Bob Yates

Bob Yates is a candidate in 2023 for a three-year term as a directly elected Mayor of Boulder. He is a current member of Boulder City Council and has been since 2015. If he wins the 2023 race, he will earn a three-year term as Mayor, but if he doesn’t win he will no longer be on City Council unless he chooses to run again in 2025 or after.

Q – Why are you running?

Yates had a choice in 2023 to either run for Mayor or for re-election to Council, but said he weighed the options and felt he was qualified for and interested in a leadership role. He said in August 2023 that he’s been happy as a Council member, and believes it might have been easier and safer for him to run for re-election to Council instead of Mayor, but thought of his lifetime of leadership experiences in corporate, nonprofit, and civic settings (see “Mini-Life Story” below for more detail) and decided to run for this new position.

“I have a different style and a different approach, and I really think Boulder’s best days are still ahead,” said Yates. “I think there are opportunities to take Boulder to a new place, and sometimes it’s just fixing the problems we have. We have some huge problems around public safety, homelessness, and affordable housing. No one has the perfect answer to address any of those things, but I think that through hard work and creativity and partnerships, we can do more than we’re doing right now. If they want me to work for them in this new role, I’m happy to serve in this role.”

Q – How do you see the role of the Mayor position?

Yates is fully aware that the 2020 ballot measure did not change the technical powers of the Mayor, but has considered that some people in Boulder might think a directly elected Mayor will hold authority along the lines of big-city leaders in places like Denver or New York City. In fact, Boulder has a system in which the City Manager is a full-time hired executive who oversees city departments and employees – though the Council has the authority to hire or fire a City Manager.

“The directly elected mayor will still be one of nine City Council members, will get exactly one vote, has no veto power, and has no authority different from any of his or her eight colleagues on council. So, I think it’s going to be important for the first one or two directly elected mayors to set that expectation with the community,” said Yates.

He said he is looking forward to taking part in setting these expectations, in part because he likes explaining things to people. Yates mentioned an estimate that Council gets perhaps 18,000 email message per year, and he tries to answer every email he can, especially if it involves helping people understand what Council can and can’t do for them. He also publishes his monthly “Boulder Bulletin” newsletters, with archives going back to 2016, in which he discusses city issues and his reasoning behind decisions.

Yates said he is not in favor of Boulder going to a “strong Mayor” system like Aurora might be considering in 2025, but “maybe someday.” He said cities of roughly 100,000 people like Boulder might not have the economies of scale that would justify making the Mayor a full-time professional (and reasonably well-paid) position that handles administrative functions, like they do in in major cities.

Q: What if you become Mayor, but don’t have ideological support on Council?

While Boulder municipal races are nonpartisan to the extent that candidates don’t run as Republicans or Democrats, there are local political groups that have varying levels of influence in the community. Yates noted that because the Council is officially nonpartisan, he can wake up the morning of a Council meeting and decide how he’s going to vote on issues without a party leader telling him what to do. He said he listens to the input of community members, Council colleagues, and city staff before voting, but still aligns with different Council members on different issues, depending on the issue.

“Sometimes you’re in the minority, sometimes in the majority,” said Yates. “We are always striving to find compromise and consensus, so that our votes are as close to unanimous as possible. I think all of this works to try and avoid factions or voting blocs or even predictability where these people always vote one way and these people always vote the other way. That sometimes happens, but I don’t think it’s anything any of us feel comfortable with.”

He said the directly elected Mayor should have an obligation to “dutifully represent the position” of a majority of Council even if the Mayor disagrees with a policy stance. According to Yates, the Mayor will need to communicate the Council’s position to other elected officials or governmental bodies including Boulder County, the State of Colorado, and the federal government, among others. He added that past Mayors who were chosen by a Council vote instead of the full Boulder electorate at times faced the same situation of representing a position they didn’t support.

Mini-Life Story

Yates was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and his ancestors had lived in Nebraska for multiple generations. His father was a book salesman so the family moved around, and Yates spent some time living in southern California and near New York City growing up. He enrolled in college at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, earning degrees in business and science, and next enrolled at the University of California Hastings School of Law, earning a law degree.

Yates started practicing law at an Omaha firm with about 20 lawyers, and advocated for clients in a wide variety of businesses – real estate, meatpacking, health care, and cola among them. This led to work with a telecommunications company that eventually became Level 3 Communications, and he became the company’s general counsel for European operations. The family moved to London, but while Yates was in Europe, the company moved its headquarters from Omaha to Broomfield, and Yates came to Boulder to live in 2001.

Since retiring at age 50, Yates has served in a number of local civic roles, including chairing the Museum of Boulder Board and working to purchase the current Museum building at Broadway and Pine, chairing the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and serving on the boards of the Colorado Chautauqua Association, Dairy Center for the Arts, among other levels of engagement. He was first elected to Council in 2015, earning the most votes in a race for five open seats, and re-elected in 2019, again earning the most votes in a race for six open seats. He also served as Boulder’s Mayor Pro Tem for a year in 2020 under former Mayor Sam Weaver, a time during which Yates said he learned a lot about the Mayor’s role and had opportunities to run meetings or represent the Council out in the community.

His campaign website is http://www.bobyatesboulder.com/

Housing, Affordable and Otherwise

When asked about affordable housing in Boulder, Yates noted that “affordability means different things to different people.” He said the city will need different policies and strategies to help various categories of people find affordable housing, including the unhoused who need services (more on that in another section), people of lower income ranges, and middle-income residents who earn less than 120% of the Area Median Income (AMI).

Yates believes Boulder has done a “very good job” creating affordable housing opportunities for lower-income residents earning 60% AMI or less. The city created an Inclusionary Zoning programs several decades ago that requires new developments to supply a percentage of permanently affordable housing, and it currently stands at 25%. The city has a goal of making 15% of its housing stock permanently affordable, and while it stands at 8.7% now, Yates noted that this percentage is about triple what it was two decades ago.

For middle income earners, Yates said it’s a difficult situation in Boulder because some of the affordable housing is geared toward lower income earners, but true market rate homes are very expensive in Boulder with a median price of $1.3 million. Yates and Weaver worked toward creating a middle income down payment assistance plan, Boulder voters passed a ballot measure authorizing the program in 2019, and the program launched in earnest in 2023.

Yates was fundamentally opposed to the state Senate Bill 23-213, which would have set processes to create state land use standards for municipalities. He said he was offended by the notion that the state would overrule local control over land use standards, which he believes should be a function of community values. In addition, he said the bill was too big, covered too many issues, and as evidenced by opposition to the bill from nearly every major city in Colorado – he believes the state did not do sufficient consultation with the municipalities. He’s hoping for a bill(s) in 2024 that is less top-down and allows cities decision-making flexibility.

“Let’s provide goals and tools rather than mandates,” said Yates. “Let the cities pick the tools, give them some goals, give them some incentives, and let them do the things that are right for the community based on community values.

When it comes to potentially redeveloping the Boulder Municipal Airport site into affordable housing, he said it’s uncertain if it’s economically feasible due to financial responsibilities the city might need to settle with the Federal Aviation Administration. As opposed to focusing on the Airport right now, he believes there’s a better option on Planning Reserve land near 28th and Jay in north Boulder, because there is roughly three times the land acreage and the city wouldn’t need to take out runways and other infrastructure to build there. Yates also believes the Airport is important to the city right now as an airport, because of its roles in emergency management, climate research, flight training, and economic activity.

Crime and Policing

According to Yates, there is some perception in the community that crime is at an unacceptable level, which to him is accurate in some instances and inaccurate in others. He said in late August that Boulder is a “relatively” safe place when it comes to violent crime, below national averages, but a community with high levels of property crime including bike and auto theft, plus serious problems with drug dealing and drug addiction.

He sees some current impediments to reducing crime in the city, including state laws that make it “difficult or impossible” for the police to incarcerate certain offenders, a County Jail that has no additional capacity for criminals in part because inmates with mental health issues can’t be moved to another facility, a Boulder Police force that’s not fully staffed, and an environment in which some members of the community don’t support law enforcement.

“We’ve lost police officers who said they are leaving because of lack of support,” said Yates. “I’m a big believer in supporting our police. They protect us every day, they put their lives on the line every day, and I think the least we can do is support them and let them know we appreciate what they do.”

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.

Yates voted with a majority of Council to remove the POP member in question, saying the decision to remove was based on the special counsel’s recommendations. But he also said the original ordinance establishing the POP that included the section on “bias” was an imperfect ordinance adopted with some haste in order to be responsive to the 2019 incident. At the time of this interview in August 2023, the city had hired a consultant to help revise the ordinance, with recommendations expected in the fall of 2023. Yates at the time mentioned that the word “oversight” in the POP title might not be the best choice of words, given that a number of peer cities use words like “review” or “advisory” which might describe the panel’s role with more accuracy.

Moving forward, Yates said he hopes the city will make several moves to address crime, including lobbying the state legislature to roll back laws that make arresting some criminals difficult, helping the county with its jail expansion project, and having police or city officials communicate with the public on ways to keep themselves safer from crime.

Climate Action

According to Yates, Boulder considers itself a “leader on climate action,” and has supported actions that can make a climate difference beyond the scope of Boulder’s 105,000 people if the actions are “replicable” elsewhere in the world. For example, he said perhaps other communities will follow Boulder’s lead working toward banning gas-powered lawn equipment or requiring new buildings to have infrastructure for electric appliances. Boulder voters passed a climate tax ballot measure in 2022, and Yates said this revenue should help the city develop programs and initiatives so Boulder can become more energy efficient while reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Homelessness: Issues and Paths Forward

Yates said he believes there are problems with homelessness in Boulder, but they’re not at the same level as cities that often make the news such as San Francisco or Seattle. He said it’s important moving forward to make sure funding devoted to programs or services is effective, and mentioned as an example of a potentially effective use of resources that opening a day shelter will help by giving the unhoused someplace to go during the day – as opposed to the Boulder Shelter which is not available during daytime hours. A day shelter would also be a good place to link unhoused people with services during optimal times for service providers.

He believes some commonly mentioned ideas might be ineffective uses of funding, such as creating a sanctioned campground, partially because some existing cities are spending large sums of money but the people in the campgrounds are still homeless.

Yates pointed out that there are different categories of people experiencing homelessness, and they should be addressed in different manners. For people suffering mental health challenges, he said the city is launching its CARE program to meet people “where they are” and help link them to the help they need. He also noted that a base population of about 400-500 people experiencing homelessness might not be that difficult to manage and link up with services, but said there are estimates that an average of three-to-four people come to Boulder every day who might not stay long or care that much about seeking services, ballooning the homeless population by perhaps 1,400 per year and at times creating challenges such as engaging in drug use or other criminal behavior.

He said there is typically room at the Boulder Shelter on most nights, the city is working toward establishing appropriate and effective services, and there are nonprofits in Boulder that provide some of those services, but issues remain and he wants the city to continue seeking solutions.

“In a perfect world you’d have no unhoused people, and of course that’s an impossible goal, but you’d want to make it as rare and short-term as possible,” said Yates.

Safe Zones For Kids Ballot Measure (Question 302)

Yates supports the Safe Zones measure, which he said came about because some parents were frustrated about safety threats near local schools. He said the city does prioritize enforcement of areas called out in the Safe Zones measure to some extent, but the parents and proponents wanted to “tell city staff they needed to step it up closer to schools.”

Sales Tax Extension with 50% to the Arts (Issue 2A)

Yates voted as a member of Council to put this measure on the ballot, and supports it moving forward. He said a citizen group gathered enough petitions to put a measure on the ballot that would have devoted 100% of the tax extension revenue to arts and culture, but it might have “left a hole” in the city budget for other needs. The organizers reached an agreement with the city to put the 50-50 measure on the ballot, and Yates said even the 50% would still be a “lot of money” to support the arts in Boulder.