Steve Pomerance

The (re)emergence of the need to fund repairs and replacements of multiple City of Boulder buildings has encouraged me to try (again) to interest the city council in the large increase in Boulder’s spending that has occurred. I think this is important because, based on my analysis to date, the city, without seriously impacting levels of service (LOS), could reduce its operating budget and thereby save enough to fund most, if not all, of the required building work without a tax increase. I started by looking at the overall budget. It increased (inflation-adjusted) by about 23% over the last 10 years. Then I deducted the capital expenditures, so that it only reflected the operating budget, which in theory measures how much is being expended to pay staff and others to maintain LOS. The operating budget per capita (inflation-adjusted) increased by over 18% during the last 10 years; the number of employees increased by around 200 to well over 1,500, even after eliminating the library em...

Earlier this week, Boulder council members Matt Benjamin and Tina Marquis  published a lengthy complaint  accusing citizens of verbally abusing city staff. They told people to, instead, communicate their concerns directly to the council by showing up at public hearings or emailing them. The problem is that, based on the visible evidence, this council majority pays essentially no attention to anything anyone says. If they really wanted people to come to the council meetings or write to them with their concerns, then they need to demonstrate that they actually care by responding with useful action. A start would be to allow testimony from all the people who sign up, not just a random selection. Council members should ask questions right away and not wait until the end of the meeting. Tell them what the city can do for them. If things get repetitive, the mayor can always t...

Last week, the Boulder City Council finally acknowledged that straw polls and nods during a study session are not decisions, and that these need to be made by a formal vote in a council meeting. They, in effect, acknowledged what Charter Section 16 already says, “The council shall act only by ordinance, resolution, or motion. All legislative enactments must be in the form of ordinances; all other procedure may be in the form of resolutions or motions.” Additionally, there now seems to be a movement to actually study topics in study sessions, including a tacit acknowledgement that the staff work on the airport was incomplete. An example: The big issue has been whether to accept FAA money, which requires an “in perpetuity” commitment to run the airport under the FAA’s terms. But the materials never really analyzed how easily the city could fund the airport. Budgets and projections for 2024 through 2030 show the airport’s annual shortfall averaging only $302,432, a tiny 0.06% of the cit...

I’ve been following the council’s process around the Boulder airport and have been frustrated by the lack of good background info regarding the options. So, I did a bit of research. Thanks to all who helped me, including a long-time climbing partner, who is a pilot and an attorney and was involved in the Aspen airport fight. Regarding the “straw poll” that the council took at a recent study session: Some attempted to treat this as a decision to accept a grant from the FAA, which, per the FAA’s terms, would require continuing the airport operations indefinitely, and under FAA jurisdiction. The council should read its own rules. Charter Section 16 states, “The council shall act only by ordinance, resolution, or motion.” The Boulder Revised Code Sec. 2-2-8 requires a council motion to approve the city manager’s signing of any lease of three years or longer. And the council is only empowered to make such motions at official meetings, not study sessions. The reason that FAA jurisdicti...

I attended the Monday evening meeting of the four bodies that review and approve the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan update. The final item, changing the land use designations for existing established neighborhoods to allow massive densification, was very revealing. Both the County Commissioners and County Planning Commission were concerned about the impacts on these neighborhoods. But the majority of both the City Council and City Planning Board were ready to push forward to allow densification. I was appalled by their lack of concern for what their constituents who live there actually want and the total lack of interest in giving them a direct say (like voting) on the matter. On the budget issues, the South Boulder Recreation Center needs a complete rebuild, or possibly replacement, and our city is trying to sort out how to pay for it. But it is far from the only building that is old or deteriorating. Boulder first looked at the problem with the 2021 Boulder Facilities Master Plan,...

After well over a year of sometimes questionable public input processes, including biased surveys, self-selecting questionnaires, a theatrical performance and significant closed-door meetings, the draft Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan updated version is now out for public review. Comments are due by this coming Monday, 4/06. (future@bouldercolorado.gov and planner@bouldercounty.gov). The new document is very attractive in appearance, and very detailed — over 100 pages long. But the future it portrays is massively densified, including three-story and multi-unit and commercial buildings in currently single-family neighborhoods. And I saw no serious attempt to deal with our shrinking water supply, ever-increasing traffic congestion, overuse of Open Space or the many other impacts of growth. One BVCP project was “15-minute neighborhoods.” As many of you remember, this was conducted in a whole series of private meetings by a group of anonymous citizens selected randomly, rather than for t...

What started me on this subject was the recent discussions on the Boulder City Council about asking the citizens for more money. It would be one thing if there were a serious analysis of the long-term spending habits to date, but I have not seen anything remotely like this. And without that, it’s impossible to know if this money is truly needed to maintain our quality of life and preserve our environment, or if this is just what is perceived to be the simplest way to do whatever the council majority dreams up next. Some time ago I did some analysis of the city’s expenditures over recent history; I updated my work in the last week. I attempted to compare the overall budgets from 20 years ago and 10 years ago with the current budget numbers. I adjusted the raw data to account for inflation (using the CPI) and for the city’s population, and also for the extra revenues from the separation of the library district. What I found surprised me. From 20 years ago to 10 years ago, the per-person ...

·          The Boulder City Council, at the request of some members, has made its draft letter to Xcel even stronger. Good for them! I hope the council passed it last night. ·          I agree that Xcel needs to pay financial penalties for unnecessary and/or overly long shutdowns, and compensate businesses that are financially damaged and customers who suffer negative impacts. ·          But the question remains: What leverage, besides bailing out of the franchise, does the city really have to get Xcel to bring its grid up to snuff, both in terms of surviving the windstorms and providing cleaner, cheaper electricity? Local efforts to provide resilience hubs — more neighborhood-level solar-plus-batteries, etc. — are good angles to pursue. But they all run up against the difficulties associated with a century-old...

Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others,” or words to that effect. But there is a wide range of forms of democracy — from what are, in effect, elected dictatorships, to those where direct democracy works in parallel with elected democracy. The Scandinavian countries’ democracies are rated best, along with Switzerland, and almost all have accessible processes for national and/or local initiatives. In Switzerland, citizen initiatives only require 100,000 signatures in a country of almost 9 million — slightly over 1% — and the signature gathering process is relatively simple. Also, Switzerland allows initiative votes up to four times per year. In Boulder, non-charter legislative initiatives require the signatures of 10% of the average number of voters in the last two municipal candidate elections. In 2023, over 33,000 people voted. This will likely increase substantially in 202...

This election, Louisville citizens get two sterling opportunities to help set the direction of their city, courtesy of citizen initiatives. Ballot Measure 300 will help decide what happens in two relatively undeveloped areas, Redtail Ridge and the McCaslin Corridor. It would require at least 30% of any housing be affordable to persons earning at or below 80% of median income.  Thirty percent is stronger than Boulder’s requirement. It also eliminates Boulder’s loophole that allows developers to pay a fee instead, which requires matching funds from external sources (like tax breaks, etc.) to generate enough for the housing to be affordable. So, rather than increasing developer profits, the Louisville measure actually benefits the people who need affordable housing. Ballot Measure 301 expands Louisville’s current set of development impact fees to specifically include library, transportation, parks and trails, open space, recreation, emergency services and municipal buildings (along wi...

Let’s start with the city budget. In the last 10 years, Boulder’s budget went up 85% — 39% after adjusting for inflation — mostly in the last 5-6 years. And we had almost no population growth. My first thought was that there must have been a backlog of capital projects to be done. But then a friend did an analysis of the city’s staffing levels. This is measured in “full-time equivalent” staff members, or FTEs. Here’s what he found: In 2019, Boulder had 1,252 FTE’s per 100,000 residents. In 2025, we had 1,493 FTE’s per 100,000. That’s an increase of 19% per capita in six years! And during that time, the city stopped running the library; that accounted for a decrease in need of approximately 78 FTEs. For comparison, Fort Collins has only about three-fourths as many FTEs per 100,000. Are our council members even aware of this massive increase in money spent and staff hired? For a test, some months ago, I sent my analysis to an apparently knowledgeable council member. After clarifyin...

When the council decided to try to get the Sundance Film Festival to move to Boulder, there were obvious issues. One big one was that Boulder does not have the hotel and other lodging space of a resort community like Park City, Utah, where Sundance was located and grew for almost 50 years. But now we are faced with an ordinance that would allow a potentially massive increase in short-term rentals (STRs) to attempt to accommodate this influx. Here are the numbers: Per the Web, around 24,000 people attend the Sundance Film Festival from out of state. The staff memo says there are 2,900 hotel rooms in Boulder, with an additional 74,000 rooms within 40 miles. So, for additional STRs to make a difference in the number of people in-commuting to Sundance, we will need thousands more. Is that what you want for Boulder? The ordinance the council is considering allows many properties to become STRs for “festivals” by being issued special “festival lodging rental licenses.” This ordinance states ...

In my last Camera piece, I said, “If all it takes is the council similarly claiming something is an ’emergency,’ then the council could pass most anything ‘by emergency’ and avoid public hearings completely.” Well, the council did exactly that at their next opportunity, abusing Charter Section 17 by passing “by emergency” the new rules for council meetings’ start times and schedules. Almost every definition of “emergency” I’ve found requires an event to be “unexpected” or “sudden,” and “demanding immediate attention” to prevent loss of life, property, etc. But the situation with “open comment” has been a mess since the war in Gaza got going. And after well over a year of failed attempts to fix the situation, it is hardly “sudden” or “unexpected.” If it is so serious, why weren’t these new fixes proposed two weeks sooner? Or why not wait one more meeting and get some public input? All this raises the serious question of why the council doe...

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 page...

At the beginning of each regular council meeting, it is the tradition to hold open comment. This used to be a chance for citizens to raise issues or concerns they think the council needs to focus on. Unfortunately, it recently has become more of a forum for protests on various non-city issues. The good news is that the council will be discussing how to fix this. But I feel that some more in-depth consideration is needed to avoid just changing the format or timing without really addressing the underlying desires of citizens to really be listened to, versus the apparent lack of value that council members give to what is said. Supporting this perspective, the poll the City just did says that barely over half of respondents approve of the job the City is doing in providing services to residents. That low rating indicates a need for real change. Council members are not better or smarter or even many times more well-informed than the rest of us. And the council is not supposed to be separate...

The first meeting of the group of 48 volunteers to discuss “15-minute neighborhoods” was Saturday, May 10. According to one of the many pages on the city’s website devoted to this subject, “15-minute neighborhoods are neighborhoods where daily goods, services and transit are within a 15-minute walk (about a 1/4 mile) of where people live or work.” Unfortunately, because much of the city’s material comes across as being biased towards establishing these neighborhoods (which require massive densification of most residential areas), the people who volunteered were possibly biased toward that outcome. But the rest of us will not know, and have no way to determine, the extent of such bias in this process, because the meetings’ locations, names of participants, agendas and materials are secret. So, those of us who were not among the chosen cannot attend these “Citizen Assembly” meetings even as observers. I think that is terrible. A process this consequential should be done openly! The argum...

Flooding in Boulder will get worse as climate change increases storm intensity and frequency. Thus, making good decisions about flood protection is critical; they should be based on facts, not speculation or defensiveness about past decisions. The assertion being made that the dam and floodwall currently proposed for South Boulder Creek will be “lifesaving” is a good sound bite. But it is not supported by the facts: No one died in South Boulder during the 2013 floods; the only deaths in or near the city were two people descending a flooded road in the North Boulder foothills. U.S. 36 is frequently closed by snowstorms and will flood anyway in storms larger than the dam is designed for. Boulder Community Hospital is accessible by many other routes. And the city can purchase a few high-water 4WD vehicles for emergency evacuations by first responders. The City’s 2014 flood survey shows that the proposed dam and floodwall will only address a fraction of the flooding damage in South Boulder...

A few weeks ago, the council authorized “by emergency” a $66 million dollar bond issue to cover (some of) the remaining costs of its attempts to protect downstream properties when South Boulder Creek floods again. SBC has had major floods in the past, including in 1893, 1934 and 1969. The City has a map of what buildings would and would not be “protected” by the proposed Phase 1 dam from a “100-year” flood. It shows that, in spite of the dam, a huge number of buildings will still be vulnerable to SBC flooding. Buildings/Removed Buildings in the S. Boulder Creek 100yr Floodplain proposed Project. (Photo credit / The City of Boulder) The Phase 2 and Phase 3 projects that are supposed to protect these buildings are not yet defined nor are there cost numbers, that I can find. Additionally, there is flooding from other sources, like Viele Channel and Anderson Ditch, that the dam won’t control at all. Also, I’ve been told that the City has none of the necessary regulatory body approvals for ...