Shakeel Dalal Enters Mayoral Race with “More Walk. Less Talk.”
Announces Longmont Candidacy, Calling for Bolder Leadership
Shakeel Dalal, a scientist and LAUNCH Longmont Housing founder, is running for mayor with a clear message that Longmont is a city, and it’s time to lead like it with bolder, faster decision-making to protect its future.
From his childhood in Terre Haute, Indiana, to his career in aerospace and grassroots housing advocacy, Dalal’s drive reflects a deep belief in community, opportunity, and fairness with a more decisive, solutions-driven approach.
For Dalal, the stakes are high: unless Longmont changes course, he warned, it risks becoming a city only the wealthy can afford—a future he’s determined to prevent.
Dalal envisions Longmont as a place where kids can bike to school, families have easier access to nearby businesses, and neighborhoods that foster not just housing, but a true sense of belonging. He added that he wants the city to embody the same welcoming spirit that greeted his family when they arrived in the United States with nothing but suitcases and hope.
When they arrived, his mother didn’t speak English. Her first job was in the hardware department at a Kmart. Eventually, she worked her way up to be a cashier and started taking community college classes in accounting. His father worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Together, they built a life from scratch, proving to Dalal what’s possible when people are given a chance.
Today, Dalal is a scientist at an aerospace company, a housing advocate, and a candidate for mayor of Longmont. But Dalal’s story starts much further away in Bombay, India, now known as Mumbai.
“We moved to the U.S. when I was six months old,” Dalal said. “It was me, my parents, my two older sisters, and five suitcases. That’s it. We stayed with my aunt and uncle in Holland, Michigan. It was January. We didn’t even own coats yet.”
Just two weeks after arriving in the country, his 11-year-old sister went on a school-organized ski trip. That sense of being welcomed, of being given an opportunity, is foundational to Dalal’s values and his campaign for mayor.
“The reason I care so much, and the reason I’m running,” Dalal said, “is because I had opportunities. I got to go to good public schools because my dad drove 45 minutes every day to make sure I was in a good district. We never had government assistance, but we had community. That’s what made all the difference.”
In 2017, Shakeel left the suburbs of Chicago for Longmont to help start a business that made coatings for the tool-and-die industry, along with medical devices. It never quite took off, but the city captured him in a way that felt permanent.
“My first apartment was right off McIntosh Lake,” Dalal recalled. “I’d wake up every morning to views of Longs Peak and the mountains. It’s such a beautiful place.”
It didn’t take long for Shakeel to start putting down roots. He began writing for the Longmont Observer, a fledgling nonprofit news outlet where he volunteered to cover the local impact of national politics.
“I had a lot of opinions during the early Trump years, and I didn’t have an outlet for them,” Dalal said. “So, I asked, ‘Can I write some opinion?’ They said sure, but his condition was only if I kept it local.”
Dalal did. His early pieces connected federal decisions, like trade tariffs, directly to the livelihoods of Colorado’s farmers. His writing offered a mix of policy depth and hometown grounding.
“That’s when I really started to understand this place,” Dalal said.
Then a turning point came in 2021 when he tried to buy a house.
“It was COVID, and everything was crazy,” Dalal said. “Fifteen minutes to look at a house before deciding if you’re going to spend $600,000… That was the moment that radicalized me.”
That experience led him to found LAUNCH Longmont Housing, a grassroots organization advocating for affordable and inclusive housing policies.
“Living in a city like this shouldn’t be a privilege reserved for the wealthy,” Dalal said. “We’re squeezing out the people who actually make Longmont work.”
As president of this effort, Dalal has worked to make housing more affordable and neighborhoods more livable. He cited a statistic that 61 percent of renters in Longmont spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent.
“That’s not sustainable,” Dalal said. “People are moving out. Families I know personally… They wanted to raise their kids here, but they couldn’t afford it.”
Dalal has continued to serve in other capacities, from helping launch Longmont Public Media to reviewing police conduct as a member of the city’s Professional Standards Unit.
But now, he’s aiming higher. He’s running for mayor.
“Cities like Longmont are where the future is,” Dalal said. “More and more people want to live without a car, to walk to shops, to raise kids in neighborhoods that feel like home.”
Dalal believes that the soul of a city is its people, and how they move, live, and connect.
“We’ve built our city in a way that says only the wealthy can live here. That’s not the kind of place I want to live in, and I don’t think that’s what Longmont wants to be,” Dalal said.
Longmont has long been lumped in with Denver’s and Boulder’s suburbs, but to Dalal, that label no longer fits.
“It has its own center. It’s so separate from both of them,” Dalal said. “I don’t even remember the last time I went to Boulder. Longmont’s got what I need.”
Instead of sprawl, Shakeel wants to focus on building in, not out. That means changing laws that currently ban multi-unit housing in most neighborhoods.
“Right now, it’s illegal to convert a single-family home into a duplex or triplex in most parts of Longmont,” Dalal said. “That’s just absurd.”
Shakeel envisions a city where homeowners with too much space can downsize within their own homes. This kind of change, he argued, is not only more affordable but also environmentally smarter.
“You don’t have to build new roads. You don’t have to run new sewers. The infrastructure’s already there. That makes it cheaper to build and easier for families to afford,” Dalal said.
His vision also extends beyond zoning. It’s about a cultural reset, especially when it comes to how we raise kids and shape community.
“There’s a reason children today are more anxious, more lonely, more depressed,” Dalal said. “We don’t let them go outside anymore. We’ve built the outdoors to feel unsafe.”
Dalal remembers growing up playing outside in the street.
“Now, kids are inside watching YouTube. Not because they want to, but because parents are scared to let them out. And honestly, I get it. The roads do feel dangerous,” Dalal said.
He believes part of the solution lies in safe biking and walking infrastructure, not just for convenience, but for rebuilding trust in public space.
“If a child can ride their bike safely across town to visit a friend, then that bike lane is good enough for everyone. That should be the standard,” Dalal said.
Dalal’s push for safer streets, more housing, and a return to connected neighborhoods comes with urgency.
“We’re on track to become a place where only the wealthy can afford to live,” Dalal warned. “Kids who grow up here may not be able to afford to stay.”
That, he emphasized, is unacceptable.
“What kind of society pushes its own children away?” Dalal said. “If you were born in Longmont, you should be able to stay in Longmont.”
Longmont wasn’t built with a master plan in mind. Like many American cities, it grew in pieces, with layered development over decades. As Dalal sees it, Longmont today is facing a crisis of design, affordability, and leadership.
“The city just isn’t designed to have a third of its population leave and enter again every single day,” Dalal explained. “That’s a huge reason why we have so much traffic.”
Dalal has become a local with an eye for how a city functions—or fails to. Take a simple example: getting a loaf of bread.
“If you’re cooking dinner and realize you need something, you have to get in your car,” Dalal said. “Most people don’t live in a neighborhood where they can just walk across the street to a corner store.”
Dalal brought up the King Soopers at 17th and Pace. Despite being surrounded by single-family homes, few residents walk there.
“They’re technically close enough,” Dalal said, “but you have to cross 17th and Pace. It feels unsafe. So, they drive.”
And if people are already in your car, Dalal points out, “why would you go to the sandwich shop next door when every other restaurant in town is just as accessible?”
This is the logic of car-centric zoning, he explained, a system that assumes every errand begins and ends with a vehicle. And to Dalal it’s not just inconvenient. It’s dangerous. He highlighted 21st and Main, one of the deadliest intersections in Longmont.
“People trying to walk to the grocery store are dying,” Dalal said. “That’s not an exaggeration.”
Dalal suggested a simple solution.
“We need to make it legal to live a full life in your neighborhood. That means corner stores. That means pediatricians’ offices. That means sandwich shops and vet clinics you can walk to,” Dalal said.
Currently, he stated, it’s illegal to build many of those businesses in residential zones.
“We’ve zoned our neighborhoods in a way that assumes you’ll drive everywhere,” Dalal said. “But not everyone can drive. And a lot of people don’t want to.”
He also wants to fix the building process that discourages small-scale development.
“If you want to build a duplex or a townhouse, it’s just as hard as building 300 units,” Dalal explained. “That’s why we’re getting what we’re getting, because the process is broken.”
Dalal wants to bring bold ideas to the table and challenge the status quo, not for the sake of argument, but for the sake of a better, more inclusive city.
“We can’t keep doing the same things and expect different results. If we want a city that lives up to its values, then our policies have to match the size of the problem,” Dalal said. “Longmont is a city. Let’s treat it like one.”
Dalal believes Longmont’s biggest obstacle isn’t a lack of ideas, it’s a lack of will.
“Everyone on the city council will tell you they care about housing,” Dalal said. “But most of them are only willing to try the same ideas we’ve been trying for a decade. It’s not enough.”
Dalal doesn’t think he’s leapfrogging into Longmont’s mayoral race without first serving on the city council.
“There’s nothing in the Longmont charter that says you have to be on the city council to run for mayor,” Dalal said. “The reason I’m running for mayor is because the mayor sets the agenda, and we have urgent problems that need to be on that agenda.”
Dalal’s campaign is driven by a belief that progress comes from action, and action begins with leadership.
“We’re not failing because we lack information. We’re failing because we lack the leadership to make decisions and follow through,” Dalal said.
Dalal insists this moment calls for more than business as usual. While others might point to their years on the council, he pushes back against experience that hasn’t delivered.
“Experience has value—absolutely,” Dalal acknowledged. “But the experience we have right now is of choosing policies that led to escalating housing costs and then sticking to those same policies, even when they don’t work.”
What Dalal thinks sets him apart is a willingness to change course based on results. He believes the mayor’s real power lies in the ability to prioritize, to shape the focus of each city council meeting around what matters most to residents.
“We’ll always have unexpected issues come up. But when we do get to set the agenda, it should reflect the most urgent challenges Longmonters face. That’s why I’m running. I want to make sure we don’t waste that opportunity,” Dalal said.
As he looks ahead, Dalal encourages Longmont residents to not just watch, but to engage, reflect, and act.
“Thanks to open records laws, we all have access to the same information as the city council,” Dalal said. “So, here’s the question: knowing what they know, are you happy with the choices they’re making?”
Dalal’s answer is clear: he believes Longmont can do better and that he can help lead the way.
“Progress won’t happen by accident,” Dalal said. “It’s going to take decisive leadership, rooted in data, grounded in community, and unafraid to act. That’s what I’m offering.”
Last week, Dalal intentionally announced his candidacy early.
“I’m an outsider. I don’t have the support of any political machine. I don’t have deep fundraising contacts,” Dalal said. “So, I’m starting now, because I need more time to make my case to the public.”
That case will be built through conversations, public forums, and what Dalal calls “math-forward op-eds”—detailed explanations of policy ideas, backed by data and designed to be accessible.
“I want people to understand why housing is so expensive, why we’re failing to meet demand, and how to fix it. And the truth is, the math tells the story,” Dalal said.
Dalal’s campaign for mayor of Longmont comes from a personal belief that building a better city, one where people are connected, safe, and supported, is hard work. And that’s exactly why it’s worth doing.
“We choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard,” Dalal, a lead chemist at an aerospace company, said, quoting John F. Kennedy. “That goal will best serve to organize our energies and measure our skills. I want us to restore our faith in ourselves, that we can do hard things.”
Dalal’s campaign is up and running, and supporters can donate or sign up to volunteer via his website.
For more information on candidacy requirements and election details, visit the City of Longmont’s official website.
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