Paul Tweedlie
Paul Tweedlie is a candidate in 2023 in a race that will produce a directly elected Mayor of Boulder. If he wins the 2023 Mayoral race, he will earn a three-year term as Mayor (through 2026).
Q – Why are you running?
Sometimes, people do get ideas about running while they’re walking. According to Tweedlie, he had the realization “You know what Paul? It’s time.” while on his usual walk. He then said he told his girlfriend he was thinking of running, who said “Absolutely not!” But Tweedlie got enough petition signatures to qualify for the ballot, and said he has been in Boulder for about 20 years so he thought it was time to give back to the community.
Q – What do you think about the proper role of the Mayor?
Tweedlie first said the Mayor in Boulder is “really a figurehead position,” since Mayors have no more voting power than the other 8 members of City Council. However, he said the Mayor is the “face of the city,” so Mayors have to keep their noses clean and set a tone while providing appropriate leadership. He said he told the captain of his soccer team that he had to set a tone for the whole team, and believes tone-setting is a part of the job of being Mayor.
Q – What are your top political issues?
Tweedlie said his top three issues that he believes need addressing in Boulder are crime, drugs, and homelessness, in part because he sees Boulder as being at a crossroads where the turns the city takes could either make issues better or worse.
“So, let’s not kid around here,” said Tweedlie. “That’s what’s on everybody’s minds – it’s very important, the security of our children. We’ve got to get rid of drugs in our community, they’re killing our children and hurting our families.”
Tweedlie said he would support empowering the police to “actually enforce existing laws, saying people who commit crimes should be ticketed and fined, and if they don’t pay their fines they should go to jail. “We empower the police, and we set a tone,” said Tweedlie.
Q – How do you keep up with local news?
According to Tweedlie, he does follow news through the local media, and has been told by his friends and neighbors that since he’s running, he now has to listen to their complaints. He said he is a member of a local group called Boulder Conservatives, and they meet regularly to discuss issues including what’s important in Boulder. He said he also likes going to bars to meet people and converse, doing a very good Shrek voice impersonation while saying “Can’t we just settle this over a pint?”
Mini-Life Story
Tweedlie was born in Scotland, joking during the interview “can you believe it?” because he speaks with a very thick accent. His father was born in Detroit and Tweedlie said his dad worked for Henry Ford, but went to Scotland and earned a divinity degree before joining the Church of Scotland as a minister located in the small mining town of Cumnock, Ayrshire. His father met his mother there, and his parents raised four children. Tweedlie said “It was a great upbringing.”
Tweedlie graduated from the University of Glasgow, earning a degree in computer science. He also worked as a research fellow for three years at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He said he worked for a local defense contractor developing software most of the time he lived in Scotland. He was offered a job in Rhode Island and moved to the U.S. in 1993, and met his wife who was studying for a PhD while on the East Coast. His wife was offered a job in Logan, Utah, so they moved west and the couple had a son. His wife was once again offered a job, this time at CU-Boulder, so they moved to Boulder in about the year 2000. While in Boulder, Tweedlie worked for the Anark Corporation, a local software company where he did 3-D design and simulation software. He retired about five years ago.
In addition, he said “You can tell a lot about a man by the way he tends his garden. I’d encourage anyone who wants to see my garden to come up, I’d be delighted to give you a tour.”
His campaign website is https://www.tweedlie4bouldermayor.com/
Crime and Policing
According to Tweedlie, crime in Boulder is getting “worse and worse and worse.” He brought up a recent stabbing of a CU student, adding that he believes local media “minimized” the incident because the student only suffered minor injuries. He said he recently spoke with current Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold about crime in Boulder, and she said she was Chief of Police in Cincinnati in a city with, in Tweedlie’s words, “a really bad crime problem,” and she was able to cut crime rates there. Again according to Tweedlie, he said Herold told him her job is difficult in Boulder partially because of guidelines and opinions regarding how law enforcement and the court systems should operate. Tweedlie said once more that he believes the city should “empower the police,” and the court system should give jail time to people who break the laws.
The city established a Police Oversight Panel, largely in response to a 2019 incident when a Black Naropa student was surrounded by police while simply picking up trash outside his apartment. The panel’s charge was in part to review complaints regarding police conduct. In 2023, the panel was in the news partially because City Council voted to remove a POP member, after outside counsel determined the member’s actions and postings critical of police on social media could have been seen as contrary to a part of the POP ordinance saying members should not exhibit “bias.” The POP actually suspended formal operations shortly after the Council vote.
According to Tweedlie, the idea of the POP seems odd to him, partially because in his opinion the police basically have the job of going after criminals. “This idea, to softly softly push while stopping crime, well I’m all for that, but you know we can do those pushes after the crimes have been handled. Let the police do their job,” said Tweedlie.
Housing, Affordable or Not So Affordable
Tweedlie said affordable housing in Boulder is a tough issue, partially because there is a lot of pressure to provide affordable units, but some of the recent developments have included tiny apartment units that might not actually even be affordable. For example, he said during the interview that he was talking with a woman who was paying $1,600 per month for a “tiny little box” in north Boulder.
He believes some developers know there’s lots of money to be made in Boulder, and said he does not want to see Boulder’s beauty and character to be spoiled by out-of-state developers. “We’ve got to keep Boulder beautiful, and weird,” said Tweedlie.
He also supports property tax rebates for people with children, and for seniors.
Homelessness
Tweedlie once again said homelessness is a big problem in Boulder, and that the city should not emulate what has been done in cities such as San Francisco or Portland, which he described as “fail, fail, fail.” He said lives are at stake due to safety concerns, but also that people might base their business-related decisions such as patronizing Downtown Boulder on their perception of whether their experience will be positive or negative.
He said he did not support spending more city money on homelessness, especially if it involved raising taxes since he is concerned a broad recession might be on the horizon. He also said he believes it’s important to call certain people experiencing homelessness who are probably only here in the short-term “transients” even if it’s not politically correct. “If you can’t use the correct words, how are you going to even tackle the problem? You can’t even define the problem, and it’s very frustrating,” said Tweedlie.
Local Political Polarization
City of Boulder politics are officially non-partisan to the extent of Republican vs. Democratic parties, but there can be polarization among local factions. According to Tweedlie, some local political figures are trying certain solutions to problems that aren’t working, and “people can see that.” He said City Council members have to listen to a “bunch of diverse kind of viewpoints, and then all right – call it as you see it – but you represent these people to the best of your ability.”
He concluded by saying, “What I’ve learned is you’ve gotta listen, and zip it, so I think that’s a good strategy for me. We’ll see how it goes.”
Climate
Tweedlie said climate issues are the top priority for some residents of Boulder, “and understandably so.” He said he will bring an engineer’s perspective to this issue, because in his opinion solutions have to work, they have to work efficiently, and they have to be safe.
Safe Zones (Question 302)
Tweedlie “totally” supports Ballot Question 302, the Safe Zones 4 Kids measure, asking “Why would we not want to protect our most precious resource, our children?”
Sales Tax Extension with 50% of Revenue For Arts (Issue 2A)
Tweedlie is opposed to Ballot Issue 2A, which would extend a city sales tax for 20 years but split the revenue 50-50 between arts/culture and the city’s General Fund. He said “I like the arts as much as everybody, but they’re going to have to tighten their belts and find other ways to get funding.” He said people in Boulder will find ways to financially support institutions like the Dairy Center For the Arts or eTown, even without the tax extension, and mentioned he would be happy to just see the 0.15% sales tax at stake with 2A just “fizzle out if its time is up” (which it would be at the end of 2024 if 2A or another ballot measure don’t pass).
