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Residents urge Boulder County commissioners to support bill expanding board from three to five members
Summary
Multiple residents urged the Boulder County commissioners to back Representative Bob Marshall’s draft legislation (House Bill 571) to expand the county commission from three to five members and allow proportional ranked-choice election options for populous counties.
Several Boulder County residents used the county’s general public comment period on Jan. 9 to press commissioners to support a draft state bill they said would expand the Board of County Commissioners from three to five members and offer proportional ranked‑choice voting options.
The callers said the change would improve representation across urban and rural areas and reduce the outsized influence of vacancy committees when a commissioner leaves midterm. “Five commissioners will be better. We would have more diverse voices,” Celeste Landry said, urging the board to support Representative Bob Marshall’s draft. John Lemke, who identified himself as a founder of RCV for Longmont and a board member of RCV for Colorado, said, “Part of his bill allows us to elect county commissioners using proportional rank choice voting.”
Why it matters: Speakers said the current three‑member, at‑large, single‑winner system can leave whole geographic or demographic groups without representation and creates a small number of decisive votes if a member is absent or replaced by a party vacancy committee. Cliff Smedley and others argued larger representative bodies are common elsewhere and said expanding the board would give more stakeholders a voice in long deliberations.
What commissioners said: Commissioners acknowledged they had not yet reviewed a final draft of the bill. Commissioner Levy said she had not “closely examined” how proportional representation would work and requested additional briefings to understand implementation and mapping implications. Another commissioner said they were “very much in favor of moving to 5 commissioners” while noting the legislature had just started its session and the county had shared strategic priorities with the delegation.
The record: Speakers who asked the commission to engage on the bill included Steve Pittman of Longmont; Celeste Landry of Boulder; Cliff Smedley of Lafayette; and John Lemke of Longmont. All comments were offered during the general public comment period and no formal board vote on the item was taken at the Jan. 9 meeting.
Next steps: Commissioners asked staff to follow up with information about the proposed bill and to coordinate with the county’s state legislative delegation. No formal county position was adopted at the meeting.
