After interviewing a field of 14 applicants, Longmont city council voted to appoint Matthew Popkin to its vacant Ward 2 seat on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
The new council member will fill the chair formerly held by Marcia Martin, who resigned Dec. 31 due to her inability to return to in-person participation in council meetings. Martin’s resignation came with less than one year left in her term, triggering an appointment process rather than an election to select a replacement to serve out the remainder of her term.
Popkin is a program manager for the clean energy transition nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute. He has served as commissioner of the Longmont Planning and Zoning Commission since 2023, and will now need to be replaced. He also sits on Longmont’s little-known Brownfields Advisory Committee, which works to revitalize sites potentially contaminated with hazardous material.
The city received a total of 22 applications from residents seeking the Ward 2 appointment, including former city council members Sarah Levison and Pauline Christensen.
Each applicant was given five minutes to address city council to make a case for their abilities to represent the residents of Ward 2. As they spoke, a common theme emerged across their statements: Longmont’s growing housing affordability crisis.
The median sale price of a Longmont home in December was $575,000, well out of the purchasing range for the average two-person household making 80% of the Area Median Income — roughly $82,700 combined annually.
“That does not seem to me to be affordable or attainable for most folks,” Popkin said during his public interview, explaining the difficulties for both young families trying to purchase their first home and older residents looking to downsize. “When we’re thinking about inclusionary, affordable and attainable housing, we need to think about it at all ends of the spectrum.”
Former council member Martin was a staunch advocate for affordable housing and increasing density to help make homes more attainable for Longmont residents.
After hearing these statements, council marked their ballots for no more than four candidates to proceed to the public interviews. Among those receiving the minimum of three votes were Longmont Housing and Human Services board member Crystal Prieto, former Longmont communications specialist Teresa Simpkins and marketing professional Riegan Sage.
Each council member asked every applicant the same, single question with three minutes allotted for each response.
Some of council’s main concerns were the applicants’ understanding of Envision Longmont, the city’s comprehensive strategic plan for the future, their conflict resolution and leadership styles, and plans to meet the city’s lofty housing and sustainability goals.
Ultimately, council decided by a majority of four votes that Popkin would best serve the interests of Ward 2 residents. Both Prieto and Simpkins received one vote each from council members.
For Popkin, affordable housing was a main talking point, saying the city needs to be intentional about what, where and for whom the city builds. He cited downtown, Main Street and the Longmont Sugar Mill as target areas for development.
When asked how he plans to start his tenure as a representative for Ward 2 residents, Popkin said he wants to meet constituents face to face.
“This is unusual because through an appointment process you’re not going door to door,” Popkin said, “but I would actually want to go door to door. I do that with cities I work with professionally, and I would certainly be doing that with neighborhoods that I would be actively representing.”
Popkin will be sworn in during the Jan. 28 city council meeting and begin serving his roughly 10-month term immediately.