Representing Your Vision and Values
MAXINE MOST
Louisville City Council Ward 2
PRIORITIES AND POSITIONS
Louisville is an amazing place to live, work, and play. To keep it this way, we need to maintain our small-town character and feel as we build a bright, sustainable, and inclusive future.
Sustainable, Visionary, Community Development
Louisville should position itself as a Front Range leader in setting standards for sustainable development. To accomplish this, I successfully advocated for building code and zoning updates to be linked to the 2023 Comprehensive Planning process so that the City Council and Staff have the tools they will need to bring the community's vision into being. This, along with the new Sketch Plan Process, which I have also advocated for, will enable Louisville to collaborate with and incentivize local developers who can help us make our city a beacon for forward-thinking businesses, investors, and retailers committed to 21st-century innovation.
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Fiscal Responsibility
Managing the finances of a small city like Louisville is a balancing act. This has been especially true as we address Marshall Fire city infrastructure and resident and commercial property damage and destruction. It requires a commitment to setting clear priorities, leveraging all available funding sources, and often making difficult decisions. Decisions that must always be driven by a clear understanding of what the community wants and needs. Thirty years experience helping emerging technology companies focus and set product and market development priorities, innovate out of dilemmas, create and leverage strategic partnerships - always with a view to the bottom line - allows me to bring unique value to our City as we address ongoing financial challenges.
Economic Vitality
I've had the privilege of serving on Louisville City Council's Economic Vitality Committee since December 2021. We've made some good progress but still have lots of work to do. Our new Economic Vitality Manager is enthusiastically jumping into her role bringing critical expertise and a wealth of innovative ideas to our community. We are beginning to address some of the most prominent retail and commercial vacancies and are developing programs to support the growth of successful Louisville businesses while actively recruiting new ones. Retail sales tax alone accounts for 38% of our budget so this is a critical component of the long term health and well being of our community I look forward to proactively working with local property owners, businesses, developers, and community members through our Comprehensive Planning process to reimagine how unproductive spaces can be transformed and revitalized.
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As a daily use of our open spaces and recreation facilities, I enthusiastically support the proposed Open Space Tax Ballot Measure in principal and look forward to working with staff and our Open Space and Parks and Recreation Advisory Boards to finalize the ballot language, I advocated for the Regenerative Agriculture pilot that brought cows and goats to Louisville open spaces to revitalize the ecosystem, reduce invasive species, and mitigate wildfire fuel. I pushed Joe Carnival Park to the top of the playground replacement list and worked to bring diverse representation to our Open Space and Parks and Recreation Advisory Boards.
Preserving, Protecting, Revitalizing Open Space and Parks and Recreation Facilities
Inclusive & Affordable Living
I purchased my home on W. Linden Street in the midst of the real estate bubble of 2006. It was a stretch, but I qualified for a mortgage and was thrilled to be a first time home owner in Louisville. Today, this is a much more difficult process. In fact, I could not afford to buy my home at its current value. A vibrant welcoming community must be accessible to individuals and families of varying economic means, ages, abilities, and disabilities throughout the cycles of their lives. We must ensure that everyone has a place in Louisville, and they can remain here when they no longer want the responsibility of a suburban home, are ready to retire, or need accessible or assisted living spaces. Louisville must seek partnerships with inclusive housing advocates and developers to integrate affordable and accessible options as we plan redevelopment in key areas of the city. I believe this is especially true in the McCaslin corridor where there are opportunities to reimagine the sprawling car-based development that currently exists and create 21st live, work, and play, accessible and inclusive communities.
Safe Routes to School & Accessibility
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Louisville's bike and pedestrian paths and trails are an important part of what makes our community livable, environmentally friendly, and accessible. With bus driver shortages eliminating school bus routes, more than 200 Louisville children - from Elementary through High School - no longer have bus services or have to walk further to reach their bus stops. Making these routes through our neighborhoods critical infrastucure that Louisville parents depend on to get their kids to school safely. To date, Louisville has not required new residential delveopment within walking distance of our fantastic BVSD schools to include BVSD approved safe routes as part of the city development planning and approval process. I believe this has to change, In the meantime, I support the proposed Transportation Connectivity Ballot Measure that will add underpasses and other critical pedestrian and bike infrastructure at key transit points identified in the Louisville Master Transportation Plan. We can support our families with school age children, while we all benefit from improved infrastructure that increases access for everyone across our community.
Airplane Noise and Pollution
I serve on the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (RMMA) Community Noise Roundtable (CNR). Unconstrained growth at RMMA continues to have an outsized impact on our community in terms of noise and lead pollution. While the City Council has limited options to directly impact airport operations, we need to continue to work with County, State, and Federal representatives to advocate for local accountability and control. We should also continue to work with the city of Superior to address airport issues as well as strongly support efforts by the Rock Creek Homeowner's Association in their legal action against the airport. RMMA has been operating in violation of an avigation easement agreement they signed with Rock Creek decades ago.
