Steve Pomerance

  A completely unnecessary dispute is occurring over the ballot language for the referendum vote on the CU South annexation. The referendum’s committee of petitioners think that the city’s language does not adequately identify exactly what is up for a vote. Thus, a voter who is not familiar with the situation will not know if a YES vote or a NO vote will reject the annexation, or neither. As a result, the petitioners have proposed alternative language to clarify this matter. But most of the city council is defending the staff’s proposed language as necessary and adequate. The staff proposal is, “Should Ordinance 8483 regarding the annexation of CU South, be repealed?” The petitioners’ counterproposal is, “Should Ordinance 8483, which annexes the land known as CU South and sets the terms thereof, be repealed?” The obvious problem with the staff’s language is the word “regarding.” Unless the voter knows that 8483 is the ordinance that actually annexes CU South, he/she would wonder ...

  I thought Camera readers would be interested to hear from other former council members about the proposed shift to even-year council elections. I contacted over a dozen former council members with whom I’ve stayed in touch. Eight volunteered to share their thoughts. Below are their comments in alphabetical order. Cindy Carlisle: Boulder’s non-partisan odd-year elections focus candidates and the electorate on an informed discussion of local candidates and issues. Electors aren’t distracted by the noise and money of national campaigns in even years. Citizens concerned about the city’s future and how it’s shaped participate, examining items both mundane (capital improvements) and exotic (Campaign Finance Reform!). Roughly one-third of the city, some 35,000 people, are CU students living here for, generally, four years. Changing local elections from odd to even-numbered years only to attract a transitory population — who can vote now — seems counterproductive to sound governanc...

  I’ve been studying the flood situation again, and it is becoming increasingly clear to me that (1) the proposed “100-year” detention pond for South Boulder Creek will not stop the areas that flooded in 2013 from being inundated again, and (2) the related Annexation Agreement that allows massive development on CU South is full of holes and should be repealed. Let’s be straight about the 2013 flood. Much of Southeast Boulder is a floodplain, created by South Boulder Creek, Viele Channel and other local flows. Given climate change and the resulting stronger storms, even if a storm centers on the Eldorado Springs area and drains into South Boulder Creek, it is a virtual certainty that this “100-year” pond will overtop with some frequency; so the downstream area will be flooded anyway. But if the storm centers a few miles further north over Southwest Boulder, water will come down Viele Channel, completely missing the detention pond. Then the water will do just what it did in 2013 — ...

  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...