Steve Rosenblum
Steve Rosenblum, a financier, economist, and investor, is making his first run for public elected office in the 2021 race for Boulder City Council.
“I’m doing this because I think we have a particular opportunity to meet the challenges we’re facing in housing, income inequality, climate, and homelessness. This town has grown increasingly polarized despite having I think largely shared values. But our conversation has degraded, and we’re not finding common ground. I bring a skill set with 20 years of experience in finance, housing, and bringing people together to solve complex problems. I’m working hard, listening, doing my research, and treating people with respect, so I think I would bring a unique perspective to really get things done on Council, and make progress on areas where we’re in dire need of some progress,” said Rosenblum on his reasons for running.
SHORT LIFE STORY
Rosenblum was born to an immigrant family who lived in New York City, but he grew up primarily in Florida, living there until the age of 18. He moved back to New York to attend Columbia University, where he studied mathematics, computer science, and engineering – graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor of science degree. He said he had a dream growing up to do special effects for movies, and did that during college, but also gained computer experience during the tech boom. A college professor introduced him to a person working in mathematical economics at a bank, which led him into a career path in the worlds of finance and investment.
Since graduating from Columbia, he spent 10 years with the Global Interest Rate Products division at Goldman Sachs, including time as the division’s managing director, then took a position as managing director of portfolio management for Element Capital. He said his experiences have put him in touch with “every part of how housing is financed in this country,” such as dealing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, doing mortgage loan underwriting, and dealing with insurance companies, pension funds, commercial banks, and endowments. He also gained international experience, including working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on rescue packages during the European sovereign debt crisis involving Greece and Portugal, along with advising the British, French, Italian, and United States governments on debt sustainability. Today, he is the Head of Real Assets for GenTrust, an investment management firm.
He moved to Boulder in 2017, but said the seeds of wanting to live here were planted in the 1990s after taking a math program at the University of Colorado-Boulder in high school. He enjoyed “scrambling up the Flatirons,” going to concerts and visiting The Sink. As an adult, he said he planned to move to Boulder sooner than he actually did, but it took a while because of the demands of raising a family and managing his career. He said he and his wife wanted a “better place to raise our daughters,” and said finally arriving in Boulder to live has been “a blessing” for him and his family.
ON THE ISSUES
Housing: Like many candidates, Rosenblum said Boulder should focus on enabling “missing-middle housing,” since the city already has programs and the availability of financing for affordable housing projects, while the single-family housing market is “red-hot” but priced out of reach for many people. He said his experience in finance and housing gives him a comprehensive perspective in what drives Boulder’s housing markets, and what policies can help create the housing he believes the city needs. He cited a city in-commuter survey that said people are willing to “pay more and accept less” to live in Boulder, but not to the extent that many of them would want to live in a one-bedroom apartment. He noted that the nearly 400 units created at Boulder Junction near 30th and Pearl brought only about eight kids into the Boulder Valley School District. He said he hopes to harness investor demand to help create the types of housing that families might desire.
He does not support eliminating single-family zoning across Boulder, also saying that the phrase itself is “needlessly polarizing,” but would support starting to allow duplexes on single-family lots, built in ways that blend in with neighborhoods to help create missing-middle housing. He is aware of the Minneapolis 2040 plan that eliminated single-family zoning, but added that the director of long-term planning in Minneapolis said density by itself won’t create affordability without regulating for affordability. In the case of building duplexes on what could be very expensive lots in Boulder, he said affordability concerns might necessitate strategies like construction credits, affordability credits, or density credits.
For affordability in general, he said it is typically driven by considerations such as location, unit size, newness of the structure, and amenities. He believes Boulder should try to redevelop land currently zoned for commercial into housing, including underutilized parking lots and older shopping centers, but should protect Boulder’s “limited and shrinking” industrial space so the city will still have auto shops and small businesses. He also said new neighborhoods should be planned in ways so that people can walk or bike to retail or work, which in turn can help limit vehicle miles traveled and reduce climate impacts.
CU-South: During a late August interview, Rosenblum said he believed the draft CU-South annexation agreement at that time might have been about 90 percent complete with some serious concerns yet to be addressed for the remaining 10 percent. He said flood mitigation to protect residents living in or near the South Boulder Creek floodplain was essential, but believed CU could have granted an easement to the city to begin mitigation work years ago. He noted that CU’s enrollment has grown significantly without building enough new housing, and said the housing envisioned to be built at CU-South would help with this imbalance. He said he had concerns about the project’s potential impacts on traffic in the area, amplified sound and light in case a stadium potentially able to hold 3,000 people would be built, and dealing with sensitive wildlife known to exist on the property.
Also, he believes the plans for flood mitigation to 100-year standards are not sufficient, given that climate change is contributing to weather events of greater intensity, and an extreme storm could cause extreme flooding that could overwhelm the 100-year mitigation infrastructure. At the time, he believed the only reason a 500-year plan wasn’t on the table was because of CU, partially because there were different reasons expressed over time for opposition to 500-year mitigation, including concerns over cost, concerns over impacts to areas downstream of the property, or concerns from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) over its infrastructure and development in its right-of-way. He said some of these concerns could indeed be accurate, “but the shifting explanations for why we can’t do 500-year makes me very skeptical.”
On the “Let the Voters Decide on Annexation of CU-South” ballot measure, Rosenblum said he wishes it had been written differently, partially because the initiative says the City could not provide services other than flood mitigation for CU-South developments until voters approve an annexation agreement that requires a site plan. Rosenblum said it’s unlikely CU would be able to do a site plan in a timely manner. Whether the initiative passes or not, there could still be a later citizen referendum on the annexation agreement should Council approve it, which Rosenblum said could “kick the issue forward to the next Council.”
Governance: Rosenblum said he believes there is polarization in Boulder, but the perception of this polarization exceeds the reality. He said his career experiences have included working with people of diverse backgrounds, different perspectives, and strong opinions to overcome complex problems, and said he would bring the same approaches he’s used in business to Council – listen to people, work hard to learn the issues, and try to find common ground. He said there are people in town who have battle scars from past controversies, and people in town who are more interested in making attacks than finding solutions, but believes it’s possible for people to work together and come to agreements that will work for large majorities of the city.
He believes Boulder residents have access to vast amounts of information on issues and projects, but the city could do a better job in engaging the broader public, and in that way it might receive input from more than just the most active citizens. He also suggested that people who want a greater say in city governing should step up and apply for a board or commission, and said he would like to expand the roles of boards and commissions so members could make greater contributions and possibly ease certain burdens of city staff or Council.
Homelessness: Rosenblum said he believes the City of Boulder does “tremendous work” and invests substantial resources toward helping people experiencing homelessness, but he said it seemed clear to him after he looked into the issue that there was a subset of the community that these services weren’t reaching. He said he has discussed issues related to homelessness with people involved with the city’s Housing and Human Services department, the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, local service providers, the Boulder Police Department, and the court system, and believes there are missing parts to the safety net in terms of mental health and substance abuse treatments.
He said he was part of a team with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless that recently rehabilitated a housing project to house the homeless in Denver, and noted that Boulder has resources including Permanent Supportive Housing, Bridge House, and others that can help people find housing or shelter. The City also has a Crisis Intervention Response Team (CIRT), which uses licensed behavioral health clinicians to co-respond with law enforcement during behavioral health crisis situations. Rosenblum said “we’re never going to jail our way out of this problem,” and said a better way is to focus on residential treatment, which might be expensive but will address core issues and benefit the community.
Public Safety: Rosenblum said he moved to Boulder in part because he wanted a safe place to raise his children, but came to believe that there were significant safety issues in town. Today, he maintains that public safety is a “prerequisite for everything else we care about as a community,” including the business environment, enjoyment of public spaces, equity, and tourism. After doing some of the research and meetings listed above, he said he came to understand that there were problems with hard drug abuse, including meth and opioids, and some of the people in the grips of addiction might turn to property crime in attempts to fund their habits. He also joined a local group called Safer Boulder about a year after it was formed.
Safer Boulder drafted a petition asking city officials to take action including enforcing the camping ban on public lands, making greater use of the Homeless Outreach team to get people experiencing homelessness into services, increasing police patrols, and being more responsive to citizen concerns, and as of mid-September they had gathered about 9,000 signatures. According to Rosenblum, the petition did help contribute to results, including discussions at Council study sessions, emphasis on programs such as the CIRT, and strengthening of regulations regarding camping in public spaces.
He still believes there are serious safety risks involved with unregulated homeless encampments, including drug paraphernalia and human waste. He said there has been a mischaracterization of the Council’s 2021 approval of a $2.7 million package to manage homelessness impacts, since the City was already paying a contractor called Servpro to conduct encampment clean-ups, but the Council’s action in 2021 approved an in-house clean-up team, and Rosenblum said this move would actually save the city money.
Transportation: According to Rosenblum, transportation is a huge issue in part because it ties into other key issues, such as housing and climate. Like most candidates, he said the city needs improvements to its north-south bike paths, to help create a more complete and convenient network for commuting throughout the city. He noted that the city’s transportation safety metrics have shown no real recent improvement in the amounts of serious bodily injury and fatalities on the roads. He also said the city is doing a good job limiting vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for residents, but these gains have been overwhelmed by increasing VMT among in-commuters, so he again mentioned that the city needs to focus on building the housing that large percentages of surveyed in-commuters have said they want. He also suggested the city should take another look at its relationship with RTD, including whether to focus on a Northwest Rail line that “might never come,” or to examine transit options that might be feasible sooner and cheaper.
Bedrooms Are For People: Rosenblum sees the potential for unintended consequences should BAFP pass, but supports a more general goal of modifying Boulder’s occupancy limits, and said he intends to work on the issue if he’s elected to Council. If BAFP passes, he said he expects one unintended consequence of “a wave of capital investment” coming in to buy single-family homes for the purpose of turning these homes into student rental housing. He added that young families and young professionals won’t be able to compete with national investors for housing if BAFP passes, particularly if homes are converted into units with many bedrooms for the income potential.
NOTE: As of September 20, a conflict between Rosenblum and the local organization Boulder Progressives plus a number of local individuals was not yet settled. Rosenblum has posted a cease-and-desist letter and a 43-page complaint document on his website at https://www.steveforboulder.com/news. Readers interested in a fuller perspective on this issue may want to read the complaint document in full, and I personally don’t intend to comment on the complaint in this space while the matter is still in the legal or negotiating processes.
CONNECTIONS
Endorsements: Rosenblum has received endorsements from the Unofficial Candidate Committee (UCC) Forward Boulder, along with PLAN-Boulder County, Together4Boulder, Safer Boulder, Advocates for Clean Teens, Think Boulder, and South East Boulder Neighborhood Association.
Contributions: Rosenblum has received maximum $100 individual contributions from former Council member Allyn Feinberg, Steve Pomerance, Gordon Riggle, and George Karakehian, (Lisa Morzel has contributed $50); current Council members Mark Wallach and Bob Yates; and current Council candidate Tara Winer.
Digital Presence:
Website: https://www.steveforboulder.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveforBoulder/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steverosenblum4boulder/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVpgaeueivYPAvaqKMKugvQ
