Candidate Loachamin hopes to make history and change in Boulder County

In school, students are taught the basics of government; there's a president for the country, governors for states and mayors for cities and towns. There are various boards who oversee different aspects of communities, but these boards are often overlooked when teaching civics. "What is a county commissioner?" Boulder County residents constantly ask Longmont resident Marta Loachamin.

Loachamin is, arguably, a prime candidate for this question. This is not only because she is currently running for one of the two open county commissioner seats, but also because of her vast experience as a teacher and in local government since 1992.

"The actual role of county commissioner is truly a management, leadership position," she said. "It has a small slice of legislative work, instead focusing on that allocation of the budget and figuring out how to provide the best service to people locally."

In Boulder County, there are three individuals who serve as leaders for the county government. They are elected at-large by residents to serve the whole county for four-year terms. If Loachamin, the first Democratic candidate to qualify for the June primary race, were to be successful in her campaign, she would be the first woman of color to ever serve on the board.

"The potential of supporting [the] community in a way that can be highly impactful is really the driving force," said Loachmain. "There's a piece of equity that we have to do better with, [and] the county commissioners have the opportunity to really lead that in a completely new way."

Loachamin, who has experience in finance, real estate, education and various volunteer efforts, has run a number of programs for the City of Longmont and for Boulder County. She has worked as a cultural broker and committed much of her career to reaching out to underrepresented communities, often through interviews and focus groups.

After the 2013 flood, she coordinated a recovery program for the state that was conducting focus groups and interviews with folks affected by the flood and involved in recovery. Specifically, the group's aim was to find the barriers in the state's ability to reach out to communities.

In one of these sessions, she spoke to a group of high school-aged Latina students who said to her, "Miss, tell them to let us speak for ourselves." It was this moment that made her realize that she wanted to take part in helping raise up these voices.

Throughout her volunteer work, Loachamin has found that in addition to questions of equity, matters of climate action and housing are of particular concern to Boulder County residents. That is why she has made those central to her goals for if she is successful in her campaign. "As county commissioner, the role is to address these needs. The piece that's still missing is the theme of equity and how do we include everyone in the community."

Since inclusion is so important for Loachamin, she has focused much of her campaign on getting in front of groups, taking their questions and listening to their concerns. However, in light of the COVID-19 crisis, she has had to shift gears. In March, she took the campaign virtual, setting up Zoom and Facebook Live meetings to reach out to constituents. She said that an unexpected result of this has been the fact that more people are becoming aware of unfair accessibility in the community.

"The bigger question for me is, 'Who's not in the room?', and we're seeing more and more of the disparities."

Loachamin hopes to see involvement in the primary. She realizes how it's overwhelming right now with the constantly updating information around the pandemic. So she hopes that the importance of the primary isn't lost in the noise, saying that if it does, participation--and therefore the ability to make change--could be severely affected.

"With COVID, we're in a situation where we're not going to have to rebuild, but recreate [especially how county leadership interacts with county residents]," she said. "A community-driven experience is how, I believe, that we'll come out of this successfully."

So, even though she cannot get up in front of people, she hopes that community members can see that her commitment to the community is sincere. In fact, City of Longmont Councilman Tim Walters has already endorsed Loachamin, saying that the county would be in good hands with Loachamin as commissioner.

"My background is not from state legislation, that's what we've historically done in Boulder County," said Loachamin. "My public service to the community is really deep but also really broad. That's part of the reason my candidacy is so unique."

For more information about Loachamin's candidacy, please contact Hillary Hall, Campaign Manager, at 303-884-0593, or visit http://www.MARTA2020.org.