Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan | Navigation and Acknowledgements

The City of Boulder acknowledges the city is on the ancestral homelands and unceded territory of Indigenous Peoples who have traversed, lived in and stewarded lands in the Boulder Valley since time immemorial. Those Indigenous Nations include the: Di De’i (Apache), Hinono’eiteen (Arapaho), Tsétsėhéstȧhese (Cheyenne), Nʉmʉnʉʉ (Comanche), Caiugu (Kiowa), Čariks i Čariks (Pawnee), Sosonih (Shoshone), Oc’eti S’akowin (Sioux) and Núuchiu (Ute).

• We honor and respect the people of these Nations and their ancestors. We also recognize that Indigenous knowledge, oral histories, and languages handed down through generations have shaped profound cultural and spiritual connections with Boulder-area lands and ecosystems – connections that are sustained and celebrated to this day.
• The City of Boulder recognizes that those now living and working on these ancestral lands have a responsibility to acknowledge and address the past. The city refutes past justifications for the colonization of Indigenous lands and acknowledges a legacy of oppression that has caused intergenerational trauma to Indigenous Peoples and families that includes:
• For more than 10,000 years, generations of Indigenous Peoples have lived and thrived on ancestral homelands that Euro-Americans colonized as Boulder. Indigenous Peoples in Boulder have, as in all parts of the Americas, endured centuries of cruelty, exploitation and genocide.
• The westward expansion of Euro-American population and culture in the 19th century caused extensive hunger and diseases that devastated Indigenous Peoples’ way of life.
• In October 1858, Hinono’ei neecee (“Arapaho Chief”) Nowoo3 (“Niwot,” “Lefthand”) and other Hinono’eino’ (“Arapaho”) Peoples told a party of gold-seekers camped in what is now known as Boulder that they could not remain on Indigenous land as defined by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie.
• After gold was found west of Boulder in January 1859, many of those same gold-seekers helped found the Boulder Town Company on Feb. 10, 1859, in violation of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie.
• By the summer of 1859, thousands of gold seekers were in the Boulder area, and many squatted on Indigenous lands, continuing the dramatic expansion of Euro-American occupation of Indigenous lands that soon exiled Indigenous peoples from the Boulder area.
• In August 1864, more than 100 Boulder County residents mobilized into Company D of the Third Colorado Cavalry at Fort Chambers along Boulder Creek east of what is now known as Boulder.
• Company D – which included 46 Boulder men and prominent Boulder County residents – later participated in the barbaric massacre of peaceful Tsétsėhéstȧhese (“Cheyenne”) and Hinono’eino’ (“Arapaho”) Peoples at Sand Creek on Nov. 29, 1864. Among those killed in the massacre were women, children, elders and chiefs, including Nowoo3 and Chief White Antelope. Despite having participated in horrific atrocities, members of Company D received a heroes’ welcome upon their return home.
• The city has benefited and continues to benefit directly from the colonization of Indigenous lands and from removal policies that violated human rights, broke government treaties and forced Indigenous Peoples from their homelands.

We must not only acknowledge our past but work to build a more just future. We are committed to taking action beyond these words. We pledge to use this land acknowledgment to help inspire education and reflection and initiate meaningful action to help support Indigenous Nations, communities and organizations.

We intend to use this acknowledgment when the City of Boulder develops work plans that guide day-to-day work, begins new projects, starts long-term community plans, and recruits and hires staff.

Let this formal acknowledgment — which honors and builds on the city’s Indigenous Peoples Day Resolution (1190)—stand as a critical step in our work to unify Boulder communities, combat prejudice and eliminate discrimination against Indigenous Peoples.

City Council

• Taishya Adams, Member
• Matt Benjamin, Member
• Aaron Brockett, Mayor
• Lauren Folkerts, Member (through November 2025)
• Rob Kaplan, Member
• Tina Marquis, Member
• Ryan Schuchard, Member
• Nicole Speer, Member
• Mark Wallach, Member
• Tara Winer, Mayor Pro Tem

City Planning Board

• Jorge Boone, Member (through March 2026)
• Claudia Hanson Thiem, Vice Chair
• Laura Kaplan, Chair
• Maxwell Lord, Member
• Mark McIntyre, Member
• Kurt Nordback, Member
• Mason Roberts, Member
• ml Robles, Member

Board of County Commissioners

• Claire Levy, Commissioner
• Marta Loachamin, Comisionada/ Commissioner
• Ashley Stolzmann, Commissioner

County Planning Commission

• Mark Bloomfield, Second Vice Chair
• George Gerstle, Member
• Byron Kominek, Member
• Rachel Lee, Member
• Sam Libby, Vice Chair
• Rita Manna, Member
• Gavin McMillan, Member
• Bobby Umstead, Member
• Chris Whitney, Chair
• Ann Goldfarb (through February 2025)

Approved by:

• City Council on August 6, 2026
• City Planning Board on July 21, 2026
• County Planning Commission on August 19, 2026
• Board of County Commissioners on August 13, 2026

The Intergovernmental Agreement between the City of Boulder and Boulder County was approved on March 2, 2021 and is effective through December 31, 2042.