Silas Atkins

Silas Atkins is a candidate for Boulder City Council in 2023. If he wins a seat on Council, he will earn a three-year term that will expire in 2026, though he would be able to run for re-election in 2026 if he so chooses.

Q – Why are you running?

According to Atkins, he is running for Council because he believes he’s impacted by decisions the current Council is making, and believes it’s important to have representation for lower-income and historically marginalized people on Council. He said he doesn’t feel that type of representation is on Council today, giving an example that it recently voted against setting a new minimum wage earlier than 2025, at a time in which perhaps 25% of Boulder’s population is below the federal poverty level and struggling to make ends meet.

“It’s been very difficult to watch the votes go in a way that directly impacts people who need change the most, and so I want to make sure that voice is being represented on City Council,” said Atkins.

Mini-Life Story

Atkins was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (Unama’ki), living there into his teens, and lived in Vermont before moving to Colorado. He has a high school diploma and some college education, and considered pursuing psychology, computer repair or coding, and teaching while in college, but found the traditional college setting difficult and learned later in life that neurodivergence might have contributed to the difficulties. He moved on to work most of his life in service positions, working in customer service or with students and adults who need assistance engaging in society.

He came to Boulder in 2016, partially to be closer to his family, and currently works as a paraeducator with the Boulder Valley School District at Manhattan Middle School. At Manhattan, he works in an Intensive Learning Center (ILC), which he said is “designed to help students who are having a hard time keeping up with the pace of classes,” and he helps by advocating for students who might not be fully able to speak up for themselves and by ensuring students get course work that’s at their grade level.

Atkins was recently appointed to serve as a task force member for a City of Boulder direct cash assistance pilot program called Elevate Boulder. He said the program will provide assistance for residents in the 30-60% Area Median Income (AMI) range, or about $30,000-$60,000 per year, and noted that many people in that income range might be “housing insecure.” The cash assistance would almost certainly be beneficial for people with unmet basic needs, but Atkins added that it can help with longer-term senses of security and self-worth, partially because not always feeling squeezed to meet expense can free a person to look for better work, or take classes or earn certifications so they can qualify for better jobs. He said he hopes the Boulder pilot program will become an ongoing program at some point, noting that some people in the 30-60% AMI range might actually make too much money to qualify for certain programs but still have difficulties affording to live in Boulder.

His campaign website is https://silasforboulder.com/

Housing, Affordable and Otherwise

To Atkins, there are real problems with affordable housing in Boulder, and believes it’s time to speed up the process to implement solutions. He said the city should focus on process efficiencies, noting “it shouldn’t take 400 days to get a small business license issued,” but back to housing he supports fast-tracking housing projects so more people who work in Boulder can also live in the city.

“The words labor shortage keep being thrown around, and it’s not a labor shortage at all. It’s a lack of fundamental basic needs not being met,” said Atkins.

He said he supported the state Senate Bill 23-213 “as a whole,” and 213 was a bill that would have created state housing-related land use standards that might have overridden existing “local control” standards. The bill didn’t pass in 2023 but concepts from the bill might come back in some form in 2024, plus it included components that municipalities might still be able to address on their own. In Atkins’ opinion, a state bill was necessary because cities haven’t sufficiently addressed housing issues, saying “If municipalities feel home rule is important, then they need to do what is best for their citizens.”

Moving forward, Atkins would support regional and statewide approaches to addressing housing challenges, and noted that the Colorado Municipal League (CML) fought against 213 but he believes CML should take the lead on solutions as opposed to pushing back against state action. He identified a few components from 213 that could provide some housing relief, including changing zoning and expanding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU).

Related Economic Issues

While talking about housing during this late August interview, Atkins often spoke about economic issues that could relate to peoples’ difficulty in finding housing they can afford, or in otherwise making ends meet. For example, he said the lack of free transportation can mean people are reliant on jobs that are accessible to them, and lack of truly universal health care again means people can be reliant on specific jobs to keep their benefits. He supports labor unions as a way to make sure people have adequate wages and benefits, plus believes employers who pay a “living wage” will see employees stay with jobs longer and participate more fully in the business.

“The working conditions piece becomes very clear when you see how many unions are going on strike right now and how many unions are forming. People are frustrated and realize they need to band together to push back on some of the things that are happening,” said Atkins.

Homelessness

Atkins believes that “criminalizing homelessness” is really “criminalizing poverty,” and supports making sure there are safe places for the unhoused to go. These places could include sanctioned campgrounds, parking sites for people living in cars, conversions of old hotel rooms, conversions of underutilized commercial or retail space, and transitional housing especially if it has ”trauma-informed design” with amenities such as garden space or art to help people heal. He said the Bluebird supportive housing development in Boulder incorporated trauma-informed design, including space where residents could sit with staff if they didn’t feel safe in their own room.

Again shifting toward underlying conditions, Atkins said “there’s no reason for poverty in the U.S. anywhere,” and believes the City of Boulder could reprioritize its budget to better support safe places for the unhoused and other needs. For example, he said spending money on sweeping unsanctioned encampments is an inefficient use of funding because people just move from one place to another without having a stable place to be. He would support instead focusing on programs to get people the services or care they need, and added that the part of the city’s Reimagine Policing program that would increase the numbers of paid police officers is “not the right idea.” In general, he said he’s a fan of Zero-Based Budgeting, since it means city budgets are set on actual current needs as opposed to previous years’ budget numbers.

Local Political Polarization

Unlike many candidates, Atkins in this late August interview said he believed political polarization was not helpful to focus on or to talk about.

Crime, Policing, and Public Safety

Atkins acknowledged and said he did not intend to minimize that people are traumatized by crime, but believes it’s important to focus on the reasons why people might commit crimes as a large part of crafting solutions.

“I know through the data I’ve seen and heard about, that the percentage of people who steal things because it’s fun is minimal to zero. For almost anybody who steals something, that’s something they need to survive, or they’re being prevented from getting it, or they’re being told that they’re not worthy of it,” said Atkins.

He said solutions could include housing, better wages, basic income support, and safer and more dependable transportation options, all of which could help reduce the perceived need some people might feel to commit crimes in order to obtain money or resources.

Atkins also said local governments should continue working toward gun safety measures, including but not limited to gun buyback programs and Boulder County’s recent program to offer free gun locks and safes for secure weapons storage. He mentioned a statement from a friend who was heartbroken that her daughter had to go through lockdown drills at school, and even as a former gun owner himself Atkins said he wants to see people feel safe without feeling a gun is necessary.

He was aware of the city’s Police Oversight Panel (POP), along with an issue in which a member was removed from the POP for reasons including social media posts that a special counsel hired by the city said could have constituted “bias” against the police. According to Atkins, removing the member from the POP was “in direct opposition to what the panel was for,” which was to question the way policing was being done, and in his opinion a POP should have members who actually have strong opinions to inform how the city might reimagine policing.

Climate

Atkins supports a more robust transit network in Boulder, and said by keeping more people out of cars it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the use of fossil fuels, as well as reducing traffic congestion. He said better land use planning could also help, for example by repurposing parking lots into housing developments that might still have some parking, or by filling in other underutilized space to maximize opportunities for transit use.

He rode his e-bike to this interview, and spoke favorably about the city’s program of offering rebates so more people could afford e-bikes and in turn reduce auto vehicle miles traveled. In addition, he pointed out that the program was open to people earning 80% of AMI, or about $80,000, but he was interested in possibly creating a tiered system so people earning less than $80,000 might better be able to afford an e-bike. “The balance due for an e-bike after the rebate amount can be a large amount and more affordable for those making $80,000 vs. $40,000,” he said to illustrate his position.

Safe Zones (Question 302)

Atkins is “adamantly opposed” to the Safe Zones 4 Kids ballot measure (Question 302), because he believes it would be a “doubling down on ineffective policies.” He believes spending money on encampment sweeps could go to better use, and believes the sweeps aren’t effective in the long run anyway plus could even be traumatic to the people being moved.

Sales Tax Extension with 50% of Revenue for Arts (Issue 2A)

Atkins opposes Ballot Issue 2A, which would extend a city sales tax for 20 years and split the revenue 50-50 between arts and the General Fund, though he supported it in a late August interview and changed his position. He said sales taxes are regressive (loosely defined as a tax that disproportionately burdens lower-income taxpayers), and he would prefer going back to voters to instead ask for a more progressive type of taxation, for example a property tax, plus he is interested in investigating how the city might be able to work toward progressive income taxation.