Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: My name is Jamila Richmond and I am running for City Council.
I'm a single parent that lives in South Boulder in affordable housing. I have a Master's degree in education. I'm getting my doctorate as we speak.
I own a non profit. I co founded a non profit. I used to own a cleaning business and I am here because I care about all of us. I care about what it means to live and be in Boulder, whether you are living in affordable housing or in one of the beautiful multimillion dollar homes. I care about accessibility to our housing. I care about my neighbors. My neighbors who are changing very, very frequently because they can't afford to stay here. They're single parents like me and I know that that destabilizes us as a community and as people.
I care about transparency.
I care about how we work together between our leadership and the people who live in the communities to ensure that everybody understands what we're doing and we're doing it together and we're listening to each other.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: That was the voice of Jamila Richmond, a candidate for Boulder City Council, introducing herself at a recent candidate forum.
Welcome to the Better Boulder Hearts and Minds podcast. It's election season and ballots go out early next month, so it's time to get to know your candidates. I think one of the most exciting things I get to do as a member of Better Boulder is to participate in the candidate endorsement process.
It's always interesting to get to know the candidates and to see who will garner the support needed for an endorsement.
The selection of our endorsed slate requires 2/3 of our board to vote in favor and this year we endorsed one mayoral candidate, seven City Council candidates. This slate is the result of numerous one on one conversations in person, interviews in front of the entire board, lively discussions and multiple rounds of voting. And this was a heavy lift because there is a large field of candidates this time around.
But we didn't do all of the work for you because you will only get to vote for five City Council candidates.
So to help you get to know our endorsed candidates better, we are going to interview as many of them as we can in the next few weeks for the podcast. We will try to keep these episodes short and sweet so they are easier to get through and we hope you find them useful as you try to decide who to vote for.
To see our full list of candidates, please visit betterbolder.com and click elections.
Our second candidate in this series is Jamila Richmond. We met on a Sunday morning and sat in a beautiful garden that she helped create called the Giving Grove Food forest at Tantra Lake. We talked about why she's running for City Council, the voices that go unheard in our communities, how she learned Spanish and other languages, and the municipal bond measure on the ballot, among others. We hope you enjoyed this conversation with Jamila Richmond.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Jamila, welcome to the Better Bowler Hearts and Minds podcast. Thank you so much for taking time to be here today.
[00:03:30] Speaker D: Thank you very much.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: You bet. Do you mind introducing yourself?
[00:03:34] Speaker D: Not at all. Hi, everyone. My name is Jamila Richmond. I am a candidate for Boulder City Council.
I have lived in Boulder for seven years. I'm a single parent raising a beautiful 13 year old human.
I live in affordable housing in this community that we're meeting in today.
I have a master's degree in education. I'm currently getting my doctorate and Leadership for Change, which will be an edd.
What else is it about?
[00:04:07] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you're a brand new candidate to the, to the race, City Council, first time candidate. And so I think people are just curious about, you know, what you bring to the table, what your expertise is, what your major areas of concern are and things you want to work on.
Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker D: Do you want to start with one so I don't lose track?
[00:04:28] Speaker C: Sure, yeah. What's. What's. I guess, yeah. What are you most concerned about and what do you want to work on?
[00:04:34] Speaker D: You know, living in polder for seven years has given me a different lens on politics. I never thought I'd actually be running, to be honest with you. I just thought that I would continue to do like the grassroots work that I've done over the years, which is very much so behind the scenes because I work with vulnerable populations.
What concerns me is that we are making decisions as a city that are adversely impacting a lot of people.
And I haven't really seen the engagement happening in meaningful ways to help create that lens of perspective. The diversity, the creative. The creative thinking of how we problem solve when we're actually inclusive of all people who live here. I think our definition of all, or the definition that I'm seeing of all is actually quite limiting and not inclusive of a lot of people. And so that's something that's deeply concerning to me. It's because I live in affordable housing, I'm a single parent.
So some of the decisions that we make as a city, they impact me directly, they impact my neighbors directly, and we're not considered in that conversation. And the notion that we are voiceless or not here is not true. You can walk through this community, you can walk through any community. And you will see beautifully created, diverse people.
And I'm not seeing the conversations, I'm not seeing the invitations. I'm not seeing the participation and the engagement.
So that worries me. That worries me very much.
[00:06:23] Speaker C: Yeah. I wonder if you could give me like an example of where the rubber hits the road here in terms of decisions that directly negatively impact your neighbors.
[00:06:33] Speaker D: Certainly I can reflect on a moment a couple weeks ago where a friend of mine who is.
Her legal status is not quite. And she got a notice in the mail with a picture of her and her license plate. And that my heart stopped very much because.
That could put her at risk in this community.
And she asked. The only reason I know that it happened is because it came in English and she asked. She needed me to translate it for her.
But it.
I just couldn't believe.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: Yeah, this is a traffic violation violation.
[00:07:27] Speaker D: So granted. Yes. If you're not, you know, driving the speed limit, issue tickets and he way that we're utilizing systems and AI to capture people and that's a private organization, it worries me about the privacy of people who are being captured in those images.
Also, with my neighbors, we have. I've lived here for seven years and my neighbors keep leaving. And it's not because we don't like each other. It's not because we have found a place that's better. It's because we can't afford it.
And we live in affordable housing. And so.
And most of these people that are leaving are people with disabilities. They're people who have children. They're single parents. And so I again, I just wonder what does all mean if we keep pushing people out by nature of how we're tracking our policies or what our priorities are or.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
Or setting the rent, perhaps, like how BHP does that. Is that kind of a more. Or is that. That's not what you mean.
[00:08:40] Speaker D: I mean, the rents are not affordable for me and they're not affordable for my neighbors who have been displaced from the community as a result of it.
So, yeah, that's part of it. And what are we doing from a Zoning, from a policy, from a. From all of those perspectives that influence where our rents go.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:09:06] Speaker C: the. You used the phrase capturing people as it relates to the traffic violation and the information that was gathered.
It's such a terrible phrase because we're like literally capturing people as ice, you know, destroys families and pulls families apart. And I.
It just sort of hit a nerve when you, when you said that also because I just recently got one of these papers in the mail with My picture on it and the drive, the license plate of the rental car I was driving.
And my action, my reaction was not alarm. I just was like, okay, I'll pay the fee and blah, blah, blah, just move on with my life. But to think about undocumented neighbor getting that and how that affects them differently is.
I think it's an important perspective that you're helping bring to the conversation.
[00:10:10] Speaker D: Yeah. I think that a lot of times we're looking at things from our lens and perspective. Right.
I really try to not see. I obviously have opinions about things, but I really try to see things from the place of the person who's most vulnerable.
And that can be a really challenging place to navigate things because so many things and you're looking from that lens can end and do have the potential and are inflicting harm.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:46] Speaker D: And so what do we do with that?
[00:10:50] Speaker C: So you mentioned that you're doing grassroots work and community service.
I'm also interested in what expertise you bring to this role.
If both of those overlap perfectly, then talk about both. Or if you want to talk about one and then the other. I'd love to hear about your community service, though.
[00:11:10] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So super, super weird to talk about because I'm usually like, I'm going to be lowkey and in the cut and behind the scenes, but I've lived here for seven years, like I said. So when I first came here, I was in a housing vulnerable situation. Okay.
Um, and the reason that I'm in the community that I'm in is by way of the Safe House Progressive Alliance. So I was, I was, I was unhoused for a period of time with my daughter.
And being in that structure and having to navigate all of the ways in which you feel dehumanized by systems and structures and seeing the gaps, not just seeing them, experiencing them was an incredible perspective for me.
And from there I got into doing civil rights advocacy.
My daughter is obviously, we're black. And someone called me and us a super minority because we're less than 2% of the population here. And that struck.
And having to navigate the systems from that perspective. Having to navigate the systems from the perspective of being someone who speaks Spanish, having to navigate the systems from the perspective of being a woman, a low income woman, a single parent.
And the experiences that my daughter has had to deal with in Boulder Valley School District.
Was a lot. And so I've done civil rights advocacy throughout the years, representing children experiencing racism and discrimination, as well as children whose IEPs are not being recognized or Supported or denied all the time that I've been here.
We had.
When the families were coming in from Venezuela and other Latino countries, I was, I would say, one of the first people down there talking to the community and seeing what was needed.
And one of the things that came up really rapidly for everyone was they needed medical resources.
I had a father and a husband come in, him, his wife and his child, and he was epileptic and he didn't have medicines. And at the time we weren't providing those supports.
So I pay, I drove them to the doctor, I paid for the medicines and that happened. I took a little girl who was eight years old and she couldn't, she wouldn't eat because her tooth hurt so bad. I took her to the dentist and I got her dental work.
So I built partnership with a medical provider out in Denver that provides resource and care for immigrants, families. And I paid out of pocket. I asked for donations and my community showed up and helped me to pay for those types of things. I had people than volunteering to help me drive people to doctor's appointments and things of that nature. When I couldn't physically be there, we went out and we fed families. We brought boots and coats and blankets and tents and different things that people needed.
I've been a lot.
[00:14:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to zero in on one little fact. You snuck in, but I think you just said that you speak Spanish.
Oh, wonderful. And. And the one Spanish word you said earlier made me think you, you're. You. You're fluent.
[00:14:53] Speaker D: I am. I'm. I will say I'm fairly fluent. I learned English and Spanish at the same time. So you'll hear the accent. It's coming out now. Yeah, but I learned English and Spanish at the same time.
However, over time, the more I speak only English, I lose words. So I try to practice, to maintain my language as much as possible because it's very quite smart.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: So how did you learn Spanish?
[00:15:18] Speaker D: That's another story.
So my parents, My parents struggled with substance use disorder. Okay.
And so growing up in the neighborhood that I grew up in, the whole community wrapped their arms around you and took care of you. So I have my Dominican mom, I've got my Puerto Rican mom, I have a Jordanian mom, I have.
I have a whole community of people who poured into me and loved me and made sure that I was fed and cared for and nourished and touched
[00:15:54] Speaker C: Spanish along the way.
[00:15:56] Speaker D: Well, when I was a kid, actually, I used to speak English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, and I did sign language.
[00:16:02] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:16:03] Speaker D: So, and those. That's because those were the languages that were in my community.
Yeah. But again, over time, if you don't use it, you lose it. And I acquired Arabic and Portuguese and sign language later than I did Spanish. So Spanish is like the length. One thing that I developed in my very early, early young age. I don't remember not speaking Spanish.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: Wow, that's really. That, that's an amazing skill that I wish I had.
[00:16:30] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:16:32] Speaker C: While we.
All right, 13 minutes into this recording and I feel like we're just getting started. This is such an interesting conversation and I, I want to just like, I've done a lot of podcasting and mostly what I do is like long, sprawling, rambling, long form interviews. And that's really what I really want to do right now.
But I'm trying to keep it fair for the candidates. But I did, I did want to ask you about one of the interesting moments at, at the candidate forum that, where I first saw you speak the.
They asked a bunch of softball questions and everyone sort of piled on agreeing with each other, but, you know, a little bit of variation here and there. And then came the question about the bond measure that's on the ballot.
And all the incumbents were like, oh, yeah, we support this and here's why. And all the newcomers were mostly kind of against it. And I don't actually remember what you said about it, and I'm just curious to hear what, what your perspective is on. On that ballot measure.
[00:17:37] Speaker D: Yeah, I think during that initial interview, during that initial forum, I said that I was for it.
And the more that I have sat with it and listened and contemplated on it, I changed my mind.
I think that there are pieces of it that are absolutely important, and there were points that were made that are absolutely important, such as the more we wait, the longer, the more expensive it's going to get. I absolutely appreciate and carry that. And I think that there needs to be more community engagement and more conversation around what we're prioritizing in the bond measure and figuring out what this is actually going to cost us.
What this is actually going to cost us, what does it mean for our communities.
Okay. I'm sorry.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: That's okay. We can.
There's a fly buzzing around.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: It's a fly.
Yeah. What it actually means for our communities, how it's going to impact us. You know, like I said, I'm worried about our rents. And so does this mean that our rents are going to go up?
How is it going to impact the people who can't afford to Live here already.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:52] Speaker D: How does it impact the people who are making $13.80 an hour.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:57] Speaker D: In tipped wages or 1682. What does this mean?
I know that our city runs off of sales tax and we have a lot of commercial vacancy happening, and that means that's one of the reasons through which we're not getting the sales tax that we need.
Spruce pool is not a part of the conversation. I think there's so many question marks that I think you need to revisit this conversation how, as a community, and truly define priorities that we all feel is the best path forward.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
There's a lot to say about this, and I. I don't want to launch into how I feel about it, but I can't help thinking about how the. The narrative around the lap pool, how that. How that fits into the equation with the perspective you were giving just a bit bit ago about, you know, families struggling to stay in affordable housing. You know, it feels like there's like a disconnect between the people who really care about having a lap pool for their kids and the struggles you're observing in your community.
I mean, maybe. Maybe a lap pool is the most important thing your neighbors are worried about.
[00:20:13] Speaker D: But, yeah, if I wanted a lap pool, if we walked around right now and we interviewed people, people in this community or any of the affordable housing communities, you're probably going to hear a no. They weren't asked.
Do we need a pool? Absolutely. It's getting super hot. Right. And I'm. I'm. I am very worried about the. Just our play spaces and our third spaces in general. We are declining in access to them.
And when I walk around and I see a park and I see it's of kind, completely sitting in the sun, knowing that it's getting hotter and our rates of skin cancer and things of that nature, these are all things that very much so concern me. We need indoor spaces, third spaces. We need a pool so that people can cool down and children can learn how to swim.
That's a life skill. That's not a luxury.
And nobody asked us.
[00:21:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
I just want to say thank you so much for. For spending time with me today that I feel like we just got started. I do want to give you a chance to say anything else you might want to say about what you want voters to know about you.
[00:21:28] Speaker D: I want voters to know that I'm a multifaceted human being with a lot of experiences that all culminate into. I have learned how to listen deep, deeply, how to problem solve in ways that others perhaps don't see or visualize.
I I'm here. I have been here. I've been here for seven years. I just have been working behind the scenes and I'm looking forward to serving you working in front of the space.
[00:22:03] Speaker C: Thank you Jamila for being here today.
[00:22:05] Speaker D: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Better Boulder is a nonprofit political action committee that endorses candidates and ballot measures and develops and promotes policies that we believe will make Boulder more vibrant, livable and connected.
We are working hard to create and enhance sustainable, walkable neighborhoods and to champion well designed infill and redevelopment that reduces our impact on the climate, encourages less driving and keeps our community welcoming and economically thriving.
This podcast is not governed by a consensus driven approval process that carefully regulates messaging. Opinions expressed on this podcast are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Better Boulder organization.
We hope you enjoy the diversity of opinions and perspectives and that these conversations spark improved dialogue in the community.
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This episode of the Better Bolder Hearts and Minds podcast was produced and edited by Philip Ogren.
