Protecting Golden’s quality of life isn’t about stopping the clock. It’s about having a PROCESS that respects and listens to the residents who live here and preserves the small-town character we all cherish.

For too long, residents’ concerns about traffic, noise, and neighborhood character have been met with the city’s broken, top-down model of “Decide, Announce, Ignore” that consistently sidelines the common-sense ideas of the people who know our neighborhoods best. The city decides and tells residents about new sidewalks or traffic plans long after it’s too late for their voices to matter. The result is a collection of frustrating, persistent problems that impact our daily lives.

The Architect’s Toolkit: My Approach to Protecting Our Quality of Life

1. The Method: Consult, Co-Design, Deliver

My approach is a disciplined, three-step process designed to replace the city’s broken system with one that produces real, resident-supported results:

• We CONSULT with residents from the start: We start by deeply listening to residents and gathering existing data. This includes a methodical analysis of documented issues from neighbors and expert analysis from community groups to fully understand the challenges.
• We CO-DESIGN solutions together as true partners: With that foundation of listening to residents, we co-design a professional, resident-led plan based on their ideas and insights.
• We DELIVER on that shared plan: We then formally execute on that clear, actionable plan and deliver results that meet residents’ needs and expectations.

This is the exact model I will bring to City Hall to solve all of our quality of life challenges.

2. The Tools: A Modern and Collaborative Approach

An Architect uses the right tools for the job. My toolkit is about combining modern, data-driven methods with the power of community collaboration.

Facilitated Community Dialogue: The most powerful tool is a well-run conversation. The Community Accountability Workshop (CAW) process itself is a tool designed to cut through the noise and produce a clear, actionable, resident-led plan.

Leveraging Expertise: The first step is to not reinvent the wheel. My process begins by identifying and incorporating the valuable work already done by engaged residents and expert community groups.

Data-Gathering Pilot Programs: Effective solutions are built on hard data, not guesswork. My plan is to use modern, data-gathering pilot programs to test potential solutions—like temporary traffic calming measures or new parking monitoring technology—to ensure we have the evidence we need to make smart, effective investments.

3. The Goal: A Fair and Modern System for Golden

The ultimate goal is to apply this resident-first process and data-driven tools to solve our most frustrating quality of life challenges. For issues like parking, traffic, and noise, this means bringing affected neighborhoods and stakeholders together to co-design modern, effective, and fair systems that work for Golden’s residents, not just for tourists or developers.

Case Studies

Case Study #1: Traffic & The 19th Street Corridor

The 19th Street traffic project is a perfect and painful example of the city’s broken process in action.

• The Problem: For years, residents of my neighborhood (Beverly Heights) watched as traffic became a serious safety issue, particularly with the growth of the School of Mines.
• A Resident-Led Solution: We didn’t just complain; we did the hard work. We developed a comprehensive, proactive plan that focused on a holistic solution to manage traffic flow and pedestrian safety. We presented it to the city, hoping for a true collaboration.
  • Download: The Formal Blueprint Sent to the City & CSM
  • Download: The Full Workshop Agenda
  • Download: The “Seed List” of Resident Ideas
  • Download: Expert Analysis from Bike Walk Golden
  • Download: Resident-Documented Issue Log
  • Download: Colorado School of Mines Community Presentation
• The “Decide, Announce, Ignore” Result: Instead of a co-design session, the city ignored our comprehensive approach and proceeded with its own narrow plan. The “solutions” were unilaterally imposed, resulting in basic design flaws—like a traffic light that pools cars unnecessarily during peak hours—that could have been avoided by simply listening to the people who use the street every day.

This is what happens when the city shuts residents out. We get poorly conceived and poorly executed projects that fail to solve the real problem.

Case Study #2: Parking & Our Downtown Neighborhoods

Finding a parking spot in Golden shouldn’t feel like winning the lottery, and residents shouldn’t have to compete with tourists for a spot on their own street.

• The Problem: The city’s current approach to parking is reactive, not strategic. It seems to prioritize the needs of tourists and visitors while pushing the negative impacts—overflow parking, blocked driveways, and increased traffic—directly into our residential neighborhoods and onto our residents.
• The “Decide, Announce, Ignore” Result: The city spends time and money on consultant studies, but they have consistently failed to fix the core problem. At the recent candidate forums, my opponent’s only solution was to restate the problem and recite the city’s talking points on “solutions,” showing he trusts the very process that has failed to fix this issue for years.
• The Golden Way Solution: I believe the real problem is a PROCESS that shuts residents out. My plan is to immediately launch a resident-led Parking Solutions Task Force. We will bring neighbors from affected areas, local business owners, and traffic experts to the table to CO-DESIGN a real, long-term plan. This task force will explore the common-sense ideas residents have been proposing for years, such as:
  • Implementing a modern parking app for tourists and non-residents that makes finding and paying for a spot easier, while ensuring Golden residents are exempt.
  • Creating dedicated resident-only parking areas in our most impacted downtown lots.
  • Finally exploring a well-designed, architecturally appropriate parking structure in a non-disruptive location.

We don’t have to accept the status quo of ever-worsening problems that degrade our quality of life. We can fix this, but only with a process that puts residents first.

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This blueprint is more than a list of solutions; it’s a new model for how our city should work. For too long, a broken process and a frustrating pattern of ignoring residents have been the norm.

My commitment is to replace that failed model with proactive, resident-first collaboration. By using data and technology as tools to inform our conversations, we can work together to build effective, community-driven solutions that solve our daily challenges and protect the Golden we all love.

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