Smoke: Protect Vulnerable Populations Locally and in Gaza

Rob Smoke

Rob Smoke is making his third run for City Council in 2025. While he said he got into this race significantly over issues involving Gaza and the current Council’s so-far-unwillingness to support a cease-fire resolution and/or consider divesting from certain companies doing business with Israel, he has been active or opinionated on a wide range of other local topics for decades, and has served on a city commission. He gave a lengthy answer on Gaza and related issues when asked why he was running, and the following condensed paragraph includes key excerpts:

“There’s nothing happening now to the civilian population of Gaza that has anything to do with Israel defending itself. And, you know, they have letters from hundreds of soldiers…maybe thousands of refuseniks in Israel. who say, look, this has gone too far. So when I go to the city council, and I see an 8-1 vote against divestment, and they just say, “Nah. We’ve got our other stuff to do,” it’s just an insult to people in this community. And also, what I see is it’s harmful to the collective mental health of everyone living here. Terms like moral injury are very real for me. It’s the moral issue of our day. Are we partners in this genocide?”

Mini-Bio

According to a piece this writer produced during his 2007 run for Council, Smoke was born in Connecticut, but his family moved to New York City when he was five years old, and he spent about 25 years there. He came to Boulder in 1981 and went to massage school, went back to New York for several years, then came back to Boulder for good in 1986. At the time of this interview, Smoke worked as a caregiver for people with Alzheimer’s and ALS.

Smoke served as a member of the city’s Human Relations Commission (HRC) from 2003-2008, including two stints as HRC chair. While on HRC, he said he especially appreciated working on establishing a hotline people could call if they felt they were experiencing bias-motivated discrimination, so people could do “something other than interface with a police officer.” Smoke said it took some pressure on Council, but the hotline ultimately got funded.

He also did about 10 years of volunteering with KGNU Radio in Boulder, saying he interviewed Michael Moore, Amy Goodman, and “other luminaries,” and did about 2 1/2 years of reporting for KGNU on what happened at Council, aired on the morning after meetings. Smoke earned 1,172 votes in his 2007 run for Council, and 1,370 votes in his 2009 run, but did not earn a seat on Council in either race.

Concerns about Boulder’s economic future?

Smoke does not believe Boulder’s prepared for the future, and people are not looking beyond the initial problems with the Trump administration to consider that things might get worse. Moving forward, he suggested that the city should consider local strategies to use or replicate programs that have been successful elsewhere. For example, he spoke of the New York State Mitchell-Lama Housing Program passed in 1955, which enabled affordable housing by allowing a city or a city partnering with a nonprofit to obtain land, while the state would be the primary equity holder. He said the program was used to build tens of thousands of apartments in New York City, and believes if it was done in Boulder today, people would say, “Wow, this is like the most progressive thing imaginable.”

Does Boulder spend taxpayers’ money wisely?

According to Smoke, he’s “always had questions about the very top-tier salaries” within the city organization. “If we have to pay those people the highest salaries in Colorado for people in those positions, or close to it, then, are we really following prudent financial standards?,” he asked.

Crime Concerns?

Smoke said he tries to put “morality first” as a personal principle, and again mentioned divestment and cease-fire resolutions, saying that failure to do these things “counterfeits some percentage of our efforts” when it comes to pursuing morality first. He added that “We want to protect vulnerable communities, or vulnerable populations in our own community.” He said that to some extent, local enforcement efforts including spending “millions” enforcing the city’s camping ban are inefficient uses of resources or even wasteful, when the city hasn’t effectively created enough options to camping.

Homelessness Objectives

Smoke said he understands why people are concerned about unregulated camping and uncomfortable being approached by unhoused people in public spaces, but the city also ought to establish a place for the unhoused to go when they have no place else. He said a strategy of just rousting unhoused people from places like the Creek Path without having an alternative location is costly and ineffective. Also, he believes there might be possible locations for camping or shelter, like the Area III Planning Reserve in currently-unincorporated north Boulder, but he’s not confident that would happen because developers would “really like to get their hands on” that parcel.

Core Arterial Network Projects

Smoke said he generally supports automobile traffic calming strategies, but hasn’t reached a specific opinion on the CAN projects currently being discussed. He recalled past controversies over the city putting in traffic circles, and that people had been injured both in a traffic circle but also along a straight stretch of road where someone was speeding. He doesn’t have a drivers license personally, since he grew up in Manhattan where not as many people need cars or licenses, but favors traffic calming because “people tend to be more out of control with their driving habits as time progresses.”

Council Meeting Open Comment Period

The city recently began airing only the audio portion of Open Comment, but not the video because Gaza protestors have been showing signs or flags or other images during meetings. Smoke said he later went to a candidate meeting with city staff and was told the city wanted to improve public engagement, and at the end said “You’re kidding, right? Because it’s counterintuitive if you’re trying to improve public engagement that you would take away the video of people who’ come to council to speak for a couple minutes.”

Boulder and International Issues

“Amplifying the voice of a large section of the community is not the same thing as the city council taking a position on international affairs,” said Smoke. He said the current Council had the opportunity to hear people coming to them with concerns about issues like starvation and killings in Gaza, but the majority of Council declined, with reasons including that it was a distant conflict and they had other things to do with their time. “And it’s absurd. Can we do better? Of course we can do better,” he said.

New Administration in Washington and Boulder Impacts

According to the former HRC member, he is very concerned about the new administration’s direction toward vulnerable populations, in Boulder and elsewhere. This includes people who are in the country legally on visas or other arrangements but wrote or spoke about freedom for Palestine and were detained after officials learned about their opinions. “You just start talking about something and you could be hauled off for doing that?,” he asked. He also brought up a recent event in Boulder when a student group was to show a movie about Palestine on the CU campus, but campus police shut the movie down at the request of CU leadership. “Of course, there are things that are happening with ICE that are terrifying, and they’re certainly a threat to people in our community. We might not see that heavily of a direct effect just yet. But it’s still quite possible,” he said.

Performance of “Progressive Council”

Smoke said very plainly that the “progressive label means zilch” if the majority on Council won’t support actions on cease-fire resolutions or divestment. He said he delivered a synopsis of an Amnesty International report including a conclusion that Israel is committing genocidal acts in Gaza to Council members, but neither that nor other information about the humanitarian crisis led to a change in the majority position.

Climate Action

Smoke believes it’s important for the local governments to recognize that climate action efforts are likely now to face some type of push-back from an administration that doesn’t favor climate policy. Closer to home, he said Boulder should try to “use climate issues as leverage” as it engages in franchise negotiations with Xcel Energy.

Need More Housing?

Smoke said he appreciates that Boulder has an urban growth boundary to limit sprawl, but supports “authentically creative options” for new housing within the city. This could include cooperative housing, ADUs, tiny homes, and public projects like those that he brought up while mentioning the Mitchell-Lama law in the “economic future” section of this post.

CCRS Ballot Measures (City of Boulder Issues 2A and 2B)

During this mid-September interview, Smoke said he’s “sort of on the fence” on the CCRS measures, and would have liked to have edited it because the “R” stands for “resiliency” which he considers a vague term. He also said sales taxes are regressive, and 2A extends a sales tax.

County Mental/Behavioral Health Tax (County Issue 1B)

Smoke said he supports County Issue 1B because it would provide funding for drug treatment and other issues, but turned again to divestment and cease-fire resolutions to ask, “If you can’t authentically address the concerns of people about morality, whose mental health are you concerned about?”