Steve Pomerance

On Thanksgiving, it seems appropriate to look back and try to appreciate the good things that have happened, while at the same time looking forward to what might be. When I was in college, my worst skill was writing, and all through my youth, I really disliked listening to people talking politics. Now, I really appreciate that I have mostly gotten past both those blocks and have the chance to write about our local political scene, though I’m still more interested in policy than politics. For example, I appreciate that Boulder now has its own fiber network, and we won’t have to rely on private providers with their own systems for internet. But regarding the recent contract signed to give ALLO-Communications a 20-year lease, I note that, per a person at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, some of the best systems are municipally operated and are right here on the Front Range, in Loveland, Fort Collins, Estes Park. Maybe next time… On a larger scale, I really appreciate the work of...

This November, Boulderites will vote for mayor. It’s important to remember that the whole city council, including the mayor, will still vote on all ordinances, resolutions and motions. The mayor’s most visible role will still be running the meetings. But an elected mayor could make a big difference in how meetings are prepared for and how outreach is handled. Improving both processes would improve both how Boulder’s government is perceived by the citizens and the quality of the council’s decisions. An example is the recent decision by the council to allow e-bikes on certain Open Space trails. The vote was 8-0 to allow e-bikes. From council members’ lack of response to the strong majority of speakers who testified against allowing e-bikes, it appeared that council members had made up their minds before the meeting. So, testifying was apparently a waste of time. (I spoke, and the experience was like talking to a wall.) What difference could an elected mayor have made? For example, he/she...

I’d like to acknowledge Boulder City Council members Bob Yates and Tara Winer for showing up at the discussion of the proposed homeless day center at 1844 Folsom. Per the Camera’s story on Wednesday, many residents of Horizon West next door raised a lot of legitimate concerns. What’s interesting to me is that the process for selection of the site did not involve talking to the residents of the various possible neighborhoods prior to the site selection. This put the city staff person in charge in the unenviable position of having to justify this lack of early input; that criticism should properly be directed at the council members who approve the site selection criteria as well as the process. This process will no doubt be repeated when some neighbors wake up one morning to find out that the house next door has been purchased to become an addict recovery home, with something like eight recovering addicts and five staff members, as the city was planning to do some months ago. I realize t...

  Why not ask the people? This all started when I saw the Boulder city staff’s proposal to increase the climate action tax to expand Boulder’s investment in reducing our carbon output. I applaud these efforts, having been involved in renewable energy projects since 1975 when I built my solar home, and in 1982 when I designed Boulder’s solar access ordinance. But why are we not requiring that all new buildings be net-zero in energy use? With all the new technology and the availability of community solar, it’s totally feasible and reasonably economic. If the council is not willing to take that step, why not poll the citizens to see if there is political support? What also caught my eye was the additional $1.5 million for wildfire prevention efforts. After the Marshall and NCAR fires, this is clearly a very serious issue. So I contacted the city council about the fire risks associated with unhoused people camping on city lands. The response I got back from one council member was...

The Open Space Board of Trustees finally did what the City Council and the Water Resources Advisory Board have failed to do. The OSBT conditioned the use of open space for flood control on city staff taking a serious look at upstream options. This could potentially avoid both a view-blocking dam along U.S. Highway 36 as well as destruction of important wildlife habitat. This examination of a broader range of options is long overdue. Also, thanks to council member Mark Wallach for raising two big equity issues – which creeks should get the flood control money to maximize the benefit/cost ratio, and who should pays for the University of Colorado Boulder’s expansion agenda, CU or Boulder citizens. That these questions still exist exposes the fact that this process was mismanaged from the beginning. South Boulder Creek was one of multiple tributaries that flooded in 2013. It’s the biggest, but others, including Bear Canyon Creek, Bluebell Creek, and Skunk Creek, also had very signifi...

Why are we chasing Denver’s density? A friend asked me what I knew about Boulder’s plans for increasing density. She was concerned about the push for Boulder being “inclusive,” a catchall phrase currently bandied about that means pretty much whatever the person hearing or reading it imagines. Certainly there has been a lot of verbiage about “densifying,” like forcing neighborhoods to accept multi-unit buildings or high-rise developments right next to or replacing single-family houses, schemes that the current Boulder City Council seems to have abandoned, at least temporarily, because of public outcry and anger. So I can understand her concern. Since at some level this is a numbers game, I did a bit of research comparing Boulder to Denver. Obviously, Boulder is smaller than Denver, but I thought the ratios would be interesting: Per the 2018 Boulder Community Profile, our city occupies 27.3 square miles, had a population of 108,507 people, and had 100,148 jobs when the data was ...

Albert Einstein said, “ We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ” Boulder is supposed to be one of the most educated cities in the country, so you’d think that we wouldn’t just commit the same follies as every other high tech town. But we’ve been headed that way for a long time. Boulder’s own Comprehensive Plan states that Boulder is an “employment center,” and for the last quarter of a century our government has encouraged jobs to be added as fast as the space could get built. Even Boulder Junction, started in 2004, would add about as many new jobs as new residents. Boulder has supported spending state tax credits to encourage companies to come to town. Boulder’s city manager unilaterally applied to have much of east Boulder designated an “opportunity zone,” which grants unnecessary huge tax breaks for developers in this supposedly “economically depressed” area. Affordable housing programs have been implemented, but they couldn’t keep u...

In the June 20 Camera, Mayor Suzanne Jones is quoted instructing citizens who came to speak about the huge senior living complex proposed for 311 Mapleton, “The decisions are whether it meets the criteria, or not, not whether or not we like it.” I appreciate Mayor Jones’ thoughts, but Boulder’s site review process, which is used to evaluate such large projects, is fraught with subjectivity, fundamentally because the “criteria” lack objective standards and limits. The first step is that the council must agree that, “the proposed site plan is consistent with the land use map, and the service area map, and, on balance, the policies of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.” But as was noted in the recent consultant’s review of the BVCP, policies can be found that support whatever anyone wants, making this policy requirement meaningless. And each “land use” allows multiple zoning categories, so existing zoning can be changed, as this proposal requests. (I have serious questions as to w...

I just returned from the annual International Energy Economics and Finance Association conference, where people from all over the world gathered to discuss global warming and climate change. I was on a panel discussing “securitization,” a financial tool that uses borrowing to reduce the cost of paying off utilities to shut down coal plants. Interestingly,  an op-ed I wrote  in April on the Colorado securitization bill was referenced by some people to illustrate their various perspectives. Our discussion ended up boiling down to a fundamental choice: Are we willing to pay whatever it takes to get utilities to shut down their coal plants? Or are we going to force some utilities to take a financial beating, because they invested in coal in the face of global warming? What really amazed me was how many people were aware of and inspired by Boulder’s struggle to create a clean energy municipal electric utility. I also received reports about utilities that were shifting to clea...

This concept, popularized by Garret Hardin in the 1960s, discusses a community owned pasture that is becoming overgrazed because, although each additional cow on the land benefited that cow’s owner, the end result was damage to everyone. In other words, the cumulative effect of decisions that may benefit given individuals may irreversibly harm the whole community. This problem manifests itself in as many ways as we have “commons.” At the most global level, our common atmosphere has provided us with the stable climate that allowed humans to flourish. Yet our extra cows — our individual greenhouse gas emissions — are in the process of destabilizing our climate, threatening to extinguish much of life on Earth. Locally, we have many commons: wonderful open space, great mountain views, mostly non-gridlocked street system, lots of parks and recreation centers, good schools, multiple bikeways, some permanently affordable housing, accessible libraries, peaceful and uncongested neighbor...

By  MATT BENJAMIN ,  ED BYRNE ,  ALLYN FEINBERG ,  MARK MCINTYRE ,  STEVE POMERANCE ,  EVAN RAVITZ ,  TYLER ROMERO ,  MICHAEL SCHREINER ,  JOHN SPITZER  and  VALERIE YATES We urge city of Boulder voters to vote  yes  on Ballot Question 2G, which reads, “Shall Sections 38, 45, and 56 of the City Charter be amended pursuant to Ordinance 8274 to allow the Boulder City Council to adopt ordinances that permit use of electronic petitions and to permit on-line electronic signing or endorsement of initiative, referendum, and recall petitions?” The city of Boulder’s Campaign Finance/Elections Working Group unanimously recommended this to Council, who unanimously voted to put it on the ballot. (The initiative, referendum and recall processes are the elements of direct democracy. The initiative is where a group of citizens gathers enough signatures to put a proposed piece of legislation on the ballot and asks the voters to ap...

This spring, I wrote an op-ed entitled ”  Parking garage on the Hill — boon or boondoggle? ” I have learned more about this, and it’s become clear that this proposal is a far worse deal than I had envisioned. The following is based on readily available data, but everything is still fluid and so may change. The notion that a proposed 201-space underground garage is going to solve the Hill’s parking needs is simply not true. A new hotel above the garage will displace 88 existing spaces (62 in the Pleasant Street University Hill General Improvement District lot, plus 26 other spaces) leaving a net gain of 113 new spaces. But the hotel could use all these up. Here’s how: Assuming only half the hotel patrons drive and a 20 percent vacancy rate on the 189 rooms, that’s 75 cars, leaving 38 net new spaces. The hotel employees (about 38 per shift) and restaurant and shop employees (maybe another 42, depending on what actually gets built on site), even if only half drive, will use up...

On Tuesday night,  the Boulder city council chose the best approach to mitigating the risk of future flooding on South Boulder Creek . But, given our situation, there are no perfect solutions. First, Boulder is one of the most flood-prone cities in the country. We have numerous creeks that run through the city. And being up against the foothills allows sudden storms to dump rain into the drainages that flow directly into town with almost no chance to dissipate. Second, some of Boulder’s drainages are huge. For example, the South Boulder Creek drainage above Colo. 93 is about 100 square miles. One inch of rain throughout that area would drop over 5,000 acre-feet of water, about five times the storage capacity of the measures under consideration Tuesday night. (An acre-foot is one acre covered with one foot of water, or 43,560 cubic feet.) Third, much of Boulder was built without serious consideration of the flood risk. South Boulder is not the only area subject to severe i...