Boulder Weekly sent candidate questionnaires to all state primary candidates. These are their written responses, edited for length and clarity. Find a full list of candidates and questionnaires here.
Office: Colorado House of Representatives, District 49
Campaign website: maxforcolorado.com
Relevant experience
Former public school teacher
Psychotherapist in private practice, with focus on first responders and disaster psychology (12 years)
Cross-cultural educator/guide with Boulder-based experiential education outfitter Where There Be Dragons (8 years, to include 3 years living in Thailand/Laos and 2 years in China)
Army officer and veteran with 10 years of service to the Colorado National Guard and one year of overseas deployment
Priorities
- Access to healthcare. I want to create greater access to high quality mental healthcare, especially for those who are economically and geographically disadvantaged (i.e. Medicaid recipients and in rural areas where service locations are difficult to reach). My first bill would ensure a higher rate of mental health providers per Medicaid patient by requiring a minimum provider to patient ratio (currently there is one mental health provider for every 1800 Medicaid recipients), requiring Medicaid payers (insurance companies) to streamline their credentialing process and increasing Medicaid payers’ reimbursement rates to retain more high-quality providers.
- Climate resilience. I want to develop initiatives that support rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in developing climate resilience. For me, this means supporting communities and fire protection districts in sustainable wildfire mitigation projects (i.e. shaded fuel breaks), developing state funding and grant structures for lower and some middle-income homeowners to make their homes more fire resistant and providing more practical individual tax credits for homeowners and businesses that invest in sustainable power production. For low- and fixed-income homeowners, this means tax credits that are roughly the equivalent of the cost to replace inefficient, legacy appliances.
- Infrastructure. I want to focus state infrastructure efforts on developing access to public spaces to include public lands. This means focusing infrastructure improvements on public transit, converting more urban spaces into walkable space, developing transit routes and walking paths to urban parks and creating more trails on our public lands for people of diverse abilities.
Lightning round
Yes/no answers only
Do you support the state’s elimination of local occupancy limits? Yes
Do you support ending the state’s prohibition on local rent control? Yes
Do you support requiring more density in your jurisdiction as a way to address the affordable housing crisis? Yes
Do you support the Front Range train as the state’s highest priority for passenger rail? Yes
When was the last time you paid rent? How much was it? And where?
I last paid rent in Sunshine Canyon between 2017-2020. We paid $1300 for two of us to live in a one-room studio (400 square feet) near mile 7 of Sunshine Canyon Drive below Gold Hill. At the time it was less expensive than other places, but I recognize that this price is out of reach in 2024, even in the mountains.
What would you say are the top three issues facing District 49, and what are your plans to address them in a way that differs from the current approach?
The top three issues facing our district are closely related to my top three priorities.
- Access to healthcare: Working people and people on fixed incomes, especially in the rural mountain regions of the district (which comprises most of the district), have difficulty accessing high quality healthcare. While my priority is mental healthcare, this falls under the umbrella of access to affordable and quality healthcare in general. Many residents of District 49 fall into the category of the “last mile,” areas that are more difficult for emergency responders to access, and far from public transportation, broadband and clinics. This affects access to healthcare in multiple ways, including telehealth for the most vulnerable who do not have reliable internet access.
- Vulnerability to climate disaster: Over the last 10 years, there have been at least five wildfires that have destroyed people’s homes in District 49. This is an exponential increase in fire disasters, and many who lose their homes cannot afford to rebuild. Moreoever, the wealthier population in rural areas tend to live in more fire-resistant homes and can afford more fire mitigation, while those with less means live in more vulnerable homes.
- Quality infrastructure: Most of House District 49 is rural and mountainous, comprised of numerous small towns and a thin slice of west Boulder. There is a fairly strong dichotomy between wealthy, urban areas of the district (west Boulder) and the mountain regions of the district. These mountain regions need more reliable internet, utilities, emergency services and healthcare access, and that depends on rural infrastructure that reaches the last mile. In the case of District 49, the “last mile” is often 10 miles or more.
How do you represent and advocate for voters in suburban and rural areas in a state where the focus and power tends to be concentrated in the more urban Front Range, particularly Denver and Boulder?
This is very important to me and represents a major part of my platform. Part of why I decided to run is that House District 49 incorporates a geographic area that runs from just south of I-70 all the way to the Colorado-Wyoming border, and from the base of the foothills to the continental divide. For the last three months, I have walked and driven door-to-door all over District 49 (from Idaho Springs and Nederland to Estes Park, Horsetooth and Bellvue — to name a few) to talk to people about my campaign. From this I have gained a lot of insight into the diverse interests and needs people have.
While I have a lot of respect for the work our current representative has done, I believe District 49 needs representation from someone who lives outside of Boulder and is not partial to the Boulder political establishment. I have a lot of connections in and around Boulder (and even lived in Boulder proper for a year) but have lived most of my time in District 49 either in Nederland or near Gold Hill on County Road 83, for a total of 15 years in the mountains. All of the rural and mountain communities in the district face the infrastructure and accessibility challenges I named above and include people who make their living through agriculture or mountain businesses. While some people live in these places by choice, others are compelled by their livelihood. One of my primary intentions in running for this seat is to rally rural and young voters who do not necessarily think they are well-represented in the state legislature. Once elected, I will continue to visit all regions of this district in order to continue understanding the challenges people face.
What is the strategy for evolving transportation systems (particularly in suburban and rural areas) to meet Colorado’s climate goals, while balancing the realities of car dependency for those who must rely on personal vehicles?
As a rural resident, I rely on a personal vehicle for my livelihood, but I also recognize that our car dependent culture is something that we need to change. We can do a whole lot more to develop transportation infrastructure and walking/biking infrastructure that encourages people to become less car dependent. For example, when I drive to town, I sometimes park at the bottom of our canyon and either walk, ride my bike or use public transit (I thank RTD for allowing veterans to ride free) to get where I am going. The more accessible this infrastructure is, the more appealing it is to individuals.
In Nederland, for example, many people avoid taking the RTD to Boulder on Friday and Saturday evenings because they are unable to catch a bus after 11 p.m. to return home, so they drive and park downtown. When it is more difficult to find parking in a given area and there is a direct public transportation alternative, people will naturally turn to public transportation, for both work and entertainment. There are some excellent examples of public transportation that covers the last mile in places like Thailand, the UK and Norway, where localized public transit services serve very small communities (in the case of the UK, there are rural transit routes that run hourly along routes that serve towns and villages of less than 200 people). The more difficult aspect of developing climate-friendly transit is that it requires a cultural shift and an openness to giving up our perception of comfort to live a more social, healthy lifestyle.
Given the realities of a changing climate and limited government resources, how do you plan on balancing mitigation and adaptation for already-impacted populations in D49?
Mitigation and adaptation are collective responsibilities, from the very local (i.e. individual homeowners, especially those who can afford to mitigate and upgrade) to the municipal, county, state and national level. We created climate change through industrialization and our desire for more convenience; therefore our collective adaptation may require some discomfort. Yes, we do need to apply financial support to mitigation and resilient technology, but adaptation means more than just applying technical solutions to homes and communities. Adaptation is a process of reimagining our place in nature and how we, as humans, interact with and affect the natural environment. In the long run, cultural adaptation and introspection will mean adjusting our lifestyles to consume less and, ultimately, live more in harmony with the natural world. This does not cost money or resources; it only requires that we, as a culture, give up our reliance on certain conveniences or habits. I cannot legislate this directly, but I can be a leader who pushes people to think differently about solutions to climate change.
In the short-term, we must focus sustainable forest and fuel mitigation in areas that are most combustible and closest to dense mountain and plains communities that are vulnerable to fire. Shaded fuel breaks are somewhat labor intensive but over the long term become less intensive (and costly) than clearcut fuel breaks, and they preserve moist, fire resistant micro-climates beneath the forest canopy. We should implement shaded fuel breaks readily throughout Colorado (and orienting toward the local economy, using the harvested timber products for local building materials. We do this ourselves in Sunshine Canyon using a portable sawmill).
How does JEDI factor into your policy making?
JEDI encapsulates the concept that there are implicit power dynamics in every interaction, with histories that began long before I was born but that affect us all. In terms of policy, and especially when considering the people of House District 49, there are multiple factors that play into how much agency or power someone has or perceives they have, whether politically, socially, economically or otherwise. I recognize that social location goes beyond easily identifiable categories and into “unseen” categories (such as ability and socioeconomics). I will support and legislate policies that seek to rectify these imbalances and will endeavor to keep my mind open to the possibility that we, as legislators, are missing perspectives and need to seek input from all corners of our constituency. For me that means seeking out perspectives that differ from my own and continuing to listen.
One place where we can have a lot of policy impact that balances historical inequity is in campaign finance. While I am currently “playing the game” by raising enough money to pose a significant challenge to my more-established competitor, I believe we need to do a lot more to remove money from politics. The current maximum individual contribution to a Colorado house of representatives’ campaign is $450. This is much less than other political positions, but still favors a multitude of large donors — a group of people that is primarily white, older, upper middle to upper class, and likely began their lives with some economic or social privilege. We should also put an overall cap on campaign spending so that individuals cannot self-finance themselves into power.
What efforts do you make in your daily life to consider and understand people with different lived experiences from your own?
This is very important to me, especially as a working mental health counselor who must support people with different lived experiences than my own. The effort begins with humility and recognizing that while in some cases I may come close to understanding or imagining what it is like to live in someone else’s shoes, it is never fully accurate. And more often than not, I cannot fully understand or imagine what someone else’s lived experience is like. Therefore, it is imperative for me to listen. We are witnessing a backlash against DEI efforts in our current political and cultural environment. While I understand how some institutions have misapplied DEI principles, now is more important than ever for people in privileged positions to exercise humility. This does not mean I give up my agency or identity in any way; rather, it means I embrace the full spectrum of possible perspectives and lived experiences that exist in a diverse democracy.
Another component of my effort involves education and reading. While I desire to ever expand my social and professional circles, I can also expand my lens by reading. Books are an excellent way for me to digest someone else’s lived experience over time. I seek book recommendations from friends, organizations and educational institutions to further diversify my understanding. The three books I am currently circulating through are Parable of the Sower (Octavia E. Butler), Dying of Whiteness (Jonathan M. Metzl), and The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture (Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté).
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something, and what was it?
When Hamas attacked civilians in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I was quite sympathetic to the victims in Israel (and still am, of course). I also knew that Netanyahu’s government was extreme and would likely carry out a disproportionate attack on Gaza. Still, having friends and even clients who live in Israel and who witnessed some of the atrocities on Oct. 7, I admittedly felt less compelled to speak out about Israel’s planned war against Hamas in Gaza. I was more concerned about the collective trauma that a group of people — just a generation or two removed from the Holocaust — were experiencing. In the first weeks of Israel’s counterattack on Hamas, my mind was on people suffering from the Oct. 7 attack.
But after seeing the casualty numbers mount in Gaza, I recognized that my perspective was one-sided. While I still condemn Hamas’ tactics on Israeli civilians and harbor great empathy for that day’s victims, I also recognize that I was weighing my outlook on atrocities in Gaza based on the trauma of Oct. 7. When it comes to human rights abuses and war crimes, there is no weighing one versus another. Hamas is guilty of great war crimes and so is Netanyahu’s government and the IDF. As a veteran, I should have known better that the law of armed conflict (LOAC) applies regardless. And as a veteran, I should have known better to think that Israel would abide by LOAC in its war of retribution. Today, I believe that Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF leaders responsible for war crimes must see justice. The time for a ceasefire was months ago. And Palestinians must have the freedom to live in a nation governed by themselves as part of a two-state solution.
What question would you ask a fellow candidate on the ballot?
How do you reach out, represent and understand the portion of your potential future constituency who are not politically connected or engaged, especially those who live outside of Boulder?