Fair Housing Film and Conversation

Kurt Firnhaber has served as the Deputy Director Housing for the City of Boulder since 2016. He has a variety of experiences in affordable housing over 15 years, where he developed co-housing communities, started the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate, and built a housing community with volunteers at the Poplar project in north Boulder for the City of Boulder’s housing authority. He also worked throughout Africa for 16 years in developing affordable housing in South Africa’s townships and supported the work in post war conflict areas with housing and reconciliation. For ten of these years he directed a health organization based in Johannesburg that focused on HIV services and pharmacy automation systems. Kurt is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Regis University. His wife Cindy is a physician specializing in HIV; the two have six children.

Ann Cooper is a Boulder-based realtor of 21 years and prolific volunteer who has served on various non-profit boards, which has earned her distinctions for her humanitarian service. Ann was involved in the civil rights movement in Georgia as a child and grew up in affordable housing – both of which planted her activist roots and sense of community. As a Boulder realtor, she struggles personally with the lack of diversity in Boulder, yet embraces Boulder passionately for all that it offers in other ways.

Carmen Ramirez is the Manager for Community and Neighborhood Resources a division of the City of Longmont. She has worked for the City of Longmont for 17 years. She has been involved in several community projects that work to create change within systems and assist in providing more access, inclusion, and equity for all community members. Some of these projects include the Latino Community Assessment of Boulder in 2001 and 2013. She was a cohort in a Rockefeller Foundation-NYU Next Generation Leadership Fellowship. She serves as a division manager, mediator, facilitator and interpreter for the City of Longmont, and has worked within Boulder County’s communities for over 20 years.

Penfield Tate III is Attorney and Partner at Kutak Rock and – as someone who has worked in government and as an advisor to government – is experienced in public finance and municipal law. Mr. Tate has been engaged in public finance practice for more than 25 years and has experience working as bond, disclosure, trustee and underwriter’s counsel. He is also experienced in transactions involving letters of credit, municipal bond insurance, standby bond purchase arrangements and other forms of credit enhancement.

In government, Mr. Tate has served in both the Colorado Senate and House of Representatives. He has served as executive director of the Department of Administration for former Governor Roy Romer, as well as on both the State of Colorado Banking Board and the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority board. As an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, Mr. Tate represented the mayor’s office on issues involving airport finance, business and economic development, and housing development.

Mr. Tate is also the son of Penfield Tate II, the first African-American council member and mayor of Boulder.

Dick Williams is a civil rights activist, author, and theologian. Dick was a friend and colleague of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the early days of the civil rights movement. Dick helped recruit white clergy to support the movement as it grew, and marched alongside the civil rights leader. He is also a resident of Boulder and lives in affordable housing at the Golden West Manor.