Boulder County’s governing body could be getting bigger — that is, if a group of organizers from across the county has anything to say about it.
The group is hoping to get a measure on the ballot this November that would increase the number of commissioners from three to five in a move they hope will increase diversity and effectiveness.
For Masyn Moyer, one of the organizers who lives in Ward, increasing the number of commissioners could bring much needed representation to smaller mountain communities.
“The county is incredibly diverse — geographically, racially, economically,” Moyer said. “We need commissioners that are paying attention to everybody.”
Moyer said she feels commissioners often overlook mountain communities when campaigning for office and making policy.
“We have less of a population than the Front Range portion of our county, [but] our opinions still matter,” she said. “We are the front line up here. We are the ones that deal with the traffic because of the leisure folks. We are the ones that have less housing because they come up and use the Airbnbs that used to be full-time housing. Folks here are the ones that are being displaced because of the pressures of housing on the Front Range.”
The group includes former Boulder City Council members Rachel Friend and Bob Yates.
“It's kind of easy for [the] City of Boulder to have an outsized influence, which I just don't think is very good for good governance and democracy,” Friend said. “So it’s increasing representation and access.”
Commissioners, who serve four-year terms and manage a $700 million annual budget, govern unincorporated Boulder County, manage and set policy for things like public health and the county jail, and run federal programs such as SNAP.
Currently, each commissioner must live in a specific district, but is elected by voters countywide. Organizers are still discussing whether this measure would stick to the same system or if some commissioners would be elected only by voters in a given district.
In addition to greater representation, Friend and Yates also hope having more commissioners will make the body more effective as a whole.
State law mandates that a majority of a governing body or more than three people cannot discuss policy outside of a public meeting. With only three commissioners, that means commissioners cannot speak one-on-one outside of public forum.
“I feel bad for them,” Yates said. “They walk in having no idea what the other two people are going to say, and that's just not a very effective form of governance. [Having five commissioners] just gives them the opportunity to hear each other out and maybe talk things through to make some compromises.”
Upping the number would also lead to more balanced decision making, Yates said.
“If you only have three people who are making decisions, one person is always the swing vote,” he said. “If they don't hand all that power to one single person, you have given the opportunity for people to hear out the community and hear each other out without one person holding all that power.”
In a county that now has a population of more than 330,000, nearly double that of the population 50 years ago, organizers say the move would also help spread out the work of the full-time commissioners.
“I want to be really clear that we are not sending a signal that we are unhappy with the current commissioners,” Yates said. “The time is way past for Boulder County to be grown up and to go from three to five.”
This isn’t the first time there’s been an effort to up the number of commissioners — similar initiatives fell short in 2018 and 2019 — but organizers say nonpartisanship this time around sets the effort apart.
“It's a very, very non-partisan, diverse group of people who have gathered together for this,” Yates said. “It's people that you would not expect to even necessarily be in the same room together. Democrats, Republicans, unaffiliated people…who don't agree on a lot of things, but have agreed to set down their differences for this particular issue.”
A bill also failed in the house last year that would have required any county in the state with a population over 70,000 to have five commissioners, and a draft bill is underway for this session with the same requirement for counties with more than 150,000 people.
Increasing the number of commissioners would represent a budget increase — each commissioner makes over $150,000 — but that’s a drop in the bucket of a sizable county budget, Friend said.
“It's just so small and the benefits are so large,” she said.
Organizers believe support for the effort spans the county geographically and said they hadn’t heard of any opposition. The group has been reaching out to city leaders across the county and has thus far received “overwhelming support,” according to Friend.
A measure can end up on the ballot either through current commissioners referring it to voters or through a citizen petition. The group hopes current commissioners will be on board, but if not, Yates said they’ll gather the 13,000 signatures they need for a citizen petition.
“One way or the other, this will be on the ballot in 2025,” Yates said. “We can do it the hard way or the easy way.”
Current commissioner Ashley Stozlmann said she’s in favor of increasing the number of commissioners and would be open to referring it to the ballot
“The way that the work goes and the way deliberation happens, a slightly bigger group would lead to some really positive outcomes,” she said. “I think you can have some different types of conversations. You have more different perspectives, and you have a chance for more minority group representation when you have five districts.”
“I think it would be really positive for the flow of work, for representation, for democracy, for inclusion and just for constituent services.”
Commissioner Claire Levy said in an email she hadn’t heard about this specific effort yet, and didn’t say whether or not she would support it by the time of publication. Commissioner Marta Loachamin had not yet responded to a request for comment.