because as mentioned earlier Council will lose the experience of four current members with extensive institutional knowledge after the election, which could put the city at a disadvantage if the process needs to start again.

Governance: Benjamin acknowledged that political polarization and a certain lack of civility is now part of Boulder’s modern political environment, and said some of it might have trickled down from recent toxicity at the national level. Though he is clearly part of a “slate” of four candidates endorsed by organizations under the Coalition banner, and another group of four candidates has been endorsed by other local organizations including PLAN-Boulder County, and the last two Council elections in 2017 and 2019 have featured slate-vs-slate campaigning, Benjamin said he believes the recent existence of slate voting and campaigning does not represent Boulder’s true diversity of thought.

He also believes that systematic change might help reduce polarization, suggesting for example that the Ranked Choice Voting structure he supported with “Our Mayor, Our Choice” could reduce negative campaigning.  But no matter the system, he emphasized that it’s possible to “have discourse without being mean.”

Homelessness: Benjamin said he did not fully support the city’s recent decision to adopt a $2.7 million package of programs to manage the impacts of homelessness in given areas in the city, but did appreciate the Downtown Ambassadors component of the program. He said he would prefer for the city to prioritize services for people experiencing homelessness over policing solutions when possible, and mentioned the Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program in Denver as a possible template to follow. According to City of Denver information, STAR makes Emergency Response Teams available that include EMTs and Behavioral Health Clinicians when people are experiencing situations that may not require a police-only response, such as mental health issues, substance abuse, or homelessness.

Benjamin said programs like STAR can take pressure off police and free them from needing to spend their time and effort in situations where policing might not be necessary. He said he would support offering new services for the homeless in Boulder, such as mobile showers to help make sure people aren’t neglecting hygiene, since poor hygiene can exacerbate health problems. In late August, he mentioned that the city was likely to receive $10 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, and believes the city could use the money toward providing enhanced services.

Public Safety: Benjamin said Boulder isn’t the “same small town we used to be,” and that public safety is a primary function of city government. However, it isn’t always obvious who is committing crimes or where they’re from, and he suggested that some of the recent increase in bike thefts might have been due to organized groups and not necessarily exclusively the homeless population. While discussing Denver’s STAR program, he mentioned that reducing police calls for situations that don’t really require policing could free up police to spend more time investigating or preventing crimes that threaten public safety. He also said city residents could help prevent some crime by making sure car and home doors are locked, securing bikes, and taking other personal protective measures.

Transportation: To reduce or manage vehicle miles traveled by car, Benjamin supports strategies including subsidizing EcoPasses to boost transit ridership (perhaps citywide), increasing the amount of protected bike lanes to encourage more travel by bicycle (and increase safety for cyclists), and to use housing or parking policy as a means to desired results. He again mentioned new housing at CU-South as a way to reduce vehicle miles traveled, and suggested reviewing the city’s parking minimums so new areas of development might not be so car-centric.

Bedrooms Are For People: Benjamin supports the BAFP measure, re-emphasizing that the city is in a housing crisis and it needs to employ every tool to increase housing availability at its disposal. He is aware that there is local opposition to the ballot measure based on concerns such as the measure possibly providing an incentive for significant new bedroom construction in existing properties or opportunities for investors to buy homes for the income potential, but Benjamin said he’s “not looking to legislate for ‘what-ifs.’” He said the next Council(s) should keep an eye on possible indicators of undesirable activity, and take action if necessary, but in the meantime he expects the measure to increase housing availability without calling for entirely new housing units.

CONNECTIONS

Endorsements: Benjamin has been endorsed by the following Unofficial Candidate Committees (UCC): Better Boulder, Boulder Is For People, Boulder Progressives, Sierra Club Indian Peaks Group, South Boulder Creek Action Group, United Campus Workers Colorado, and The Coalition. He has also received endorsements from the Boulder Daily Camera, Boulder Weekly, and Open Boulder.

Contributions: Benjamin has received the maximum individual $100 donation from former Council member Jan Burton; current Council members Rachel Friend, Bob Yates, and Aaron Brockett; along with current Council candidate Dan Williams, while current candidates Nicole Speer and Lauren Folkerts had both contributed $25. As of Sept. 17, Benjamin had contributed $1,268.39 to his own campaign, of which $1,168.39 was listed on the city’s website as loans.

Digital Presence:
Website: https://www.mattbenjaminforcouncil.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MattBenjaminFuturefirst/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MBforBoulder
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MBforBoulder/