Steve Pomerance

A ffordable housing in Boulder has been an ongoing discussion for as long as I have been involved in local politics, now going on 30 years. Unfortunately, the current Task Force report fails to address the fundamental issues. But fortunately, many City Council members are questioning the advice on what to do and who should pay. Boulder’s first affordable housing program (that I know about) was over 30 years ago. It required developers to make a small fraction of their units affordable, but these units reverted to market prices after a time, obviously not a long-term solution. When I was on the council, I pushed a conceptual change — affordable housing created under any city program or regulation was to be permanent. In addition, I worked with Mayor Leslie Durgin to develop with a funding mechanism called the CHAP (Community Housing Assistance Program) which included various taxing and fee mechanisms. The next significant step was Inclusionary Zoning, which required developers to ...

Many Boulder citizens I’ve recently met are intensely interested in the opportunity a municipal electric utility represents to have more economic, reliable, and cleaner power. I have spent hours discussing what would happen if 2B and 2C pass, and how Boulder’s residences and businesses are protected during the process. Here are the major points. First  – Ballot Issues 2B and 2C do not create the municipal utility (or “muni.”) 2C authorizes the city council to create a muni, but only under very stringent financial and other constraints. 2B creates a source of funding to achieve certainty on costs, including the acquisition of the distribution system (poles, wires, transformers, substations, etc.) and of possible compensation to Xcel for stranded assets (facilities that wouldn’t have a market if Boulder leaves Xcel.) If costs are so high that Boulder cannot match Xcel’s rates at the time of anticipated startup, then the process will be halted, and the muni will not be formed. ...

Our political processes are becoming more captive to forces beyond the control of ordinary citizens. Political debates are becoming more polarized. Candidates are becoming more cartoon-like in their pronouncements and self-serving in their actions. Deception is increasing. Donations sometimes appear to be nothing more than legalized bribery, and expenditures just try to bury the opposition. The current redistricting process is a major cause. It occurs after every 10-year census, and most states have a list of conflicting criteria to be met (community of interest, minority representation, geographic continuity, etc.) Some states have established bi-partisan commissions, sometimes the dominant party in the state legislature rules, and sometimes judges (elected or appointed) play a role. The net effect has been for political parties to gain more and more “safe seats.” The Web site  fairvote.org  has some damning statistics on the lack of competition in most U.S. House races. ...

The July 5 New York Times science section ran a fascinating article called, “Thirst for Fairness May Have Helped Us Survive.” It argues that “humans have an inherent distaste for hierarchical extremes,” and that “the thirst for fairness runs deep.” But “low hierarchy doesn`t mean no hierarchy,” and “the basic template for human social groups is moderately but not unerringly egalitarian.” This view of human nature is in conflict with our current American society, where wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in a small segment of our population. The effect of this concentration is felt in our political life, where the ability to spend enormous sums on elections has become a dominant determinant of who gets elected. The “Citizens United” decision exacerbated this problem, allowing corporations to make political donations, not as the shareholders might want, but as the corporate officers choose. None other that John C. Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Funds, wrote an editorial for...

I`ve been involved in local politics for going on 30 years now, and I was under the illusion that there wasn`t much left that could surprise me. But the recent lawsuit challenging the “Taxpayers Bill of Rights,” TABOR, caught me completely off guard. This lawsuit against the State of Colorado was filed by a group of mostly current and former elected officials. It argues that TABOR violates Article IV, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution, which in part states that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The lawsuit claims, among other things, that TABOR “compromises and undermines the fundamental nature of the state`s Republican Form of Government.” And “By removing the taxing power of the General Assembly, the TABOR amendment renders the Colorado General Assembly unable to fulfill its legislative obligations under a Republican Form of Government.” The New Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “republic” as (1) a government ha...

After months of delay, Xcel finally delivered its proposal to the Boulder city council. Unfortunately, the proposal was not worth the wait — Boulder would be giving up far too much for what it gets. Here’s the essence of Xcel’s proposal: Xcel would contract with a wind farm developer to build a 200 megawatt wind farm in eastern Colorado. The wind farm would not count toward Xcel’s meeting the 30 percent Renewable Energy Standard, so arguably “would not have been built otherwise.” The developer would likely be one of Xcel’s recent bidders — Xcel received 6,000 MWs of wind bids for a 200 MW slot. The wind farm, at best, would generate the equivalent of a bit more than half of Boulder’s current annual energy use. But its generation would not match our load profile; wind blows more at night, whereas our peak load is in the day. As part of the deal, Boulder would have to ensure that there was no cost to other Xcel ratepayers. Because the cost of the wind would be higher initially than...

The Boulder City Council did the right thing last Tuesday night. They rejected another attempt to amend Boulder’s charter to allow executive sessions (meetings closed to the public), and considered a proposal to allow a committee of two council members to work in private on negotiating property deals, like the proposed purchase of Section 16, the southwest corner of Rocky Flats Wildlife Preserve. Currently the city charter prohibits closed meetings of the council or any of its committees, except that it allows two council members to work together confidentially while doing the evaluations of the city manager, city attorney and municipal judge. This proposal would be a logical extension, and a reasonable way to explore allowing the council to participate in delicate negotiations, but without threatening Boulder’s invaluable open government requirements. The council also correctly refused to put another attempt to alter Boulder’s 55-foot height limit on the ballot. This latest prop...

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to listen to the former mayor of Las Cruces, N.M. discuss the struggles that they went through in trying to create a municipal electric utility, just as Boulder is considering. Two things struck me: First, Boulder is way ahead in terms of doing the homework of evaluating options and considering upsides and downsides. Second, Boulder`s circumstances are quite different. Clearly, we can learn from Las Cruces` mistakes, but fundamentally we face far fewer obstacles than they did. However, one thing is a constant — Boulder will have a fight with Xcel Energy just as Las Cruces did with El Paso Electric Company (EPEC). Monopolies hate to give up their customer bases. Las Cruces spent millions of dollars in legal fees and years of time to gain the power to condemn the distribution system. (The distribution system is the wires, poles, transformers and substations that take power from transmission lines and deliver it to our homes and businesses.) But und...

A few years ago the Colorado Chautauqua Association (CCA) board proposed putting a hotel on Open Space near Chautauqua. This absurd concept only emerged into the light of day because one board member had the courage to actually speak about it, breaking the “code of secrecy” that seems to surround much of what goes on with the CCA. Now we have another development proposal, not nearly as outrageous, but potentially equally ill-conceived. It’s to build a “modest 7,000 square foot” building, containing offices, maintenance facilities, and a meeting space, where the current Chautauqua Picnic Shelter is located, just to the south of the auditorium where we go to hear the Colorado Music Festival. Apparently, one reason to build this is to generate more revenue so that the CCA board can fund their “Chautauqua 2020 Plan.” (The CCA’s Web site contains a general “2020 vision statement,” but lacks details, supporting documentation, and financials. The proposed building was reportedly represent...

The Clean Air Clean Jobs Act (CACJA), passed by the Colorado Legislature in 2010, could end up committing us to a future tied to coal. This may seem counter-intuitive, since CACJA will lead to early retirement of some Metro-area coal fired power plants, and their replacement with cleaner gas fired plants. Here`s the problem: CACJA ended up requiring us to pay Xcel the remaining balance due on the Metro-area coal plants, even though they will be retired before their useful lifetimes end. This is not a huge financial burden, as the early retirement is only a few years on average. But, in the process of implementing CACJA, the Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel Energy`s request to invest about $380 million to upgrade nearly 750 MW of non-Metro-area coal plants, and these plants have lifetimes extending out to 2041 for the biggest one. If these plants are then shut down relatively soon because we want less CO2 emissions, we`ll have to pay twice – once for coal upgrade and once f...