Steve Pomerance

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 ...

  “It’s going to be by design, or it will be by disaster.” That was the quote I heard related to how we respond to climate change. Perhaps this, expanded to include other areas, should be the theme for the Council’s upcoming goal setting session. The Marshall fire reminds us that climate change’s drier conditions plus stronger winds makes it incumbent on us to do our best to reduce the risks. We may need to increase the work on our Open Space areas by doing more thinning and using more controlled burns. We also should put some serious focus on helping all homeowners, especially at the city’s edges, reduce their risks and those they might impose on their neighbors, by ensuring that all buildings are more fire resistant. Given climate change’s increased flooding, we really, really, really need a comprehensive flood management plan, so that we know what improvements or other actions are worth doing, which ones should have priority, and how we are going to fund them. With the propo...

  The “Christmas Wishes” expressed in last Saturday’s Camera by the Editorial Advisory Board were right on. Emily Walsh succinctly described our current situation: “I cannot understand why we have let difference, hate and fear encroach on every interaction we have.” Bill Wright concurred: “I wish for respect and patience with people we don’t agree with. Especially if the person you don’t agree with is me.” Former Boulder City Council member Andrew Shoemaker perfectly captured what’s needed: “Let’s work on the one wish that could be attainable in 2022, and which is the first step to any chance of resolving the rest of the list — collaborating with an open mind to tackle Boulder’s problems. You may have great ideas about how to solve our local problems, but so does your neighbor. Other citizens with different approaches also care about Boulder as much as you. Let’s consider checking our egos at Boulder’s door and recognize that it’s OK to change our minds.” In my experience of al...

“Bedrooms Are For People” lost at the ballot box, saving months or years in court attempting to resolve the disparity between the title and the ordinance. But many on the new Council want to take up the occupancy issue anyway.  That’s fine, but this is not a simple issue, and I hope the council recognizes this. The Council members need to start by discussing what they realistically want to achieve, and what they see as appropriate conditions and constraints on their goals. Having some reality in this discussion is critical, since the kind of one-liners tossed around during the campaign are not much use in doing good policy work. For example, there was the idiotic statement that, “Everyone who wants to live in Boulder should be able to.” But what if there are a million such people? We don’t lack for legitimate issues to be explored: For example, it seems reasonable that two single women with two kids apiece could share the house that one owns that is currently zoned for a family...

  In 1999, a group of citizens placed on the ballot and voters passed what might have been the most important reform of Boulder’s election laws ever. It limited donations to candidates’ “official candidate committees” to $100 per person. Donations to “unofficial candidate committees” (candidate advocacy groups other than the candidates’ OCCs) are also limited to $100 per person.  And coordination between these UCCs and the candidate’s OCCs is strictly forbidden other than cost sharing for advertising space. The initiative petition process has also been reformed. In 2018, the council-appointed election working group proposed, and voters approved, charter reforms that tied the number of signatures required for initiated ordinances to the actual number of voters rather than to the highly variable number of registered voters, limited council amendments after passage to those consistent with the “basic intent” of the measure, and gave the council power to implement on-line petiti...

  This year’s Boulder City Council election was unlike any other I can remember. Although roughly the same number of people voted, frankly I was surprised that it wasn’t more, given the hot button issues like the Bedrooms and CU South ballot issues. And then there was the name-calling, fake web postings, etc. I don’t ever remember seeing anything like this in past elections. It seems obvious that something is seriously wrong here. And I know people are disengaging, and from my observation, it’s because they think that they don’t count or the processes don’t work. In my opinion, the next council needs to start off with a bang, and not just repeat the last two years’ way of operating, which seems to have suppressed active participation in the process of policy formation, not encouraged it. So here are some suggestions for the first meeting and beyond: Return to calling the first part of the Council meeting what it should be — active Citizen Participation, rather than passi...

  By Lisa Morzel, Cindy Carlisle, Allyn Feinberg, Crystal Gray, Spense Havlick, Steve Pomerance, Gwen Dooley, BJ Miller, Phil Stern   We are former Boulder City Council members, who served from 4 to 21 years each on Council (85 years collectively). We also are knowledgeable about the issues and history of CU South.  We encourage Boulder citizens to vote YES on Ballot Initiative 302 in the upcoming city election. We read the recent guest opinion by five mayors regarding the recent annexation agreement of CU South between the City and CU. We, as they, want to ensure that our residents are fully protected from the risks associated with floods, want opportunities for a range of housing options that actually are affordable, and want to safeguard in perpetuity the unique ecosystems and species on our Open Space. In our view, the current annexation agreement is unacceptable and has many flaws, both from the process and content perspectives. Some major flaws include: The ...

I’ve been thinking about what the next Council members should focus on so that their term is satisfying and productive, both for the citizens and for themselves. I’ve already written about the critical importance of gaining good citizen input and actually engaging the citizens, as well as the value of ensuring that Council materials are complete and accurate so that everyone is on the same page about the facts of the situation and good debates can occur. But in addition to these activities, I have recently have been observing the importance of the Council culture that underlies all this. For example, having a council dominated by one member or one point of view, or by a clique that marginalizes council members who don’t go along with the majority, is really very detrimental — it leads to bad decisions and bad feelings. And, because the decisions that get made do not include real consideration of alternatives, when appropriately criticized for this, the majority just “circles the wago...

In my almost 40 years in Boulder politics, I have never seen a project create such controversy, and it’s no surprise: CU South is the size of downtown Boulder both in acreage and development potential. The proposed “100-year design” flood detention pond is inadequate given climate change and the limited pond size, which cannot reasonably be expanded once CU develops the nearby area. The deal was negotiated without investigating a land swap with city-owned land north of the city limits. Condemnation of the needed property was apparently not even looked at. And it was done without a proper flood control master plan to evaluate the costs and benefits of projects on Boulder’s many creeks, determine which ones were worth doing, and then prioritize them based on the most benefit (including life/safety) for the least cost. Boulder’s politics have worked best, and created the least conflict, when the processes are open and the citizens can observe and engage as matters proceed. Sometim...

When I first ran for Boulder City Council in 1985, I learned an important lesson by knocking on doors and talking to all sorts of Boulder citizens: Being on Council was not about me, or my opinions. It’s about representing the citizens of Boulder, like the ones that I met and talked to, and what they think and value. This was a very profound experience, and really changed the way I thought about the role. Once on Council, I came to further appreciate the intelligence and interest of the citizens in what happens in Boulder. On any topic, there were always a few people in the meeting audience who knew more than any of us on Council. So when we established the Council agenda committee, one of our jobs was to invite those citizens to testify, so that we could ask them questions and learn what they knew. (Incidentally, this also saved time, because the mayor would ask others to not repeat what had already been said, but just say they agreed.) Our Council debates were pretty freewheeling wit...