Steve Altschuler announced his candidacy for an at-large Longmont City Council seat last month, with a campaign centered around several policy solutions for traffic, homelessness, crime, and development.
Altschuler said that the top three concerns for Longmont residents, according to a 2022 citizen survey, are traffic, crime, and homelessness. “Affordable housing developments are a disaster,” Altschuler said. “We are taking in hundreds, if not thousands, of workers from Boulder, Lafayette etc, because our rents are cheaper or subsidized by our taxpayers and then they drive back and forth everyday, and create a lot of traffic in Longmont.”
Alschuler called out rising crime rates that have occurred under Governor Jared Polis, including criminal justice reform policies that require suspects to be released on their own recognizance in instances where the maximum penalty is less than six months. HB 19-1225 was signed into law by Governor Polis in 2019. “All kinds of crimes have gotten much worse in the past 6 years, starting with Polis allowing shoplifting or even damages that are no more than $1,000 per day to be ignored,” Alschuler said. “There are no victimless crimes. Every time a store is robbed, or a glass shield needs to be installed to deter theft, business owners have to raise their prices to honest citizens to make up the difference.”…