Lisa Sanchez

Lisa E. Sánchez made history as the first Afro-Latina of Mexican descent to campaign for and win election to the Boise City Council. During her first term, Lisa made it a priority to bridge the City of Boise to the diverse communities it serves.  In 2021, she was unanimously elected by her peers to serve as President Pro Tem of the Boise City Council, making her the first woman of color to serve in council leadership. Lisa believes that the key to our city’s success is the people who she invites to the table who help her ensure that she is meeting their needs as a community leader.

Lisa has worked as the bilingual paralegal/case coordinator for the Idaho Volunteer Lawyers Program, helping low-income victims of domestic violence to access legal assistance, and as a civil rights investigator with the Idaho Human Rights Commission. She also worked for the Girl Scouts of Silver Sage Council in development, membership, and marketing. Lisa is the principal owner of Palote Power Consulting, LLC, where she is a sought after speaker who addresses deeply personal themes that affect many people’s lives. Lisa’s leadership style is informed by her own lived experience, and her own story of struggle and resilience. It is because of Lisa’s authentic approach to her 30 years of public service that she was elected to the council in 2017 with 44% of the votes, and then re-elected in 2021 with over 57% of votes casted in her favor.

Lisa worked hard for the people of Boise during her first term on the Boise City Council. She began modeling audacious leadership from her first day in office when Lisa invited members of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe to perform an honor song at the ceremony.  In 2018, Lisa successfully initiated the creation of a strategic plan for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to ensure that the City was modeling these values in every area of its work and as an employer. She was instrumental in the naming of Mariposa Park, the first  with a Spanish name in the City of Boise. Mariposa Park was the site of the first annual Idaho Latino Conservation Week in 2022, a program that Lisa helped to bring to the City of Boise. The Watershed was this year’s site for the weeklong event, making it the fourth year in a row that the City of Boise hosted the kickoff for Idaho Latino Conservation Week.  Lisa has also served as council liaison across departments, where she has influenced them to take an equitable approach to their work.

Lisa has offered her unique guidance and perspectives to the Parks and Recreation Commission, Public Works, Arts and History Commission, among others over the five years she served on the council. In 2019, Lisa worked closely with Kasey Hochmuht, one of the few women firefighters to work for the Boise Fire Department, to deliver a firefighter training recruitment program for teen Girl Scouts. That effort resulted in one teen becoming a local firefighter, and Kasey has evolved that initial program into the Ignite Women’s Firefighter Bootcamp, to support more women in firefighting.

In 2019, Lisa partnered with community members and state legislators to draft, propose, and pass the Rental Application Fee Ordinance to protect prospective Boise renters from exploitation. In 2021, and again in 2022, the Idaho State Legislature attempted to overturn the ordinance.  Lisa worked with fellow community members to keep this important protection in place, and it stood until it and other renter protections were overturned in 2024. To date, the City of Boise was the only municipality in Idaho to offer this type of ordinance to protect renters, which is significant as nearly half of Boise’s residents are renters.

Lisa also brought her inclusive, collaborative approach to her work as co-chair of the 2020 Census Local Complete Count Committee for the City of Boise.  She advocated for informal community leaders to help reach communities that are historically undercounted in Boise.  This approach led to an exemplary result of having the second- highest self-response rates of cities with populations over 200,000. Each person counted in the 2020 Census represents nearly $1,500 in federal dollars directed to our community per person, per year, over a period of 10 consecutive years.

Lisa grew up in Burley, Idaho, where she was raised by a family who worked hard in the potato and beet fields of the Magic Valley area. She credits her late mother, former Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs Commissioner, Janie Espinosa Ortiz, with nurturing her passion for public service.  Lisa’s mother demonstrated for her how to find “the third way” when considering solutions.

Prior to moving to San Antonio, Texas, in January 2026, Lisa lived in Boise, Idaho, with her 12 pound torbico cat Georgie. She enjoyed hiking in the Boise Foothills, and she enjoyed incorporating the arts into everything she did as an active community member.