John Scarffe, Boulder County. Two candidates are running for District 1 seats on the Boulder County Board of County Commissioners in the upcoming November election. The Candidates are Democrat Claire Levy and Republican Cinda Kochen. 

The Mountain-Ear has sent a questionnaire to each candidate. Below are their answers. 

Cinda Kochen

Sugarloaf Road resident, Cinda Kochen, said she has been involved with both parties,  serving as a liaison down at the Colorado Statehouse with both Democrats and Republicans. She has a balanced approach that appeals to both sides and believes that the job of county commissioner should not be a position that is party based.  Instead, “it’s a job like that of fire chief where you are solving the problems of your community, not moving forward a political agenda.”

Kochen earned a bachelor degree at the University of Illinois and a master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Colorado. She’s certified to teach emotionally, behaviorally, learning, and developmentally disabled children. She’s also taught all grade levels from preschool to graduate level college. She loves writing and her first book, “Teaching Babies to Swim” was used as a college textbook in countries around the world.  She’s written for the Boulder Daily Camera writing editorials for the Advisory Board.

She has lived in Boulder County for more than 40 years, including in an apartment in Longmont, a mobile home in central Boulder, and in a solar house on Sugar Loaf Road. She says she and her husband highly value sustainability, even having solar panels on their house before installing flush toilets. Kochen doesn’t use a dryer, choosing instead to  hang out her laundry, thereby saving electricity. She tries to do a lot of what her grandparents’ generation did by living sustainably. 

Kochen served as a volunteer representative for the Sugar Loaf community on the water pipeline project and has been a vice president of the Boulder Valley Education Association. During her teaching years, she was instrumental in getting the parties together to get the original Handicapped Education Act passed.

As a commissioner, her goals include taking a detailed look at the building codes.  Nearly everyone has had trouble with the codes that lead to delays and extra fees that shouldn’t be necessary.

Her other top goals include addressing climate change.  She believes that COVID has taught us a lot about what we can do to reduce emissions. “During COVID,” she says, people became home bodies and emissions dropped 50%. Many workers, but not all, were able to work remotely.  Because many offices were empty, businesses were able to reduce heating and cooling leading to more emission reductions. “Solving climate change can be addressed by reducing demand which leads to a reduction in supply, which in turn reduces energy waste.”

She has recently become an entrepreneur and started her own business called The Shower Scene. The business holds a utility patent on a special shower cap. She advocates for people to wash their hair less frequently, which reduces the amount of water to be heated, as well as the pollutants that go down the drain. “We like to blame others for environmental degradation,” she says, “but if we all do our part, we can make a real impact.”

Kochen also advocates for a more decentralized delivery system for mental health. All age levels have issues and all communities in our county have people experiencing depression, substance abuse, bipolar, and numerous other problems with mental health. Mental health is one area she believes needs an increase in funding. “Mental health problems affect nearly all families at sometime during their lives. Right now the county only has three mental health facilities. Between the distance that prevents people from heading down to Boulder and the stigma that goes along with accepting that they need help, our mountain community’s needs are not being met.”

Another priority is increasing affordable housing. She would like to see projects move more from the bottom up rather than from the top down. The commissioners should send out the needs and parameters and not micromanage. It would be more efficient to let the real estate professionals, architects, and builders get together and submit their ideas.  

Kochen supports Nederland’s new affordable housing project, Tungsten Village, but she questions why the footprint of the structure is smaller than the parking lot.  She wonders why the parking couldn’t be put under the building so there would be more room for units above ground. “Perhaps, there’s a reason for this, but I’d like to know what that is.”

She also sees a need to support middle income earners. “It’s so hard for these workers to find a place they can afford.  Perhaps, the county could help them out by giving them a break on property taxes for five years or so, just as they currently assist senior citizens. We need to help people who work here, to live here. I’d love to brainstorm this problem because the current commissioners don’t seem to think there’s anything we can do about it.  I believe that there is a solution out there.  We have to try.”

Kochen also wants to see the number of county commissioners increased from three to five. Boulder County is huge and is dominated by central Boulder. The outlying areas in the plains and mountains are short changed. “That’s not fair,” she says and she would work to get more commissioners added who come from outlying areas.

For more information, go to www.kocken2020.com.

Claire Levy

Democrat and former State Legislator Claire Levy has lived in the City of Boulder for 34 years since October 1986.  She grew up and went to grade school in Bloomington, Indiana, and attended college at Carleton College in Minnesota and law school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Levy has two daughters who are both adults and living independently. She lives with her husband and her greyhound, Penny. 

She was an attorney practicing primarily in the field of land use and local government law before running for public office, when she served for seven years in the state legislature as the State Representative for House District 13.  

Most recently, she was executive director of a non-profit advocacy organization called Colorado Center on Law and Policy (CCLP).  CCLP addresses systemic barriers to the ability of people with low-incomes to achieve health equity and economic security through legal and policy advocacy. 

In Boulder County, Levy serves on the Boulder Housing Partners from 2016 to present and served on the City of Boulder Planning Board from 2003 to 2006, the Boulder County Housing Authority from 2000 to 2003, Boulder County Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee from 1994 to 1999, Boulder Arts Academy and Boulder Ballet board of directors starting in 2000, and volunteered in children’s schools, citizen organizations and local campaigns.

As a commissioner, she would increase access to affordable housing, continue Boulder County’s leadership in combating climate change and address child poverty and the challenges faced by people in low-wage jobs in Boulder County.

To handle County financials in view of Covid-19, the greatest sources of uncertainty in Boulder County’s budget are the federal and state pass-through funds it receives. Since the state budget is under extreme stress, some of those funds may be reduced at a time when the services they pay for are most needed. 

Revenue from various permits and licenses may also be volatile, Levy said. Sales and use taxes stand to take the biggest hit.  

They represented 14 percent of the 2020 budget and are dedicated to various voter-approved uses such as open space, sustainability programs and transportation. Together, these revenues are just under half the county’s budget.

Other than state and federal funds, Boulder County’s fundamental legally required services are financed by property taxes, Levy said. Declines in property tax revenue typically lag behind declines in sales tax revenue because property values are more stable, values are only re-assessed every two years, and because property tax is paid in arrears. 

That said, if people cannot pay their property tax bills, the county won’t have those revenues to fund its operations. Similar to the state, counties must have a balanced budget and cannot spend money it doesn’t have.  

If revenues available for the 2021 and 2022 budget years decline, then we will have to reduce spending. One way to do that is not to fill vacant positions.  

The county can defer some expenditures and reduce expenditures for its special sales-tax funded programs. It would not be good to try to increase revenue through a voter approved measure when so many people are out of work or earning less than they were before the pandemic.

Levy said she wants to be a Boulder County Commissioner in these stressful times because local government is where people turn to meet some of their most basic needs – fire protection, public safety, transportation, housing and human services. County Commissioners are charged with meeting those needs.  

“It isn’t an easy job under the best of circumstances,” Levy said. “It is and should be a challenging job given the responsibilities counties have for the health, safety and welfare of their residents. 

“A person shouldn’t run for public office or seek any position of responsibility because they hope it will be easy and not stressful. I am running because I want to serve the people of Boulder County regardless of what unexpected challenges come along.  

“Whether it is floods, wildfire, pandemic, historically deep recession or any other challenge, I want to bring my creativity and dedication to the table and make the best decisions I can under the circumstances.

Contact Levy at ClaireforBoulderCounty@gmail.com or go to the website at https://claireforbouldercounty.org/.

(Originally published in the October 8, 2020, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)