Kevin Schaefer Reaching for New Heights in Ward 2 Seat
Scientist Bids to Bring Creative Solutions to Longmont’s Challenges
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.
One of those applicants is Kevin Schaefer, a scientist who has worked on projects related to the space shuttle and the space station at NASA headquarters, and who also spent a couple of years working at the White House.
Later, he returned to school to earn a PhD. Since 1997, Schaefer has been conducting research on permafrost and climate change. Schaefer currently juggles two jobs: working at the University of Colorado studying permafrost and climate change and contributing to a startup building weather satellites.
“These are small satellites, about the size of a family loaf of bread,” Schaefer explained. “They look down at the atmosphere at certain wavelengths useful for studying water, clouds, precipitation, hail—things critical for understanding weather.”
Schaefer and his family have called Longmont home for 19 years. Schaefer emphasized his strong connections within the city, particularly among his neighbors.
“We’ve had a good life here. It’s a great city, and I think it’s time for me to give back to the community,” Schaefer said. “My neighbors were great. Essentially, we all raised families together. The old adage: it takes a village to raise a child. It’s true, it’s hard to raise a family, and having help, having friends with similar families.”
Schaefer brings leadership experience, having served on the board of directors for the U.S. Permafrost Association and at the White House.
“I supported the Council on Environmental Quality, where we worked to define sustainable development and identify relevant data,” Schaefer noted. “That’s good policy-level experience, and I think it’s directly applicable to Longmont.”
Schaefer’s collaborative leadership style is shaped by decades of high-stakes project management.
“At NASA, I was a program manager at that time, and I was in charge of a whole bunch of hardware on the space station, and so my job was to make sure that we were doing the right thing, identify problems, and then fixing them when we identify them, controlling budget, control, schedule, stuff like that,” Schaefer said. “You can’t just order people around, you have to bring them along. Leaders work for the people, not themselves. You’ve got to listen to the people. You’ve got to make sure you hear what they’re saying, and then you make decisions based on that.”
Schaefer highlighted growth as a key issue, noting that Longmont is expanding rapidly, outpacing many other cities and counties in the state and country. He emphasized the need for better planning to manage this growth effectively, as there is no indication it will slow down soon.
“The city’s population has practically doubled since I’ve lived here,” Schaefer observed. “With all these new people, we’ve got to make sure the infrastructure—both social and physical—keeps up while maintaining the sense of community that makes Longmont special.”
Schaefer stressed concerns about increasing commuter traffic that comes with growth.
“A lot of people live in Longmont because they can’t afford Boulder, but they commute. We’ve got to form partnerships with neighboring cities and counties to improve our regional traffic plan,” Schaefer said.
Schaefer reflected on his own experience with Longmont’s schools, noting the pressures of rapid growth.
“Schools are a constant problem. That doesn’t mean it’s ever solved, but these are things we’ve got to think about,” Schaefer explained. “When my kids went to school, right over here, the high school, Silver Creek, the classes were in trailers because we had already outgrown the school itself.”
Schaefer also wants to ensure Longmont is prepared for emergencies.
“I want to take a look at how prepared we are,” Schaefer said, referring to the threat of wildfires and floods. “These fires in LA, for example, are quite alarming. And I don’t know if you remember, but in 2019 a fire came right down to the edge of Longmont. If the wind hadn’t shifted at the last minute, it might have just gone right through.”
Schaefer recalled his experience with the 2013 Longmont flood.
“In 2013, we lost like a quarter of everything we owned. This time, we chose a house on top of a small hill, so we missed it. But is there more that we could do to plan for more? Can we minimize the impacts or risks?” Schaefer said
Schaefer is concerned about the need to continuously address these challenges.
“These are the problems I see that we have to address because we’re growing so fast,” Schaefer said. “We have to stay ahead of the curve.”
Schaefer advocates for a balanced approach to public policy, emphasizing sustainable development.
“Any public policy has to balance the economy, the community, and the environment,” Schaefer explained. “Any policy that emphasizes one at the expense of the others probably won’t last. I’d like to develop policies that promote economic growth, maintain the sense of community that I so enjoy here, and protect the environment.”
With his scientific background, Schaefer is also excited to apply creativity to problem-solving.
“I’m a scientist and an artist,” Schaefer said. “I use the creativity of art to come up with better science. And I would like to take that kind of creativity and apply it to government, come up with new ideas, new solutions to problems that we already have.”
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 Kevin Schaefer, 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.