HomeMy WebLinkAboutPadden Guy MurphyFrom:Padden Guy Murphy
To:Agenda
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Application for City Commission Vacancy - Padden Guy Murphy
Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 4:01:30 PM
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Dear City Commissioners,
I am writing to offer my name for consideration for appointment to the vacant City
Commission seat.
First, I want to recognize Commissioner I-Ho Pomeroy’s service to this community. This
decision before you is a sacred responsibility, and I know you will consider all applicants on
their merits and choose the best person for the role. It is simply my hope that we get
someone who will serve us thoughtfully, entrepreneurially, and with the future of our
community always in mind. I am putting my name forward because neighbors have urged
me to and because I believe it is the obligation of all us who have relevant expertise and
experience to raise our hands to serve when our community calls upon us to do so. I look
forward to meeting with each of you to determine whether or not I’m the best person for this
position at this moment.
Here’s who I am. My family has been in Montana for over a hundred years. I was born and
raised in Great Falls, the middle of five siblings and son of hardworking Montanans. I have
deep roots in Bozeman, too. My aunt and uncle have lived in Bozeman for over fifty years,
my brother and sister graduated from MSU, and I grew up skiing on the Big Sky ski team.
My wife (Lumay Wang Murphy) and I got married in this town, our babies (Wilde Augustine
Murphy and Maven Mei Murphy) were born in this town, and we are homeowners and are
raising our family in this town. I share this only to illustrate that I am not new to our local
and regional context, and I am deeply invested in the future of our community.
Professionally, I help CEOs, founders and leaders of some of America’s most innovative
startups shaping the future of work and cities, from housing to childcare to parking to
climate change. I created and co-hosted The Mayors podcast with renowned urbanist
Richard Florida. In my capacity as Senior Fellow at the National League of Cities I wrote
NLC’s report on the future of work and cities as policy guidance to thousands of mayors
and city leaders for how to solve the housing crisis, create walkable cities, and to win the
jobs of the next decade. That report, America Works, is here:
https://www.nlc.org/resource/america-works-how-entrepreneurial-city-leaders-can-shape-
the-future-of-work-now/. I served on the board of Bunker Labs for four years where I
created a program that has enabled thousands of military veterans to launch new
businesses. For the last two years I have served on the Bozeman Community Development
Board. I’ve worked with some of the most formidable urbanists, architects, entrepreneurs
and economic developers in the world so I have deep context in urban planning and
economic development.
Here’s how I believe I can help. Our community is at a crossroads. By grace or journey,
we all call Montana home. I believe we can capture the energy of economic growth and turn
it into economic opportunity and a thriving and entrepreneurial economy for all of us in this
town. Today in our community if you do not have a household income greater than
$150,000 we do not have homes you can own without being housing burdened. I have
spent my career working on this exact problem and in our last CDB meeting I outlined a 5
step plan forward for our community to fix it. I believe we can be smart about our land use
plan and UDC to both preserve what makes our oldests neighborhoods great while also
planning thoughtfully designed new walkable, mixed-use, inspiring neighborhoods that our
children would be proud to live in. We can have density in the right places in all of our
districts, but we need to be smart and engage in neighborhood planning. We need to think
outside the box with public-private partnerships and deeper community engagement to
solve our challenges together – not with old ideas or someone else's ideas, but instead with
new Made in Montana ideas that other cities and towns across America can copy.
I know I can help because I’m already doing it. My leadership of the Community
Development Board demonstrates who I am, how I think, and how I lead. But I, along with
other leaders across town, am also currently developing a non-profit, Last Best Future, that
will serve as a platform for community engagement and entrepreneurial city solutions. The
first program will be Montana Festival, an annual celebration of Montana excellence and big
ideas to shape our shared future that will bring together business, government, non-profit,
and community leaders. We need someone on the Commission who understands how to
be creative with policy, partnerships, and community engagement to solve big hard
problems. I am one of those people.
Finally, and above all else, I am a father. Like all parents, everything I do in this life is for
my children. We need a leader on the City Commission who represents parents and
families, who frequently calculate the costs of raising children, who understands the value
of middle class homes, who stays up at night wondering not just if their kid will be able to
live here, but whether their teachers and their friends will be able to live here. We need
someone who thinks and dreams for this city, not just for the next two years or ten years,
but for the next hundred.
I am grateful for your service to this community. Good luck with this decision. We can do
the big hard things. I hope you select someone with vision, deep policy expertise, and who
knows how to solve problems entrepreneurially. I will continue to try to be helpful to all of
you whether I’m on the inside or the outside.
Thank you,
Padden Guy Murphy
Padden Guy Murphy
716 S Grand Avenue
Bozeman, MT 59715
padden.murphy@gmail.com
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Padden Guy Murphym: 801.580.0811