Anyone who regularly follows Boulder City Council meetings probably knows Lynn Segal.
Lynn Segal
The 73-year-old Boulder resident is a regular at the meetings — whether it be physically or virtually when the city bars her from attending them in person for repeated disruptions. When she’s not barred, Segal is often seen at the meetings and at other public events around towns, with her bike and wearing Palestinian flags or pins or shirts. And she has disrupted her fair share of meetings over the city’s investment policies and Israel’s war in Gaza.
But Segal says she’s running because of her love for the people of Boulder.
“Everyone needs to work together, and I want to work together, and I want a part at the table,” Segal said. “I don’t want to be cranky, but I have to be.”
Segal said she first lived in Boulder in 1959, left and came back in 1987 and has been here since. She’s lived in California and in the Pacific Northwest. She earned a bachelor’s of science from Seattle University, according to her LinkedIn, and worked as an ultrasonographer in Colorado for decades before retiring in 2015. Segal walked alongside Boulder Run for Their Lives and witnessed the Pearl Street Mall antisemitic firebombing attack. She’s a self-proclaimed prohibitionist.
Segal said her campaign is, at its core, anti-war.
“I’m sick of war, and I’m sick that we can’t have coffee for a reasonable price in this country, that people can’t get a place to live, that we have this homeless problem,” Segal said.
Addressing that would mean revisiting the city’s investment policies and enforcing the city’s social responsibility policy, Segal said. She and other protesters have taken issue with the city’s investments in Microsoft and Caterpillar, two companies that a United Nations report accused of being complicit in Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Those actions have led to the deaths of more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and human rights organizations and some scholars now call Israel’s actions a genocide.
That has also been core to her activism, which has drawn accusations of antisemitism from some in Boulder’s Jewish community. She was waving a Palestinian flag during a vigil for the victims of the firebombing attack.
Some of her activism has drawn condemnation and stark criticism from Boulder residents, Jewish or not. Segal is Jewish and said that means she can’t be antisemitic. She also said that she loves Israel but wants the nation to be held accountable.
Segal is also against more development, such as the city potentially opening up the Area III Planning Reserve for housing, and she has been a vocal critic of the Sundance Film Festival moving here. She also believes that the University of Colorado Boulder has too large of an influence in the city. Specifically, she criticized potential CU developments of multi-story student housing buildings.
“My dad came here from New York to get away from New York,” said Segal, who later added: “Enough is enough, CU has gone beyond their bounds.”
On other issues, Segal is against the city’s use of Flock Safety and Automated License Plate Readers and said she wants to fire Boulder Chief of Police Stephen Redfearn. She’s also against increasing funding for the police department and against the possibility of $170 million going to a new public safety building and police headquarters. Segal is also against the proposed $400 million bond to fund that and other public buildings that the city says are failing.
Segal is one of 13 candidates running for Boulder City Council.
Benita Duran, Sam Fuqua, Lee Gilbert, Jill Grano, Rachel Rose Isaacson, Ryan Jamieson, Tina Marquis (incumbent), David Martus, Jamillah Richmond, Scott Rendleman, Ryan Schuchard (incumbent) and Mayor Pro Tem Tara Winer (incumbent) are also running.
Election Day is Nov. 3.