Opinion: The importance of good communication, citizen involvement and discussion

In Sunday’s Camera, I noticed the huge disparity in information content between the City and County meetings announcements. The City’s had only four column-inches, versus the County, which had 20 column-inches. The City’s had date, time and name of board or commission, but zero content as to what the meeting was about. The County’s, in contrast, were very detailed.

Then I noticed a line in the City’s ad, in small print, saying that an asterisk indicates that the complete agenda is in the Public Notice part of the classifieds. Three of the six boards’ names had asterisks, so I went to the Public Notice section and looked. But there was only one agenda; two were missing.

One of the two missing ones was Open Space, so I went online and, after some searching, found that meeting’s agenda outline, but the individual items had no content. I dug further but was frustrated by a notice that I needed to allow cookies, but provided no way to allow them. My second try, using a different set of pages, finally got to the actual agenda content. (It even had a download symbol, so I could save it.)

My point in describing all this is that most people would give up in frustration at one of the interim stages. Thus, the City loses the benefit of their communicating their values, interests, and comments based on their experience and knowledge. The feeling this transmitted is that the City doesn’t care about their input.

A friend, also a former councilmember, did some research on the numbers. Since 2018, the City’s Communication department has more than doubled its staff and almost doubled its budget. So the issue is not a lack of people or money. It’s that, apparently, no one is holding staff accountable for producing the necessary results.

This relates to the proposed extension of the 0.3% Community, Culture, Resilience and Safety Sales and Use tax, or CCRS, currently set to expire in 2036. The proposal is that this extension will be spent on an undefined range of infrastructure, plus up to 10% to fund grants to non-profits that “serve the people of Boulder,” not exactly well-defined limitations. This lack of clear communication is concerning.

This made me think about the 2010 Blue Ribbon Commission. This group of very well-informed Boulder area citizens was charged with looking at the City’s financial picture in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. They did some excellent work that helped Boulder organize its budgetary processes and make them clearer.

Unfortunately, their work seems to have been forgotten. For example, dedicated funds like Open Space are having more and more revenues designated for “cost allocation” and thus shifted to control by the general government operations. This could damage the efficiency of OSMP and, at the same time, reduce budgetary constraints on the general fund departments, which may promote inefficiency.

We really need a new “Blue Ribbon” group to look at the budgetary issues before the council decides what to put on the ballot, so that any tax ballot measures are clear as to what they will and won’t do. Per the recent survey, only 60-plus percent support extending the sales tax that expires in 2036. So, in my opinion, it is likely to lose at the ballot box unless the constraints on spending are made a lot clearer, and the need for more money is better justified.

Also, strangely, in the City’s survey, more people supported the tax being continued forever than supported it with a 2050 sunset. I’d think that someone who wanted a permanent tax would also support it even only extended for 14 more years, but apparently not. Apparently, I’m missing something.

This communication issue extends back to the 2013 flood. Shortly thereafter, city staff met with the neighborhoods to identify their concerns and discuss possible solutions. It felt like someone really cared about the views of those with intimate knowledge. Some solutions were expected to be implemented quickly. But, since then, at least in my experience, progress seems to have stalled.

The South Boulder Creek dam situation is similar, but on a much bigger scale. It really needs a new task force to re-establish communication with the well-informed area residents and then direct a complete re-evaluation of the alternatives before we potentially waste a lot of money on the wrong approach. As to the City’s recent attempt to extract attorneys’ fees to punish the Save South Boulder folks who are contesting the dam financing, I’ll comment when I get more complete information.