Lynn Segal is running for Boulder City Council on a platform of reducing CU’s impact on city development and bringing utilities under municipal ownership.
A longtime Boulder resident, Segal is a familiar presence at civic meetings. She regularly speaks during public comment on issues ranging from taxes and development to Israel and Palestine.
In August, Segal was suspended from attending council meetings in person until December under rules intended to limit disruptions. She continues to participate virtually. Mayor Aaron Brockett frequently asks Segal to keep her remarks germane to the issue being discussed and has muted her microphone when she does not.
City staff have also placed Segal on “communications plans” limiting her contact with employees. In an email obtained by Boulder Reporting Lab, the city attributed the restrictions to “repetitive and disruptive behavior” that it said interfered with city operations. The city cited unannounced visits to employee workspaces and repeated phone calls.
During the war in Gaza, Segal regularly protested at city council meetings, demanding a ceasefire resolution and divestment from companies that contract with the Israeli military. Segal was counterprotesting a march in support of Israeli hostages on June 1, 2025, when Mohamed Sabry Soliman firebombed the march, killing one Boulder resident and injuring more than a dozen other people.
Segal worked for several decades as an ultrasonographer, most recently at Boulder Valley Health Center, before retiring in 2015, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Occupation: Retired ultrasonographer
Age: 73
Answers to questionnaire:
Affordable housing: Market-rate homes are out of reach for many teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters. What would you do to create more housing these middle-income residents can afford? What regulations, if any, would you change to lower the cost of building or renovating homes?
Let the developer pay impact fees. See explanation under wildfire. Building more does not lower costs in the saturated inelastic market of Boulder. It only depletes quality of life. Especially with Sundance which will draw people from all over and they will buy up property and drive up taxes and land value, worsening the economy. CU South will increase the problems along with Area 3 and the many empty developments and dead zones. CU is eating Boulder alive. Mackenzie Junction, Boulder Junction, Diagonal Plaza, Pappelios (in process @Folsom/Pearl), Glenwood at Hyundai (now gone), A/B, Dark Horse, Millennium, Colorado blvd 28th to the stadium, hotel row gone, Naropa, Presbyterian Manor, Iris Fields traded for Mapleton Academy “affordable senior housing” to make up for the unaffordable it can never catch up to, but looks good on the outside for Aquilles. That is the basis of the AH issue, the developers look good, only on appearence. It’s from their tiny quantity of affordable that they pass on the price to their market rate stock, c/o LIHTC. It’s an illusion. Landmarks Board doesn’t realize they are not Planning Board or Housing Advisory Board and get conned by Element’s pleading for LIHTC over-expansion, losing our base in historic housing across from the library and paving the way for the decentralization of the West Senior Center because it’s such premium value for more high end condos, and the city manager says nothing. Exhorbitant senior housing is stealing the missing middle. Their heirs are deprived. $700K non- refundable for a 2 bedroom at Frasier and $9K/mo. One bed at Mapleton Academy for $10- 40K/mo and you get back 85% of the $1-4M membership fee when you die. Planning Board is the feeding trough with increased FAR’s, height restrictions lifted, setbacks cut.
Homelessness: What is one approach Boulder has not tried, or has not tried at scale, to address homelessness that you would bring to the council, and how should the city pay for it?
Same answer. The bottom falls out. The missing middle is obliterated by the wealth divide which is healthy for no one. Then the schools close to add insult to injury. Stop the bleeding. Turn off the tap before emptying the tub.
Governance: Boulder is entering its third straight year of budget cuts while facing a roughly $400 million backlog of major facility needs. How do you assess the problem, and what specific spending, revenue or management changes would you support?
Engage community and CU Departments in group problem solving. Use the engagement collaboration “Dialogue Boulder” already complete in 2021, nothing substantive was activated. Process is everything. Review current projects to triage their value. Spend only what is projected in long term costs, including maintenance and operations and CIP for all departments and include replacement and full lifecycle analysis for all city owned properties. Longterm projections. Hire a new city manager if she can’t handle this. Improve process from the bottom up utilizing the intellectual capital that is abundant here. Cross integrate boards and commissions so they understand the landscape they operate in and supplement each other’s needs. Use community policing and restorative justice, but first fire Steve Redfearn, Phil Weiser’s sacrifice zone for the homicide of Elijah McClain, so he wouldn’t have another George Floyd in Colorado.
Flock: Would you end Boulder’s use of automated license plate readers, yes or no? Why or why not?
End it. Losses outweigh benefits. Could be used with ICE on innocent victims of colonializing and oppressive divide-and-conquer US foreigh policy utilizing 800 bases all over the world, unprecedented, the closest of which is 80 bases for China. Drives people out of their countries of origin to “freedom” in the US who uses them for hard labor.
Wildfire: Should Boulder adopt an ordinance requiring owners of existing homes and homeowners associations in high-risk areas to harden their properties against wildfire, yes or no? If yes, what should it require? Is the city doing enough to push Xcel Energy to prevent or limit wildfire-related power shutoffs? What more should it do?
Wildfire: Same solutions generally as 1) and 2). Prevention is best and that goes for limiting building and especially population, the fuel for wildfires. How? Quantify the services demanded by each individual (ie. open space, water, rec. centers, libraries, agriculture, police, etc.) and use this to determine the quantity of people allowed for each development project, limiting it to carrying capacity.
Use neighbor groups to help each other to cut the low hanging fruit like junipers, the perimeter and high risk areas. Spread the responsibility over the whole community rather than those in the risk areas because all Boulder benefits. Do NOT allow high income developments like Mapleton Academy to infill their “fuel” on the western perimeter, that increases the cost to rebuild and subjects vulnerable seniors to risk when escaping with limited portals, one way out, east.
Xcel: No. Xcel is not held accountable. Example from the past, they were not cited for failing to maintain their causative detached wire in Marshall, that was reported by their own internal employee in public notice in the newspaper and ignored with impunity by Michael Dougherty. It had to be civil cases that were filed for the victims. MUNICIPALIZE. What Xcel “should” do is not going to happen. Wrong business model. For the shareholders, not stakeholders! One of our two lead technicals, Sam Weaver betrayed us after 10 years and four passed ballot measures, with Bob Yates in a chance meeting at a football game to upend the muni. He also violated meeting rules, meeting with Rachel Friend on land use at CU South with OSBT. That’s where CU South was cut. You have to have 3 councilors to meet privately with a board member. They were exposed. He was the swing vote on Mapleton Academy, after the affordable housing project at Fruehauf’s swung the deal for them. Up to midnight on that with every detail. IT WAS NEVER BUILT.
Local businesses and downtown: Many local businesses, especially downtown, are struggling with rising costs and stagnating sales. What city policy would you change to help businesses stay open and reduce commercial vacancies, and what would you do to bring more customers downtown?
Local businesses downtown too expensive: Don’t let Tebo and WW Reynolds take us down with the ship. Charge them heavily for empty or low use commercial and spread the wealth so all can prosper. Bring the residents downtown with services they actually buy like hardware store, functional clothes, groceries. Let citizen organizer groups work out how to activate this by diversifying incentives. More steady income is better than less overpriced gear.
Closer: Imagine it is November 2027, one year after your election. What is one specific thing you will have accomplished?
One thing? Wealth equity.