Diane Crist announced that she will run for the Ward I seat in the 2023 Longmont City Council election in November. She ran for the at-large seat in 2021.
Crist is a business design and development accountant and has lived in Longmont for 30 years.
“I see a lot of potential in Ward I,” she said.
Crist has served on the Longmont Transportation Advisory board since 2021. As current vice-chair she has learned a lot about the transportation needs of the city along with how planning and development have played a part in increased traffic.
Crist would like to use a “try it before we buy it” procedure for various projects already outlined by the city. For example, she would like to see a recreation center and library be installed in the building vacated by Safeway on 17th Avenue and Pike Street. She believes that placing city amenities near other businesses — such as a grocery store, fitness gym and restaurants — would be better for Longmont residents and traffic.
“Pushing accessibility to edges of town makes especially good sense for transportation as well as controlling crime and just improving neighborhoods in general,” she said.
She would like to see more affordable housing in walkable neighborhoods instead of the high-density housing that rests on the outskirts of the city’s boundaries. Since this is not how Longmont grew, she said, she proposes taking city services and amenities into these neighborhoods to make the affordable housing actually affordable.
“It’s not just something that would happen in Ward I but I see that Ward I has the space, the opportunities of openness still to try some of these ideas,” Crist said. “I think often we are trying to fix macro problems with micro solutions but we need to pull back the lens a bit and get the whole picture … I think that is what we are missing right now.”
Crist said she is a budget expert and feels as though her proposed ideas would work within the city’s current budget which would eliminate the need to increase taxes while still gaining new services.
