Lauren Folkerts
Lauren Folkerts, currently the Mayor Pro Tem of Boulder, is running for her second term on Boulder City Council in 2025.
“As an architect, I see our challenges and opportunities, particularly around housing affordability a little bit differently. I think in my last four years, I’ve been effective at making some important changes, but there are still a lot of ongoing projects that I’m working on, and also with the state of our federal government, the way it is, I think it’s really important to have continuity of leadership on the local level. It’s important to have people who already know how to do the job and aren’t learning as much on the job with all the challenges we’re facing,” said Folkerts on her reasons for running again.
Mini-Bio
Folkerts was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and grew up just outside of Seattle. She went to high school at the Overlake School in Redmond, Washington. She attended the University of Oregon, and earned a bachelor’s degree in Architecture.
But she graduated during what was once known as “The Great Recession,” and said she lived out of her car for a period of time. She eventually got a job at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in Colorado, and met her partner while living in the mountains, who convinced her to move to Boulder in 2011.
Folkerts has worked for several architectural firms during the 10 years she’s lived in Boulder, including the Boulder-based firm Caddis. She currently works with HMH Architecture and Interiors as an architect, and has been with HMH for about nine years. She was appointed to the City’s Design Advisory Board, and chaired the board before being elected to Council. She has also served as President of the Colorado Green Building Guild.
In 2021, Folkerts finished 4th in a race for five open Council seats, earning a four-year term and receiving 15,763 votes. Since being elected, she has served on the Council Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, the Boulder County Homelessness Task Force, the Boulder County Consortium of Cities, and the Mile High Flood District.
Her campaign website is https://www.lauren4boulder.com/
Concerns about Boulder’s economic future?
Folkerts said she does have concerns about the city’s economic future, but there might not be a simple, singular solution moving forward. She said the city should be politically active “to advocate for maintaining funding and science, research, and employment that we have in this community.” The city has an Economic Development Plan that could include business incentives, and while Folkerts said economic development gets a “bad rap” because it’s sometimes implemented poorly, she believes if done right and monitored for effectiveness it could be valuable to the local economy. She also mentioned that “visible homelessness” in Boulder’s downtown area is “hard on our small businesses downtown, and our tourism, and reduces the amount that our community members want to shop as well,” which led to the question in the next section.
Homelessness Objectives
According to Folkerts, the Clutch Report laid out “a very evidence-based reasonable set of options” for addressing homelessness in Boulder, but the city has been limited in what it can do due to available funding and other resources, and might still be limited into the future. She spoke positively about Clutch’s recommendations of “reunification” of unhoused people with friends, relatives, or communities where they might have connections; and about what she called rapid rehousing. “If our goal is to have no unsheltered homelessness, it means that we have to be moving people from homelessness into housing, so that the exits match the number of entrances, basically.”
While she did not believe the city budget would absorb perhaps $13 million in new annual spending, she said unsheltered homelessness is one of the issues on which she hears frustration from the community, and said “I can think of few places to better spend our money.”
Does Boulder spend taxpayers’ money wisely?
A recent survey said slightly more respondents thought the city does not spend money wisely compared to those do, although the only choices were “yes,” “no,” or “unsure.” Folkerts didn’t dispute the results, but said there could be many different sources of frustration because the city does so many different things. She added that people talked to the pollsters, who told them that these Boulder results were “in line with what they typically see in other communities, if not a little bit better.” Still, moving forward she supports looking to address possible duplications in services that other entities beyond the City of Boulder might already provide, and appreciates that the city is moving toward outcome-based budgeting. She added that she’d like to see a more transparent or easier-to-understand way of presenting the budget than the city’s current online portal system.
Crime Concerns?
Folkerts said she spends a fair amount of time in downtown Boulder and personally feels safe, “but I know that others do not, and I think that that is something that’s still important for us to address.” Moving forward, she mentioned that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and supported proactive measures like better lighting or street design in business districts, and for people and businesses to consider their own crime prevention strategies. She added that the Boulder Police Department will do property assessments to help businesses make their properties more secure. Like a number of candidates, she said the BPD is now considered fully staffed, which should help with reducing call response times and using “proactive policing” strategies to get ahead of potential problems.
Core Arterial Network Projects
Folkerts said she “really appreciates” the process and studies that went into recent CAN project proposals, which included evaluating different project options, traffic projections, emergency response, and user safety. She doesn’t expect the projects to be “free of increased traffic wait times, but we believe those to mostly be minimal, and these are the corridors where we see the most critical incidents. This is where people are injured, where there are fatalities.” While not everybody in Boulder agrees with all aspects, Folkerts said the projects were presented to the community for feedback, and this input was part of the information that went into revised options that in her opinion “mitigated some of the downsides, but kept most of the upsides for those projects.”
Council Meeting Open Comment Period
As Mayor Pro Tem, Folkerts has run a few meetings this year when the Mayor was unavailable. She said it’s been “challenging” at times to deal with disruptions so business meetings can proceed and so people can feel comfortable in Council Chambers. She said she has supported recent Council policy changes around Open Comment, including limits on sign size, limiting the total time of the Open Comment period, and moving Open Comment to start at 5:30 p.m. “I don’t love that we had to push the start time of open comment earlier, but I think it was an acceptable compromise, given everything else,” she said.
Boulder and International Issues
Folkerts said she believes it is important for Council to listen to the needs and concerns of the Boulder community, including on international issues, but “it’s important for that to not become the focus of our work. There’s plenty to deal with here.” She said Councils of the past have considered international issues and she believes it’s something “we should continue to consider doing,” but more to hear the views of the community than to attempt solving issues. “In cases where people in our community may disagree, we can also address the pain people feel on either side of an issue,” she said.
New Administration in Washington and Boulder
According to Folkerts, she’s aware that the new political environment could pose risks to the community and individuals within it. “I think the challenging point as an elected official is trying to decide how to act in ways that provide more security to our community without trying to exacerbate any issues by bringing additional attention or scrutiny to our community. And so, what can we do that is not performative, but really helps make our community safer for everyone?” she said.
Performance of “Progressive Council”
When asked about the “progressive council,” Folkerts started by saying “I think particularly with some of our recent community conflicts and arguments, I have become much more aware that words don’t mean the same things to different people.” She said moving forward she would favor the next Council working on affordability issues for residents and businesses. “When I first ran for council, I was quite focused on the housing affordability side of things, but I really have been trying to expand my focus to be on the diversity of affordability challenges our community faces,” she said. She said this could include issues like high costs of childcare and housing, business real estate costs, and worker wages not keeping up with modern inflation.
Climate Action
Folkerts said she has been working with city staff to determine how city codes can influence the amount of “embodied carbon” in construction projects. For example, she said concrete accounts for around 8% of worldwide carbon emissions, but current floor area ratio requirements might mean the city is “essentially incentivizing people who are building new homes to build bigger basements,” so “we’re increasing the carbon footprint of the construction in our community.”
Also on climate, she believes that aligning housing density with transit availability would increase the environmental sustainability and cost efficiency of transit in Boulder. She said she was excited about a bill that might go before the state legislature that would allow low-interest-rate repayments to Xcel Energy for home energy upgrades that might in turn reduce utility bills. Like many candidates, she also mentioned the need for fire mitigation and education on how to protect neighborhoods and homes.
Need More Housing?
According to Folkerts, there is a need for housing “at a lower price point” in Boulder, but there are also challenges in that people with the financial means might take smaller homes and “scrape or rebuild” them into bigger, more expensive homes. She spoke positively about the ongoing DRCOG Regional Housing Needs Assessment effort as a tool to gauge what types of housing are needed and at what price points in the broader region, which could also inform what’s needed in Boulder.
CCRS Ballot Measures
Folkerts supports both CCRS measures, but mentioned she was disappointed that Issue 2A is a sales tax, not a property tax.
County Mental/Behavioral Health Tax
Folkerts supports County Issue 1B, saying there are great needs for mental/behavioral health services, but again noted that she was disappointed it is a sales tax and not a property tax.
Endorsements
Folkerts has earned endorsements from Boulder Progressives, Better Boulder, Boulder Democratic Socialists of America, New Era Action Fund, Boulder Area Labor Council, Colorado Working Families Party, Colorado Black Women for Political Action, Communications Workers of America, Daily Camera, and approval from Planned Parenthood Votes.
Follow The Money
Folkerts has received the maximum total of $11,994 in contributions, including $100 maximum donations from current Council members Matt Benjamin, Nicole Speer, Aaron Brockett, and Ryan Schuchard; former Council members Macon Cowles, Jill Grano, Will Toor, and Matt Appelbaum; CU Regent Elliott Hood; and state Representative Junie Joseph.
