Representing Your Vision and Values
MAXINE MOST
for 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 Building Standards
Louisville should position itself as a Front Range leader in setting standards for sustainable development. We should seek out visionary developers and incentivize them to make our city a beacon for forward-thinking businesses, investors, and retailers committed to 21st century green innovation.
Thoughtful & Well Managed Green Development
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Louisville should use all the tools at its disposal to ensure that all development is consistent with community values and reflects community priorities for building green. A 30% open space set-aside should be required for new development. Developers should also directly provide, or cover the cost of, infrastructure commensurate with the total impact of each development. This includes road upgrades and expansion, community recreation areas and facilities, BVSD approved safe routes to school, new pedestrian and bike paths, and any other contributions the community deems appropriate.
Economic Vitality
Louisville's persistent high levels of retail and commercial vacancy is a challenge we must address. Not only do these vacant properties diminish the character of our community, we rely on high occupancy to fund our city. Retail sales tax alone accounts for 38% of our budget. Some are quick to claim that retail is suffering everywhere and Big Box is dead. A quick drive over the bridge to Superior or up 287 in Lafayette reveal thriving retail landscape. Louisville needs to proactively work with local property owners, businesses, developers, and our community to reimagine how unproductive spaces can be transformed and revitalized. We must recruit business and incentivize redevelopment where we can, and take all necessary measures to address languishing properties that remain empty or underutilized for extended periods of time.
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Fiscal Responsibility
Managing the finances of a small city like Louisville is a balancing act. 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 really wants and needs. I believe my 30+ 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 - will bring unique value to our City.
Safe Routes to School & Accessibility
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.
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Transportation Connectivity Ballot Measure
I support the proposed $50M Transportation Connectivity Ballot Measure to add underpasses and other critical pedestrian and bike infrastructure at the key transit points identified in the Louisville Master Transportation Plan. The City Council has approved $1.5M a year from the existing city budget towards bond repayment. The Urban Renewal Authority has committed another $18M+ over the life of the bond measure to repayment. This will minimize any required increase in property taxes. I hope voters approve this as yet unnamed ballot measure in November 2021.
Airplane Noise & Pollution
Unconstrained growth at Rocky Mountain Municipal Airport (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..
Inclusive & Affordable Living
When I purchased my home in 2006, we were in the midst of a real estate bubble. It was a stretch, but I qualified for a mortgage and was thrilled to be a first time home owner. Today, it is much more difficult to be a first time home owner in Louisville. 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.