Opinion: The City of Boulder goes after its own citizens … and loses!
As many of you already know, three Boulder citizens filed a lawsuit against the city over both the process and the substance of the city’s attempt in early March 2025 to sell $66 million worth of bonds to finance the ill-considered South Boulder Creek dam. The court ruled against the citizens. Then, in early July, the city filed a motion to go after these citizens for attorneys’ fees. But on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, the judge ruled for the citizens and against the city. His excellent comments included the importance of preserving the citizens’ right to challenge the city’s actions (my words, not his). In the original lawsuit, the citizens alleged that the city (1) failed to follow the city charter in passing the bond issue at a single reading “by emergency” and (2) that the fees the city intended to charge calculated on “impervious surface” within the city were not legal to use to pay for the dam that, for the most part, would contain water coming from outside the city. In my opin...