Steve Pomerance

We all have suffered, either directly or indirectly, from the failure of Xcel to provide us with a robust electric grid, one that can survive our windstorms, which are coming with increasing frequency and strength as our climate gets more extreme. And the Public Safety Power Shutoffs, which were conceived as emergency measures, are now apparently being viewed as standard procedure. The Boulder City Council is considering a letter to Xcel outlining the areas where it wants to see improvements. It accurately notes that Xcel has missed its 2022 and 2024 emissions milestones, made insufficient progress on fleet charging and other items, and, critically, keeps increasing our bills. Very significantly, the draft letter states, “we must address our community’s ongoing experience with electric reliability,” including the three Public Safety Power Shutoff events that had “inadequate coordination, unusable or overly broad outage maps, insufficient details to support emergency preparedness, and e...

In response to the City staff memo (that I wrote about on Wednesday), Mayor Pro Tem Mark Wallach made some very strong arguments on the city’s Hotline for keeping the library buildings in City ownership. The Library District trustees then responded with their own memo. So as an addendum to my Wednesday piece in the Camera, here’s a response to the district’s points, which are in quotes. • “Library Districts have every incentive, and are required by law, to maintain library facilities in good condition.” I certainly agree that the district has the resources to maintain the facilities, but what if they don’t perform? What if they choose to spend their money, for example, providing expensive services to various groups, and neglect to adequately maintain and improve the facilities? Is some citizen going to spend their own money taking the library commissioners to court? I doubt it. Neither the law nor the ballot measure seems specific enough to take on public officials. • “Library District...

Boulder city staff’s memo for the City Council this Thursday discusses what should happen to the City’s publicly owned library buildings once the Library District is operational. So it’s clear, the voter approval of the District in the November 2022 election decided nothing with regard to the fate of these library buildings, which include the Main Library (on Canyon, east of 9th Street), the Carnegie Library (on Pine, west of Broadway — which is our library of Boulder history, not the District’s), the new North Boulder branch building (on North Broadway), and the George Reynolds branch (on Table Mesa Drive across from King Soopers). The other two are leased. Our situation is unique in Colorado; no other large library system has made such a District conversion. And library commissioners are appointed, not elected, so the voters have no direct recourse. In the March 15, 2022, study session prior to the November vote that created the Library District, all eight council members present opp...

The Boulder city council is considering putting the current General Fund 0.15% sales tax, which expires at the end of 2024, on this November’s ballot for renewal. There seems to be a general agreement among council members that they need the money. However, a citizen group gathered enough signatures for a ballot measure dedicating this tax renewal to the arts. The council authorized a survey to be done, allegedly to determine what level of support there is in the community for the renewal as undedicated funds. City staff hired a California firm to design and perform the polling. It was sent out in June via email and text.  I received the text and was concerned that it was spam, because the text just said it was from “the City.” So, I asked, and city staff said it was legitimate. But before I got started, someone read me some of the questions. The questions made it sound like the survey was a “push poll,” an attempt to influence the voters, as I believe occurred some months ago on o...

Last week, I was engaged in a somewhat heated discussion with some Boulder city staff members about having more openness in the Advisory Group meetings that are taking place as part of the Xcel franchise agreements approved last year. I realized that I was frustrated, not by the city staff, but by the general retreat from openly involving the citizens of Boulder in the decisions that are being made that determine our future. And that is exacerbated by the lack of real Council discussion on these big issues. It’s as if somehow significant disagreement or intense interchange is now frowned upon, and what counts is false civility or something like that. Apparently, my feelings were getting the best of me. This does not only relate to the details of some particular policy, but to the contextual discussions also. In simple terms, we don’t have real opportunities to discuss where our community is headed. Momentous decisions are being made, and I, and many people I know, feel like there is ...

Boulder has one of the most educated citizenries of any city in the U.S., and Boulder citizens are very knowledgeable and strongly engaged in the issues that affect our future. Unfortunately, many citizens have lost trust in the city’s processes. Our City Council should take advantage of the recent retirement of City Manager Jane Brautigam to resolve many longstanding issues so that our city government works better for Boulder citizens. The next city manager must have the ability and interest to successfully manage “policy projects” – those efforts that address the significant issues and opportunities in such difficult areas as: flood planning; the new Xcel franchise and getting to a clean energy future; and growth issues, including jobs/population balance, affordable housing, transportation planning that actually reduces congestion, and keeping Boulder livable. For policy projects to succeed, the manager must ensure that citizens are involved early and often. That includes using...