Aaron Brockett

Aaron Brockett, the current Mayor of Boulder, is running in the 2026 election for another term as Mayor, which would be his last term if he’s elected due to term limits.

In a mid-August 2026 interview, Brockett noted that he had been involved in city government for a number of years, between serving on Planning Board, on City Council, and his two terms as Mayor, and still had motivation to continue serving.

“I’m proud of a lot of what I and we have accomplished collectively over that time. But I know there’s still important work to be done. So I’m running for a final two-year term to keep up the work on things like housing affordability, and availability, but I do feel like I still have something to offer. I’m still hoping to serve for two final years to keep serving the city,” said Brockett.

Q – Role of the Mayor?

Brockett noted that the Mayor’s position includes being the head of the city’s legislative body, and working very closely with the City Manager who heads up the city’s executive branch. He listed a few other responsibilities, including constituent services, working with local organizations and nonprofits, and of course working with other Council members. The Mayor’s role also includes being the face of the city, and he said “I say yes to essentially every invitation that I get, if it doesn’t involve a conflict of some kind.” This might include visits to elementary schools, college classes, or a host of other public events.

Q – Directly Elected Mayor – a Good Experience?

After supporting the 2022 ballot measure to put the Mayor’s race up to a vote of the people, Brockett became the city’s first elected Mayor under this new system. He said this system makes it “very clear that voters had chosen” their Mayor, and believes the election gave him a mandate for leadership plus gave city residents some clarity over who the Mayor is. The 2022 ballot measure did not technically change the power of the Mayor’s position, and Brockett said he has not fundamentally approached the job differently after being directly elected than he did after his Council peers voted to give him the job. In mid-August 2026, he said he does not favor Boulder moving toward a “strong Mayor” system like some larger cities like Denver have.

Mini-Bio

Brockett was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His family moved to Massachusetts for several years and then settled in Sewanee, Tennessee. He enrolled at Swarthmore College, located outside of Philadelphia, graduating with a degree in music.

Brockett had a computer-related work study job in college in the mid-1990s, and eventually he and his wife Cherry founded a software development company called Charon Development. Charon developed a product called ProLease, a program for commercial lease management, but RMI Software purchased the product in 2019 so the Brocketts became employees of RMI. Aaron Brockett scaled back his work hours with RMI and eventually turned his focus completely toward serving as Mayor.

He served as the Holiday Neighborhood HOA president, and was appointed to the City of Boulder Planning Board, where he served five years, chairing for two. Brockett was first elected to City Council in 2015, finishing fourth in a race for five open seats, and was re-elected in 2019, finishing fourth in a race for six open seats. He served for a year as Mayor Pro Tem in 2018, and became Mayor in 2021. Brockett entered the brief vacancy committee race for state Representative in House District 10 in 2022, but he finished third, so he continued his service as Mayor.

In 2023, Brockett ran for another term as Mayor during the city’s first experience with directly electing the Mayor. In 2021, he became Mayor through a vote of sitting Council members. In 2023, he defeated former Council member Bob Yates, current Council member Nicole Speer, and first-timer Paul Tweedlie in a ranked-choice voting election. He earned a three-year term in 2023 because the city was temporarily adjusting term lengths so all future municipal elections could be held in even-numbered years. The 2026 Mayor’s election is for a two-year term, and if Brockett wins this race he would be unable to run for Mayor or Council again due to term limits.

His campaign website is https://brockett4mayor.org/

Q – Contentious Council Meetings?

During mid-2025, City Council meetings often became heated as protestors upset with the situation in Gaza disrupted meetings. Brockett was the Mayor at that time, and meetings occasionally had to be called into recess in attempts to restore order. He said this was a challenge “unlike anything we’d seen at Council before,” with the challenge including keeping meetings orderly and safe but also allowing people to exercise First Amendment rights. Brockett said he was “always very strict” about enforcing rules of decorum, but there were still instances where Council Chambers did not feel like a safe environment for everybody in attendance. Council did make rule changes to try reducing disruptions, but after the tragic firebombing at a Run For Their Lives march in June 2025, Brockett said he proposed an additional set of rule changes that “essentially eliminated” the disruptions.

“I think those have been really effective. Certainly recognizing that, I wish that we had instituted that full set of them earlier. But, you know, sometimes it takes time to find the right solutions,” said Brockett.

Q – Boulder’s Economic Condition?

Despite some recent challenges to Boulder economic institutions like the local federal labs, Brockett said he feels “very positive” about the fundamentals of Boulder’s economy. He mentioned strong economic contributions from CU-Boulder, natural foods, and local high-tech industries including the quantum computing sector in which he believes Boulder and the broader region are “actually international leaders.” Brockett said the city government has been focusing more on economic vitality over the past few years, and believes it will be important to focus on permitting reform to make it easier for local businesses to launch and be successful. He noted that there are local challenges regarding commercial and retail vacancies, and that hybrid or fully work-from-home arrangements have meant fewer people in business districts who might shop or dine at local establishments.

Q – Is Boulder Ready For Sundance?

According to Brockett, the city is “on the track to be ready,” though there is still work to be done. He noted that the city adopted a short-term rental license policy, which should help provide housing for festival attendees and allow local residents to earn some rental income. The city had received recent news that RTD will be devoting a million dollars to provide additional transit service during Sundance, which should provide better transit frequence. “I think the energy in Boulder is going to be electric and people are going to have a great time,” said Brockett.

Q – Public Safety in Boulder?

There are local concerns about various public safety issues in Boulder, but Brockett said “crime has been going down in almost every category over the last two years.” He gave the Boulder Police Department credit for doing “extraordinary work,” thanks in part to having a period of full staffing, although there have been recent retirements and resignations so Boulder’s not currently at full staffing. Per Brockett, adequate staffing has allowed for more “proactive policing” and increased patrols in Downtown Boulder. He said he’s aware that there are still “unacceptable behaviors” going on in Boulder, including open use of hard drugs, but if offenses are not imprisonable under state law, Brockett said it’s important to make sure behaviors are discouraged plus drugs should be confiscated.

Q – Public Safety FROM Public Safety?

In 2026, there has been public concern about camera surveillance, with Flock cameras often mentioned but also Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) and other types of cameras in the conversation. Brockett said “mass surveillance, writ large, is an unacceptable thing, yet he also mentioned that Flock cameras played a role in the rescue of a woman who was abducted by her boyfriend. He said it’s a delicate balance between protecting people and having systems in town that can track people at all times. He noted that the city’s police chief had recently received a letter from the federal government saying the feds were upset that the city wouldn’t share data, but added that he favors a community conversation that could help formulate an appropriate balance between camera use and protections around privacy.

Boulder has a Police Oversight Panel in which the citizen panel can study and make recommendations if police actions seem inappropriate. Brockett said the city was in a “five-year check-in” on the POP, and brought up a recent situation where BPD did not refer a number of what it believed to be minor instances to the POP. “It does seem to me that we probably want to make sure that there’s some kind of check in with the panel about complaints regardless of their size, but while still allowing for really low level, very minor issues, to be dealt with quickly,” said Brockett about what he believes needs to happen in the future.

Q – Does Boulder Still Need More Housing?

Brockett said he believes the city still needs to pursue more housing, in part to make sure there are opportunities for people of “all income levels” to live in Boulder. He said Boulder recently reached a quantity of more than 4,000 deed-restricted affordable units, or about 9% of the city’s housing stock, which he believes is “the highest level per capita in the state.” He gave Boulder Housing Partners and other entities credit for continuing to add around 200 affordable units yearly. Brockett said it’s important to make housing readily available for people who earn 80-120% Area Median Income, and said the city will continue to seek more housing along transit corridors. To Brockett, market-rate housing does have an impact on housing affordability, since the city’s inclusionary housing requirement means developers must either provide affordable housing on site or pay “cash-in-lieu” which goes into the affordable housing funds.

Q – Should Council Spend Formal Time on International Affairs?

Brockett fairly simply said the Council should stay out of international affairs. “We have a wide and varied number of challenges within the City of Boulder that we’ve been tasked by the voters to work on. At any given time, there are crises and wars and terrible things happening across the world. But that’s not our purview, as the City Council of the City of Boulder,” said Brockett.

Q – Progress on Homelessness?

Brockett noted that “obviously, we have not solved homelessness,” but believes the city has made some recent progress in getting people housed, sheltered, or in touch with services. He said the city has more than 200 people in permanent supportive housing in Boulder, and the All Roads shelter (formerly Boulder Shelter for the Homeless) now has day services for people who didn’t use to have a place to be during the daytime hours. Brockett believes it’s appropriate for the city to enforce its “camping ban” on public spaces, and he said camping is down compared to the peak COVID years and a few years after, but said enforcement needs to be done humanely and with an emphasis on connecting people with services. He added that city policy now includes a consideration that if a person arrives in Boulder with no real connection to the town, but might have friends or family elsewhere, the city could attempt to help the person find a way to connect with resources in other locations, partially because there are limited resources in Boulder.

Q – Taxes or Fees?

There was some controversy around a recent decision to impose a Transportation Maintenance Fee, with concern about perhaps using fees in part because they don’t have to go to a vote of the people under TABOR. Brockett said the transportation fee was well-vetted as to whether it was a legitimate fee or if it should have been a tax, but added that people do complain about road conditions and this fee should help the city do a better job with road maintenance.

Q – Downtown Development Authority?

Brockett did vote to send a proposal to establish a Downtown Development Authority (DDA) to about 2,500 voters with connections to the Downtown and University Hill business districts. However, the proposal died in Council on a 4-4 vote. In the absence of what could have been a substantial amount of money to upgrade these business districts, Brockett noted that the city does have some money already budgeted for Pearl Street Mall upgrades. He mentioned again that Downtown Boulder could benefit from addressing property vacancies and engaging in permitting reform. Even without a DDA, there are organizations and entities with interest in downtown business, including the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Boulder Partnership, and Visit Boulder, and Brockett believes a team approach could “increase the vibrancy of our fantastic downtown.”

Q – Climate Action in Boulder?

Brockett said the city’s Climate Initiatives Department has done “really good work” on issues like reducing city greenhouse gas emissions, helping homeowners reduce energy use, and reducing fossil fuel use. For example, he spoke about working with Xcel Energy in creating a plan to electrify certain businesses along a downtown gas line, but still allow some businesses to obtain gas from a smaller line. Like many candidates, Brockett said it’s important for the city to work toward resilience or adaptation to climate change. These efforts will include wildfire mitigation, which the city’s existing carbon tax can help fund, along with making sure people have “resilience hubs” to go to in case they don’t have adequate cooling or don’t have electricity. He added that the city intends to work with Xcel to reduce the likelihood of long power outages.

Q – Rec Centers and Deferred Maintenance?

There has been community controversy about deferred maintenance of city facilities, notably rec centers. Brockett said the city has had some revenue difficulties, especially during the peak COVID years, and simultaneously had what he called “competing fiscal priorities.” He said deferred maintenance has not been neglected, and gave a few examples: putting “a couple million dollars” into maintenance at South Boulder Rec Center; regular maintenance at the city’s Public Safety building; and building a new Fire Station Number 3 that isn’t in a floodplain. He added that when the new city office campus at Alpine-Balsam is completed, the city will be able to dispose of about 10 properties which all need maintenance. Still, Brockett said that expenses for construction and repairs are increasing at high levels while sales/use tax revenues have been flat or declining, and that’s part of the reason for a bond measure that Boulder voters will see on the 2026 ballot.

Qs – 2026 Ballot Measures

  • City of Boulder $400 Million Bond: Brockett supported putting this measure on the ballot.
  • City of Boulder Residential Vacancy Tax: Brockett supports it as a way to increase housing availability in Boulder plus provide some revenue for the city.
  • City of Boulder Firefighter Collective Bargaining: Brockett said this is an “easy yes.”
  • City of Boulder Debt Limit Increase: Brockett supports the measure, but noted that even with an increased debt limit new bonds would still have to be voter-approved.
  • Boulder County Increase from 3 to 5 Commissioners: Brockett supports it, partially to add voices to the Board of Commissioners, and because a larger number of commissioners could help make sure there’s a quorum if a commissioner or two is unavailable.
  • Boulder County Childcare Tax: Brockett supports it to help families with children who are “struggling to get by.”

Endorsements: Brockett has received organizational endorsements from Boulder Progressives, Better Boulder, Sierra Club Indian Peaks Group, a “first-choice” from the Daily Camera, and a “second-choice” from Boulder Area Labor Council.

Follow the Money: Brockett has received maximum $100 endorsements from current Council members Ryan Schuchard, Tara Winer, Nicole Speer, and Tina Marquis; former Council members Rachel Friend, Jill Grano, Leslie Durgin, Suzanne Jones, and Angelique Espinoza; former County Commissioner Elise Jones; current state Representative Junie Joseph, current state Senator Judy Amabile; former state Senators Rollie Heath and Steve Fenberg, current RTD director Lynn Guissinger; and former BVSD board director Laurie Albright.