Emma Bode

I’m a long time community organizer and current City Commissioner running to keep my seat on the Bozeman City Commission. I’m fighting for a city where you and I can live safe, stable, and dignified lives. In a changing landscape, I’m defending the heart and soul of the community, which has made Bozeman a place so many of us want to call home. This community is only possible if no one is left behind, and that’s why I’m asking for your vote on November 7th. Before coming to Bozeman over a decade ago, I grew up in the mountain towns of the West, watching them change rapidly as locals were displaced and fast changes strained our natural resources. I remember the first time I came to visit Bozeman before college, I fell in love with the beautiful houses and treed streets in the core. It was clear that Bozeman is a strong community, and that Bozemanites cared about their neighborhoods and neighbors. Last year, I sought appointment on the City Commission because the life I am building here with my loved ones has started to look more tenuous in a changing climate and increasingly unaffordable housing market. As I’ve watched Bozeman grow and change, I’ve seen locals – my friends and neighbors – be priced out of town, our beautiful Montana summers clouded over by a smoky wildfire season, and exclusionary and hateful rhetoric creep into our inclusive community. Experiencing this upheaval and tension in Bozeman led me to become a community organizer. In the last decade I’ve organized against corporate monopoly greed and for a livable climate with the local Sunrise chapter, monitored the health of our rivers, registered thousands of young people to vote, worked for better conditions for students in graduate housing, and helped immigrants settle in the Gallatin Valley. I did this work while pursuing a Bachelors and Masters degree in environmental science. At each step I’ve asked: what does the community I want to live in look like, and how can I help create it? As a young person, a queer woman, and the first sitting commissioner to ever live on the west and quickly developing side of Bozeman, I bring a needed voice and perspective to this body. When you support my campaign you are supporting a vision for Bozeman where no one is left behind.

Bozeman has an inadequate bus service. While it is free for all users, the buses run infrequently and the routes do not reach much of the west side of town. We must expand our multimodal transportation infrastructure so that there are viable alternatives to car travel both for the Climate and for equity as many residents cannot afford a car or are unable to drive.

Neighborhood advocate that opposes development and density of housing