Steve Pomerance

  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...

  “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,”  Thomas Jefferson once said . Unfortunately, the current notion about shifting our city elections to even years will lead to exactly the opposite. Many people in Boulder invest a lot of time in national and state-level elections. To force them to spread themselves even thinner will just dumb down our local elections. And others don’t get enough information to make informed choices. A perfect example of this dumbing down and information gap was the  strange statement made by Councilmember Matt Benjamin , a member of the so-called progressives, “At the heart, it’s lifting up those that are disenfranchised and don’t vote in odd years.” “Disenfranchise” means “deprive someone of the right to vote.” But every registered voter in Boulder County gets a ballot in both even and odd years. These can be filled out and returned by mail, or deposited in a drop-box, of which there are now ...

How should we elect our mayor? The current Boulder City Council is likely to push for charter changes to shift our city elections to even years, so it makes sense to also rethink the process of electing the mayor that was voted on in 2020. That change necessitated altering councilmembers’ terms to address the shift from nine to eight councilmembers. But it also required indicating how the mayor would be elected. The charter language now specifies, somewhat generically, that “The election shall be conducted by ranked choice (instant runoff) voting.” I suspect that most people voting for the change to direct election of mayor had not thought about what this language really means or what the alternatives are. Besides, it was clear at the time that the proponents of the direct election of mayor had not thought this through; their ballot issue ended up being completely rewritten by the city. Therefore, in my opinion, it makes sense to look at the alternatives as to how this voting wil...

The following is a modified version of testimony I sent to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for their current hearing on what will happen to Xcel’s coal plants and who should pay. It’s time for the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to fish or cut bait. Either you all work for the ratepayers, or you work for Xcel — but you can’t have it both ways. The fundamental way a regulated utility like Xcel makes money is by investing its equity and receiving a return commensurate with what a company in an equivalent but competitive position would make, given the risks associated with such a competitive position. Xcel has been earning over 9% on its equity, which constitutes over 50% of its invested capital. The rest is mostly callable bonds, and so are relatively expensive. The key element of all of this is the word “risk.” If such a company makes a bad decision, then it should bear the cost. The big issue is Comanche 3, Xcel’s huge coal-fired power plant built near Pueblo, a...

I’m part of a group of citizens helping Boulder city staff on the master plan for stormwater and flood protection work for Boulder’s waterways, other than South Boulder Creek. Just last week, we had some interesting discussions about whether we should focus more on how to prioritize the many projects that would cost in total hundreds of millions of dollars, or focus more on increasing the near-term funding for these projects to reduce the need to prioritize by doing more projects concurrently rather than sequentially. To give this some scale, current funding is approximately $7 million annually. City staff predicts that it may take more than 50 years to complete the work, and that upping funding to $11 million per year would allow completion in around 30 to 35 years. The total cost is estimated at roughly $350 million for about 30 projects. Per the 2014 Flood Impact Survey of those drainages impacted by the 2013 flood, damage was over $176 million in 2014 dollars, about $215 mill...

I’m not a professional water supply engineer. But I’ve learned enough over my decades of involvement in our city government to be very concerned about our future ability to keep providing adequate water for existing residents and businesses, much less the significant amounts of additional development being approved. Boulder’s water comes from three sources: The city-owned watershed  is on the east side of the Continental Divide, from South Arapahoe Peak to Niwot Ridge. It feeds many small reservoirs, and then comes via pipeline from above the Peak-to-Peak Highway to the Betasso treatment plant on Sugarloaf Road. We also own water  coming down Middle Boulder Creek, stored in Barker Reservoir near Nederland, and delivered via the Boulder Canyon gravity pipeline past the Boulder Canyon hydroelectric plant to Betasso. About a third comes  from our shares of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project (managed by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District), piped from th...

Boulder is in a unique position. We are the most flood-prone city in Colorado, right up against the mountains and with multiple creeks running through town. At the same time, we are reliant on water supplies that are very susceptible to climate change. And the 100-year-old Colorado River Compact will multiply that effect on our Western Slope water coming via the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. I want to address the flood issue now, and discuss water in an upcoming column. I’ve been serving for many months now on the city’s Community Working Group focused on stormwater and flood control issues. To cut to the chase, the problem we have is that the Boulder City Council has not provided direction to come forward with a list of specific, actionable items to reduce damage and safety risks from future floods. Additionally, there is no City Council commitment to fund what is needed in our lifetimes. The staff’s informal comment has been that to do what is necessary for all our drain...

The way the decision process for the library district has been presented is that either (1) the City and the County decide to form the district, or (2) the advocates gather signatures to put it on the ballot. Then, in either case, there will be a districtwide vote on the increase in property taxes to fund the district, currently “up to 3.8 mills.” I recently found out that these signers do not need to include a single City resident; they all could live in the part of the district outside the City limits. Also, the tax increase could pass even if a majority of City voters reject it. For example, if Boulder voters reject it by a 500 vote margin but out-of-city voters support it by a 600 vote margin, then our whole library system could be turned over to the library district even though a majority of City of Boulder voters disagree! From my review, state law does try to address this issue. But so far there has been no significant public attention to this concern. So how about simply givi...

The Library District proposal, with its huge property tax increase, had serious problems with both its structure and funding. But worse, it has taken a relatively simple issue and turned it into yet another polarized debate. Yesterday I watched the video of Tuesday’s council meeting, I saw councilmembers struggling to come to agreement on even the basic LD issues. It became clear to me that there is no solid reasoning to support the creation of a Library District (LD). Every significant desire can be better or more easily met with actions that can be taken by the city on its own. What I find irritating is that these alternative actions have not been explored. It’s as if the “good idea” of a LD has taken over the thinking. What should have been done is to identify the actual policy goals, and then explore the options to achieving them, with both pros and cons fully analyzed. Here’s a start: Money:   Fundamentally, the advocates want the library to have more money to spend on providi...