A coalition of current and former elected officials and community leaders has begun collecting signatures for a ballot measure to expand the Boulder County Board of County Commissioners from three members to five, a proposal supporters say would improve representation and help commissioners manage their workload.
The group behind the ballot measure, Big Tent BoCo, includes state Sen. Judy Amabile, Boulder Progressives co-founder Masyn Moyer, former Longmont Mayor Joan Peck, former Boulder City Councilmembers Bob Yates and Rachel Friend, and current county commissioner Ashley Stolzmann. The effort has also drawn support from six current Boulder city councilmembers, including Mayor Aaron Brockett.
The group has until July 14 to collect roughly 13,000 signatures, a process volunteers began Jan. 21. Supporters argue that adding two commissioners would broaden representation by allowing for more districts or seats, a change the coalition says would “amplify diverse voices” and bring in a “broader range of perspectives.” They also say it would make the commission more responsive to constituents.
“There are only three of us for 330,000 people, and people generally expect that you will respond to their emails, that you’ll go to their community events, that you’ll take their phone calls, that you’ll meet with them,” Commissioner Stolzmann told Boulder Reporting Lab. “There really is a capacity issue. I see other counties that have five [commissioners] and how they divide the different meetings and constituent needs, and it seems like it’s a stronger approach.”
The three commissioners currently oversee a $745 million budget at a time when spending is projected to outpace revenue, creating what officials have described as a “structural deficit.” The Boulder City Council, by comparison, has nine councilmembers overseeing a $521 million budget.
Supporters also say expanding the commission to five members would make it easier for commissioners to coordinate work and build working relationships. Under Colorado’s open meetings law, a quorum is a majority of commissioners. With three members, two commissioners constitute a quorum and cannot discuss public business outside a noticed public meeting. With five members, the quorum would be three, allowing commissioners to meet in pairs without triggering the law. (Opponents counter that this change could reduce transparency by allowing more discussions to happen outside public view.)
State law allows any county with more than 70,000 residents to increase its number of county commissioners from three to five with voter approval. Four of the eight eligible Colorado counties have already made the switch: Adams, Arapahoe, El Paso and Weld.
“We just want to give the voters a choice,” former Councilmember Yates said. “We’ve had three commissioners since 1861, so it’s been 165 years.”
Stolzmann said adding more commissioners could also provide continuity during absences.
“Last year, one of the commissioners had a number of family emergencies, so they weren’t in for a significant period of the year,” she said. “You’re left with two commissioners, which is fine, but if a second commissioner is absent, then it does stop all business.”
If approved, the measure would not affect the terms of the current commissioners. Additional commissioners would take office by 2030.
The county’s two other commissioners, Marta Loachamin and Claire Levy, said they do not support the measure, citing concerns that it would slow down decision-making and increase costs for the county at a time of financial strain.
“County commissioner is largely an administrative and executive job,” Levy told Boulder Reporting Lab. “In relatively few circumstances do we really do a lot of policymaking where you might want broader representation. I have concerns that it would really increase the inefficiency of how we make decisions and the complexity of the decisions that we make.”
Levy said the measure would also add expense “at a time when we’re laying off staff.”
County commissioners make $151,000 per year, more than state lawmakers and significantly more than City of Boulder councilmembers, a role that is not considered full-time. The coalition estimates that, including benefits, adding two more commissioners would cost the county less than $400,000.
County budget officials estimate the county must find $30 million to $40 million in savings over the next three years to rein in a growing deficit. Last fall, the county eliminated about 90 positions, about a third of them filled, in an effort to begin closing the gap.
Beyond the financial concerns, Loachamin, the first person of color elected as a Boulder County commissioner, said she opposes the measure because she does not believe expanding the commission would meaningfully improve representation under the county’s current electoral system. She disagreed with the Big Tent’s assertion that the change would “amplify diverse voices.”
“The current [electoral] system doesn’t, in my experience, support diverse voices,” she said. “So just adding two more people to the same process does not complete greater representation or a better outcome.”
She said the proposal focuses on the commission’s size without addressing what she sees as structural barriers to who can realistically compete for the seats, pointing in particular to the county’s primary process, which she described as exclusionary.
In Boulder County, the Boulder County Democratic Party assembly helps determine which Democrats advance to the primary election ballot. Given the county’s political leanings, the winner of the Democratic primary is effectively assured a victory in the general election.
In Loachamin’s view, unaffiliated candidates and those outside established political networks face steep odds, regardless of how many seats are available.
In 2024, both Loachamin and Levy ran unopposed in their Democratic primary races. Levy then won the general election unopposed and Loachamin beat her Republican opponent with 75% of the vote.
Possible five-commissioner models
Currently, the county is divided into three districts. Each commissioner comes from a different district, but is elected at-large, with all voters countywide casting ballots for each seat.
The proposed ballot measure gives voters two options for adding two more commissioners. One option is a five-district model, in which five new districts are drawn and commissioners would be elected only by voters in their district. The other model proposes that three commissioners would be elected by districts and two commissioners would be elected at-large by the entire county. Voters would choose between the two models on the 2026 ballot.
State law also allows counties to move from three to five commissioners while continuing to use a fully at-large system, in which all voters cast ballots for every commissioner. The Big Tent coalition opted not to bring that option to voters.
“I’m pro-democracy, and history tells us that district-based elections are more representative than at-large,” Stolzmann said, citing instances in which Southern states used at-large voting to suppress Black voters during the Jim Crow era.
The coalition is not taking a position favoring one model over the other.
How would districts be drawn?
If voters approve the measure and choose a five-district model, the sitting county commissioners would draw new commissioner districts. They would be required to follow state law limiting population deviation between districts to no more than 5%, in accordance with constitutional requirements for equal representation.
Commissioners would also have to weigh existing communities and city boundaries, think about how competitive the districts would be, and ask for public input before drawing final lines.
Current districts:
- District 1 includes Boulder, Jamestown, Ward and Nederland, with a total population of 112,863
- District 2 includes Longmont and Lyons, with a population of 108,067
- District 3 includes Erie, Louisville, Lafayette and Superior, with a population of 110,190