Boulder Weekly sent candidate questionnaires to all candidates on Boulder County ballots. These are their written responses, edited for length and clarity. Read more Election 2024 content.
Josh Cooperman
coopermanforlouisvilleward1.org
Relevant experience
Member of the Louisville Sustainability Advisory Board since Jan. 2021
Member of the Louisville Bee City USA Committee since March 2023
Founder of the Louisville Sustainability Alliance in Aug. 2024
Facilitator for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) at the Louisville Farmers’ Market since the 2022 season
Visiting assistant professor of Physics at Bucknell University
PhD in physics from the University of California, Davis in 2013
Priorities
Environmental sustainability, especially climate action, creation of more affordable housing and revitalization of downtown Louisville and other commercial centers.
Lightning round
Do you support local efforts to increase the minimum wage? Yes
Do you support an end to the state prohibition on rent control? Yes
Do you support interventions for human-caused climate change? Yes
Do you support the Redtail Ridge development? No
Do you support for SB24-157 which narrowed the definition of what constitutes a public meeting? No
When was the last time you paid rent? How much was it? And where?
My wife and I last paid rent in April 2021 while we were renting a house in Louisville’s Steel Ranch neighborhood for $2,450 per month. Towards the end of that month, we moved our family into our current home — the first house that we have owned — in Louisville’s Parkwood neighborhood.
Tell us about your decision to run for Louisville City Council. Why are you running, and why now?
I want Louisville to thrive for generations to come.
My decision to run for city council intertwines intimately with my decision to run for city council now. First, the urgency of climate action motivated my initial engagement and drives my continuing engagement in Louisville’s community and government. The next few years represent a critical time for achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Accords. As a city councilor I will lead our efforts: implementation of the city’s recently adopted Internal and Community Decarbonization Plans. I will also help the city prepare for negotiations with Xcel Energy to renew its franchise agreement, potentially crucial to meeting our climate goals and mitigating wildfire impacts.
Next, the present is a momentous time for Louisville. The city is updating its Comprehensive Plan, a 10 year vision key to revising and achieving our community’s goals. Downtown Louisville stands to be transformed as the city embarks on its Downtown Vision Plan and Future 42 Project. The city is poised to create more affordable housing as I discuss in another response. The University of Colorado is planning to redevelop property in southwest Louisville, potentially sparking revitalization of the entire McCaslin corridor.
Furthermore, I will bring fresh, informed perspectives and unique, valuable preparation to our current city council. City council needs a champion of environmental sustainability; city council needs a scientist trained to be analytic, critical and rigorous; city council needs a member with the capacity to simultaneously retain the minute details and take a holistic view of all of the interconnected issues facing Louisville.
Last, but certainly not least, I discovered over the last few years that I thoroughly enjoy advocating for, organizing and volunteering in my community. I now want to serve and represent Louisville’s Ward 1 to make a true difference for all residents, businesses and visitors.
What would you say are the top three issues facing Louisville, and what are your plans to address them?
Louisville faces a variety of issues interconnected in not only their impacts, but also their solutions. Tackling climate change, creating more affordable housing and revitalizing commercial centers rank as my top three issues.
Climate change is not only an existential, but also an immediate threat and now is a critical time for action. While climate change reverberates globally, its mitigation requires action at all levels: international, national, state, regional and local.
Fortunately, to address climate change in a city like Louisville, mitigation strategies are largely well-established: stop emitting greenhouse gasses by electrifying all processes that produce such emissions and powering these processes with renewably-generated electricity.
Almost all such processes — from heating to transportation to manufacturing — can be electrified with present or near-future technologies; accordingly, the crux of tackling climate change in Louisville is implementation. The city must facilitate implementation for its residents, businesses and visitors through education, outreach and incentives followed eventually by regulations and requirements.
In another response I extensively discuss affordable housing; here I offer three specific ideas for creating more affordable housing. The city could proactively rezone occupied and vacant commercial zones to mixed-use and residential zones, particularly along the McCaslin corridor, upzone residential zones near commercial centers to allow accessory dwelling units and duplexes, and preserve more historical homes in Louisville’s Old Town.
In another response I extensively discuss revitalization of downtown Louisville, Ward 1’s primary commercial center; here I offer two further ideas for revitalization. The city could revise its planning processes, building codes, and design standards to ensure consistency, predictability and expediency and activate underutilized properties like the grain elevator for new and creative uses.
In addressing these issues, the city must balance change with our community’s character and expectations, maintain our quality of life, and make our community more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
The Louisville City Council often votes unanimously. Is that a good sign, representing the ability to reach consensus, or a bad sign, representing a lack of diversity in opinion? What is a recent decision you agree with, and why? What is a recent decision you disagree with, and why?
city council’s tendency to vote unanimously cannot be universally interpreted as a good or bad sign. City council usually votes on applications and ordinances that city staff has researched and city boards and commissions have vetted; accordingly, most unanimous votes reflect thorough analysis.
Having attended many meetings, though, I have observed situations in which city council would have benefited from more diverse perspectives, rigorous examination and constructive criticism. As a city councilor (and scientist) I will offer such perspectives, examination and criticism as well as clear justification for my decisions.
I agree with city council’s unanimous decision to update the city’s expedited review processes for certain planned unit development and subdivision plat applications. While the city has offered expedited processes for some years, application eligibility was somewhat ambiguous and constrained; the updated processes clarify and expand eligibility.
These changes will result in cost and time savings for not only applicants, but also city staff and city council, principally by reducing review to two (rather than four) public hearings. One might worry that this reduction will overly limit public input; based on my experiences attending such hearings, I am confident that the reduction is appropriate.
I disagree with city council’s nonunanimous approval of the Redtail Ridge final subdivision plat. At the final public hearing the applicant requested a modification of the city’s standard financial guarantees for public infrastructure. As this modification represented a weakening (to some extent) of such guarantees, which could potentially expose the city to undue risk, councilor Hamlington requested a delay to gather further testimony from the city’s legal council. Our other city councilors did not consent, instead voting 5-to-1 for approval (with one recusal). These city councilors should have extended the hearing by a week or two to not only resolve this important issue, but also reach consensus.
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 Louisville?
Climate change continues to affect Louisville in numerous, various ways. Most catastrophically, the 2013 Boulder County flood inundated large swaths of southern Louisville, and the 2021 Marshall fire burned hundreds of homes and businesses in western Louisville. Climate change very likely exacerbated these events. Less catastrophically, Louisville residents, businesses and visitors have endured the impacts of rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, excessive ground-level ozone pollution, more frequent wildfire smoke, power outages and supply chain disruptions.
These impacts fall unequally on Louisville residents, businesses and visitors depending on many factors including socioeconomic position, location within the city, neighborhood amenities and building conditions. Despite predictions for climate change’s effects dating back decades, the city has not comprehensively planned — let alone acted — to mitigate and adapt to these effects. As a city council member I will expand my work on mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, attending particularly to disproportionately impacted residents, businesses and visitors.
After the 2013 flood the city responded with improvements like increasing the golf course’s potential to mitigate flooding; further habitat restoration along Coal Creek would bolster its ability to moderate flooding. After the Marshall fire the city responded with measures to address wildfire risks as I discuss in another response. To tackle other impacts, the city should create a program for replacing excess hardscape with greenscape, regulate local sources of air pollution like two-stroke engines, establish vegetative buffering along roads and rails, grow its tree canopy systematically, support more water conservation measures and pursue further power line undergrounding.
The city has initiated such efforts, for instance, by subsidizing home energy audits, providing electrification rebates, partnering with Resource Central and supporting Boulder County’s Community Forestry Corps, and I have contributed as a member of Louisville’s Sustainability Advisory Board. More concerted action, directed towards those with the fewest resources, is necessary.
How do you think Marshall Fire rebuilding and recovery efforts are going? What do you think is going well and what is something you think the city should be doing differently?
The Marshall Fire was the most disastrous event in Louisville’s history, its destruction of more than five hundred homes displacing many more community members. With strength and resilience Marshall Fire survivors have or will soon return to our community. Indeed, in comparison to most other communities after similar disasters, Louisville has recovered and rebuilt more extensively and rapidly. This fact neither captures the hardships that Marshall Fire survivors have faced nor implies that all has proceeded smoothly, but indicates that the city and our community have well supported recovery and rebuilding.
Specifically, the city communicated more consistently and intently with Marshall Fire survivors, particularly through the neighborhood networks and Community Preparedness Roundtable that it established; the city helped to secure strong incentives for rebuilding to more energy-efficient codes, resulting in many homes so rebuilt; with notable advocacy from Marshall Fire survivors and support from the police department, the city has markedly improved its emergency messaging.
The Marshall Fire unequivocally demonstrated that Louisville must mitigate its wildfire risks. The city responded by studying wildfire risks on public lands, contracting cow and goat grazing and mowing buffers. The city has not progressed much on fire-hardening properties, possibly the most effective mitigation technique. Rebuilt homes have unevenly incorporated fire-hardening features owing to their extra cost; the state has provided some grant money, but the city could have affected more consistent implementation.
Looking forward, the city should maintain good communication, support Marshall Fire survivors still working to return, assist more thoroughly those whose homes suffered smoke damage, improve cleanliness and safety in affected neighborhoods and adopt a fire-hardening ordinance. The city should also address two concerns when renegotiating its franchise agreement with Xcel Energy: power line undergrounding and preemptive power outages.
Do you think there is a need for more affordable housing in Louisville? If so, what is your plan to make it happen?
The need for more affordable housing in Louisville is both substantial and urgent. While creating more affordable housing has ranked as one of city council’s highest priorities for several years, this prioritization has not translated into much progress. As a city councilor I will continue to advocate for and work to create more affordable housing.
More affordable housing would benefit Louisville tremendously. Aging residents could downsize in retirement and their children could afford to live nearby; more young families could find homes in our community; more people could both live and work in our community; businesses could access larger customer and employee bases; our community could become more diverse, equitable and inclusive; and our environmental impacts could diminish.
Currently, approximately 3% of residential units in Louisville are deed-restricted affordable, yet the city has joined a regional effort to increase the county’s percentage of affordable units to 12% by 2035. Louisville should not only meet, but also embrace its commitment.
Louisville is well positioned to work towards this goal: the city is eligible to receive funds through Colorado’s Proposition 123 and Boulder County’s Ballot Issue 1B; earlier this year the city finalized its housing needs assessment and plan; and the city has budgeted for affordable housing expenditures next year and will soon receive the first fees in lieu from its inclusionary housing ordinance.
Still, this positioning does not guarantee the creation of more affordable housing. To ensure progress the city should enshrine a community vision for affordable housing in its updated Comprehensive Plan, lay the groundwork for this vision and engage and incentivize developers to realize this vision.
Of course, not everyone can — or wants to — live in Louisville, but Louisville can — and should — accommodate more residents. Louisville’s population can grow to some extent without unduly altering our community’s character.
What would you like the future of Main Street to look like? What is your plan to help achieve it?
Downtown Louisville is the heart of our community, and Main Street is the artery for its lifeblood. In the coming years I envision a downtown Louisville at once economically revitalized, culturally reinvigorated and sustainably redesigned, a home to well-established businesses, new restaurants and shops, diverse residences, and thriving arts, brimming with pedestrians and bicyclists. As a city councilor I will work enthusiastically with all stakeholders to achieve this vision.
More specifically, I suggest the following: encourage and support development of new commercial spaces with upstairs residences or offices; encourage and support denser residential development in the surrounding urban renewal district; restructure taxing policies and provide commercial rent assistance to incentivize businesses to occupy vacant spaces; reinvigorate the performing and visual arts scene with assistance from community groups like Friends of Louisville Arts, Science, and Humanities; investigate seasonal pedestrianization of Main Street with mitigation efforts sufficient to prevent undue impacts on surrounding neighborhoods and certain businesses; improve and expand bicycle and electric bicycle infrastructure; establish better last-mile bicycle connections to downtown partly by making Main Street friendlier to and safer for bicyclists; collaborate with businesses to strategically locate electric vehicle charging stations; and plant more trees, shrubs and flowers to create resilient gathering spaces.
Commercial development would provide locations for new businesses, opportunities for existing businesses to expand and, potentially, sufficient competition to reduce rental rates. Residential development would provide much needed housing in a walkable, bikeable setting, boosting customer and employee bases for businesses. With thoughtful siting and design, this development would enhance downtown Louisville’s historic character.
The Louisville Revitalization Commission recently completed its Downtown Vision Plan, a blueprint for redevelopment of downtown Louisville’s streetscapes and public spaces. I strongly support this plan for downtown Louisville with many of its recommendations according with my suggestions.
What are your views on using tax incremental financing to incentivize commercial organizations to move to Louisville?
Louisville should responsibly deploy all of the tools at its disposal to attract and retain productive and sustainable businesses, especially businesses that provide essential services, like groceries and daycares, and businesses that support our community’s wellbeing, like hospitals and clinics, as well as businesses that make Louisville distinctive.
Tax incremental financing is a longstanding tool applicable within urban renewal districts. Louisville has designated two such districts: the Highway 42 Urban Renewal District, an area including downtown and its immediate surroundings (largely to the north) and 505 South McCaslin Blvd., the former Sam’s Club property. The Louisville Revitalization Commission governs the former district.
Tax incremental financing funds redevelopment projects within a renewal district as follows: the district’s governing body authorizes debt to (partially) pay for a project, and the future increases in tax revenue resulting from the project repay this debt. The district may use such funds itself, or the district may subsidize a redevelopment partner with such funds. In many instances tax incremental financing works well to fund renewal of urban areas; in other instances tax incremental financing does not work so well, sometimes counterintuitively slowing redevelopment or unexpectedly creating tax burdens for surrounding areas.
I support the use of tax incremental financing in Louisville’s urban renewable districts provided that the Revitalization Commission carefully and thoughtfully attends to its use, ensuring accurate market studies, revenue forecasts and transparent reporting. Most recently, the Revitalization Commission executed a tax incremental financing agreement with Radiance Medspa.
I follow the Revitalization Commission’s agendas and sometimes attend its meetings. I support the Revitalization Commission’s work like its facade improvement program (which I influenced to include a sustainability feature), its property improvement program and its Downtown Vision Plan. As a city councilor I will collaborate with the Revitalization Commission to realize this vision for downtown Louisville.
How do justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) factor into your policy making?
Consideration of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) should enter into all policy making because all policies should strive to treat people justly and equitably, account for our diversity and include all stakeholders. While consideration of JEDI has consistently ranked as one of city council’s highest priorities for several years, Louisville does not yet have a formal mechanism for ensuring such consideration. I do not know what mechanism would best serve city council, but Louisville has laid groundwork for making this determination.
In 2021, city council convened a task force on equity, diversity and inclusion, which included a diversity of our community’s voices that have not always been treated justly and equitably. The task force developed a set of recommended actions including creation of a JEDI manager position with appropriate support, resources and decision-making power, and establishment of a JEDI advisory board reporting to city council.
The city briefly hired a JEDI manager who initiated work towards incorporating consideration of JEDI, but that position has been vacant for several months, and the city’s draft 2025 budget calls for its (temporary) elimination.
As a city councilor I will advocate for retaining and filling the JEDI manager position and establishing a JEDI advisory board, as well as the task force’s other recommendations. City council needs a JEDI manager to guide us, and the JEDI manager needs an advisory board as a source of support and feedback. Furthermore, I will prioritize creation of affordable housing and resilience to climate change as the lack of the former and effects of the latter disproportionately affect marginalized community members. Most importantly, we must remain steadfast in educating ourselves about how best to update existing policies and craft new policies that will make Louisville a more just, equitable, diverse and inclusive community.
What efforts do you make in your daily life to consider and understand people with different lived experiences from your own?
Campaigning for city council, I will personally knock on every door in Louisville’s Ward 1. When talking to residents at their doors, I am most interested in listening to their thoughts, ideas and concerns: to best represent and serve Ward 1, I must understand residents’ diverse situations, perspectives and desires. When talking, I act with civility, curiosity, courtesy, decency, fairness, humility, integrity, kindness, respectfulness and thoughtfulness in a genuine, intentional and wholehearted fashion.
While we mostly strive to act so, and while we have, as a society, made strides over many decades to act more so, we still have much to achieve. As part and parcel of this process, we must reflect upon our own positions and privileges as well as systems that shape our lives.
I am a white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied man; I grew up in an upper middle class family with loving parents and brothers; I have benefitted from excellent suburban public schools and extensive secondary education; I have enjoyed the opportunity of living and working in geographically and culturally diverse places; I am grateful to my wife and for our families’ intergenerational wealth to spend my time as a stay-at-home father and engaged resident; I am very fortunate to have settled in the wonderful community that is Louisville, Colorado.
While many Louisville residents are also privileged, many others are not. As privileged people committed to a more just, equitable, diverse and inclusive society, we must work to educate, challenge and hold accountable ourselves and one another, and to change institutions, relationships and systems for the benefit of all. For instance, I work to train myself to reevaluate thoughts that my biases may or may not affect. Interacting with a diversity of people, as when knocking doors, ranks among the most effective means to accomplish this work.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something, and what was it?
When I was an undergraduate, scientific research began to emerge demonstrating that moderate consumption of red wine conferred certain cardiovascular health benefits. Red wine producers and those standing to gain from increased red wine sales widely publicized — and underwrote — this research. More general research on alcohol consumption at this time indicated that light to moderate alcohol consumption was not typically associated with adverse health effects.
Having recently turned 21, I decided, partially influenced by this research, to experiment with drinking wine. I began with a single glass of wine a few times each week, exploring grape varietals and vinification styles. A few years later, after my wife and I had moved to Davis, California for graduate studies, we began to explore and drink wine more extensively. After all, we were studying next to one of the world’s top enology institutes and living just over a ridge from Napa Valley.
Gradually, drinking wine with dinner became a habit, an enjoyable shared pastime, and my cooking evolved accordingly. While we stopped imbibing when my wife was pregnant and nursing, we largely continued this habit until recently.
Over the last few years new scientific research has emerged demonstrating that moderate consumption of red wine does not confer health benefits and that even moderate alcohol consumption typically results in adverse health effects. This research has led us to reevaluate our habit of drinking wine with dinner. We have not sworn off wine with dinner entirely, at least not yet, but we have made concerted efforts to reduce how much and how often we drink with dinner.
What question would you ask a fellow candidate on the ballot?
Would you support an affordable housing project, perhaps permitted through a zoning change, in your own neighborhood?