Environmentalist Stephen Emmett-Mattox Targets Ward 2 Spot
Eyes Fiscal Responsibility, Community Engagement, and Sustainable Growth
Marcia Martin’s tenure as the Ward 2 representative on the Longmont City Council officially ended on December 31, 2024, leaving the seat vacant as the city prepares to select her successor to avoid the expense of a taxpayer-funded election.
The City of Longmont invited qualified Ward 2 residents to submit their applications by January 8. The vacancy has attracted significant public interest with 18 out of 22 qualified applicants in the mix.
Stephen Emmett-Mattox, an environmentalist and Longmont resident since 2020, is among the 18 qualified applicants vying to fill the vacant Ward 2 seat on the Longmont City Council.
“We’ve lived in Boulder County for almost 20 years, and we actually came here mostly because of Hurricane Katrina,” Emmett-Mattox explained. “We lived in New Orleans for a little while leading up to Katrina.”
Emphasizing fiscal responsibility, community engagement, and sustainable growth, Emmett-Mattox carries quite a lot of bowling ball bags of personal and professional experience to the chamber floor. He is also a longtime participant in bowling leagues at Centennial Lanes and sees the business as a vital community center.
“It’s a tremendous community resource—a gathering place, family-friendly, great for the local economy and the community,” Emmett-Mattox shared.
Emmett-Mattox is an environmental consultant by profession and in his free time does volunteer work at Rocky Mountain National Park. Over the past six years, he has volunteered at the Lumpy Ridge trailhead and with the park’s Volunteer Office.
With 25 years as an environmental professional, Emmett-Mattox’s career has been defined by work in climate change and coastal wetland restoration.
“The last 10 years of that, I was focused really entirely on climate change—coastal wetlands as a tool for climate mitigation and climate adaptation. Coastal wetlands sequester carbon really well, better than any other ecosystem on the planet,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox played a key role in making coastal wetlands eligible for carbon offset programs.
“When we started, thinking about it back in the early 2000s, there was no field for that. There was no carbon market that allowed for wetlands, or carbon credits. It wasn’t in the policy conversation. So, we tackled it on all fronts,” Emmett-Mattox said. “We developed the ability for coastal wetlands to be eligible for carbon offsets. There are now carbon offset projects around the world focused on mangrove restoration, like a huge restoration project in Pakistan that’s been very successful.”
Emmett-Mattox’s expertise extends to creating partnerships and guiding global initiatives.
“As a consultant, I continued that work, helping the Nature Conservancy and others look at opportunities for blue carbon—coastal wetlands and seagrass beds—around the world,” Emmett-Mattox explained.
With experience in environmental policy, Emmett-Mattox has supported initiatives addressing climate change and habitat restoration.
“All of my environmental jobs have been focused on community-based approaches... engaging the stakeholders, the people most affected. It has to start with good listening and building collaborations,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox stressed that climate change is not a future threat but a present reality. While acknowledging the Federal goal of achieving net zero by 2050, he expressed concern that the target is too distant.
“It’s always 20 or 30 years away, and then the first few years, you don’t really make progress. Local government can change more quickly than state or federal government, and I think we should,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox’s passion for service is not confined to his environmental work. His son attended the Boulder Valley Waldorf School in Niwot, where Emmett-Mattox joined the board. After a couple of years, he took on the role of board chair, facing the challenges of managing a small, underfunded school.
“One of the things I learned during my career was looking to new kinds of partnerships, innovative funding, and financing to support good programs. That’s the kind of thinking I’d bring to the Longmont City Council,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox explained that while Longmont is a great place, he believes the city is on the verge of heading in the wrong direction, particularly regarding growth, housing affordability, and sustainability.
“We need to take action now. In terms of development and growth, once you develop something, you can’t go back. I don’t feel like we’ve done a good enough job being thoughtful about what we want as a community,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox highlighted the significance of planning for the long term.
“What’s our vision for where Longmont should be—not just in 10 years, but in 20 or 30? If you just keep allowing growth at the pace that’s happening, that never ends. Are we going to grow all the way to Berthoud? All the way out to I-25? I don’t think anyone wants to live in that kind of community,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox thinks Longmont can learn from similarly sized cities to manage growth effectively.
“The path we’re on, there’s no end to it. We just keep bringing new communities into the city and growing the city, and it’s kind of more and more sprawl,” Emmett-Mattox argued. “You want there to be a boundary to that. You want that to be contained. And when you contain it, it is more vibrant. If it just gets spread out more and more, it’s less and less vibrant.”
Homelessness and mental health are intertwined issues that Emmett-Mattox believes demand urgent attention.
“Firefighters, almost very few of their responses are for actual fires... a lot of those are related to mental health or drug abuse or homelessness. And they’re not equipped to do it. They’re not trained for that,” Emmett-Mattox noted.
Emmett-Mattox praised Longmont’s CORE program, which pairs mental health professionals with emergency responders.
“That’s the kind of thing where you can make a difference with one program. It just needs to be expanded,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox also addressed the importance of fiscal responsibility as part of his qualifications for the council seat.
“When you’re on a board, and especially when you’re board chair, the fiduciary responsibility piece just comes really prevalent in your mind. I’m well aware of the importance of a budget—sticking to the budget, tracking the budget, and understanding what’s in the budget and why,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Describing his leadership approach, Emmett-Mattox emphasized the importance of listening and collaboration.
“Leadership approach—it’s listen first. I may have some ideas in the back of my head, but... we’ve got to reach out, find out what other people are thinking, find out what’s been tried, talk to people most affected, and then come to consensus,” Emmett-Mattox said.
Emmett-Mattox shared his appreciation for Longmont’s character, describing it as a place with “a great mix of people, environmental spaces, and businesses.” He complimented the balance of big-box stores and unique small businesses, saying, “It’s beautiful, sustainable, and personal.”
With a bevy of interested applicants having submitted applications by the January 8 deadline, the Council is set to interview applicants in a public meeting on January 21, before the swearing-in of the new representative scheduled for January 28.
Longmont residents can share their thoughts on candidates, like Stephen Emmett-Mattox, by addressing the Council through an email sent beforehand. The open forum to address the city council previously scheduled for January 21, will be replaced with an interview session of candidates and the appointment of a selected candidate.