
Schuyler Trowbridge. (Courtesy of trowbridge4thefuture.com)
Schuyler Trowbridge, an international affairs student at the University of Colorado Boulder and former cannabis tour guide, is an unlikely candidate for mayor of Longmont. An openly gay 25-year-old in the state that was first to legalize marijuana in 2014 and first to elect an openly gay governor in 2018, Trowbridge has utilized his intersectional identity to appeal to voters over his opponent, current mayor Brian Bagley. Tuesday will decide the outcome of Longmont’s mayoral race, with last-minute voters casting their ballot before the polls close at 7 p.m.
“I’m a complete underdog,” Trowbridge said. “This is a long-shot campaign and I’m aware of that. But I wanted to move the conversation left because there’s so many corporatists in office today, and we need working class people in office.”
An Indiana native, Trowbridge believes his past five years in Colorado have prepared him for his campaign against Bagley, who was elected mayor of Longmont in 2017.
“I’m 100% grassroots,” Trowbridge said. “I’ve had to go out and meet every single person. I don’t see (Bagley) out door-knocking at events. I’m the sole candidate out there striking with the students, with the climate activists, and my opponent’s just not around.”
Trowbridge was initially running for an at-large city council seat, but he decided to switch to the mayoral race after observing Bagley in office. Bagley leads in campaign spending, with the Longmont City Clerk’s Office reporting expenditures of $27,132 and contributions of $43,861 as of late October. Trowbridge has been critical of Bagley’s campaign expenditures, which is more than his annual salary of $18,000 as mayor.
“It’s just outrageous,” Trowbridge said. “I only spent $2,500 because it shouldn’t be about money.”
“I wanted to move the conversation left because there’s so many corporatists in office today, and we need working class people in office.”
Schuyler Trowbridge, CU student and Longmont mayoral candidate
Bagley wasn’t the only factor in Trowbridge’s campaign shift. He spoke highly of Joan Peck, a current at-large city council member, who he called a “wonderful person on the same side.”
Peck, 46, is seeking re-election for another four-year term. She shares similar sentiments toward Trowbridge and his campaign.
“I totally applaud him for taking this on, I hope he gets a lot of votes, I really do,” Peck said. “I think this is absolutely what we need. We need young people living in the world we create to share their voices, because how does that affect them when they’re not in these positions?”
While his age has come into question on the campaign trail, Trowbridge isn’t worried about being too young for a seat at the table.
“I’m held to a very high degree of scrutiny because of my age and because of the way I carry myself, but everyone has to start somewhere,” Trowbridge said. “I wanted to get involved in local government to show that young people do know what’s going on.”
Trowbridge’s plans for the city include implementing affordable housing programs like Nordic co-housing, reducing homelessness with housing first programs, addressing mental health concerns and promoting environmental policies that force businesses to recycle and compost. A major component of his platform, and a personal one at that, is unionizing the cannabis industry.
“I’m pretty much blackballed from the cannabis industry at this point because I’m fighting for a $15 minimum wage,” Trowbridge said. “I’m a union THUG, which means Those Helpful Union Guys, because I’m a hard-ass for working-class citizens.”
Trowbridge worked at The Bud Depot, a recreational and medical marijuana dispensary in Lyons, for over a year before being fired three months after announcing his candidacy. Though his employers stated they fired him for messily cooking a burger in a toaster oven, Trowbridge said their “at-will terminations allow them to fire you for any made-up reason” when there’s often an underlying motive.
He believes he was fired after they overheard him say the company wasn’t paying employees overtime for their extra work. He would tell his coworkers about laws that make wage theft a felony and encourage them to “make these injustices known.”
Tim Crouthers, owner of The Bud Depot, said letting Trowbridge go was a “delicate situation” and that he made “the best decision for us as a business moving forward.” He declined to comment any further on why Trowbridge was fired.
Mariana Perez, a Longmont resident and former coworker of Trowbridge’s, said the dispensary’s work environment was “totally unfair” and quit shortly after Trowbridge left.
“The main reason I quit is because I got promoted at work and my wage didn’t reflect that at all, but also solidarity,” Perez said. “(Trowbridge) shouldn’t be fired for trying to help people, and I shouldn’t work more without being compensated.”
Following this, Perez said she encouraged Trowbridge to run for mayor to represent working-class citizens.
“I felt like his passion has carried him in this race, regardless of his education or political experience,” Perez said. “He may not have a law degree, but I think his passion easily transcends the degree.”
While he isn’t in law school, as a full-time CU student, Trowbridge incorporates his envisioned policies for Longmont into the theories he learns “almost every day.”
“I get amazing support from the university that candidates typically wouldn’t get,” Trowbridge said. “My professors love that I’m running and that’s why they’re in those positions, to lift up the voices they want to see in power.”
Trowbridge wants to be an example to his fellow students and prove that even though the campaign is strenuous, it isn’t impossible.
“It’s been quite an up and down roller coaster,” Trowbridge said. “Every day has like the worst thing that could happen and the best thing that could happen. At the end of the day, it’s about coming together on the issues that are going to impact our generation for decades to come.”
Contact CU Independent Guest Writer Lindsey Nichols at lini5389@g.colorado.edu.