Steve Pomerance

At the last City Council meeting, Seth Brigham, a citizen of Boulder and former council candidate, was arrested by the police after attempting to raise issues about the behavior of certain sitting council members. The city manager has provided a detailed account, as well as recommendations to minimize future problems. But the fundamental issues are still unresolved. What caused all the trouble was the council`s rule that “speakers engaging in personal attacks may be interrupted by the mayor.” The notion of “personal attacks” is vague, the word “may” allows arbitrary application, and the rule is inappropriate since many times citizens come before council specifically to criticize the actions of council members. What exactly is a citizen supposed to do if they disagree with the actions of a specific council member? If they criticize that person, they could be shut down. And what if the mayor “interrupts” one person but not another who says something very similar? Is there any recours...

In Wednesday`s Daily Camera, we were all put on notice that the time it takes Boulder`s fire and emergency vehicles to respond is falling further and further behind both our own and national standards. Only the day before, many of us received e-mails from the city`s planning department inviting us to a workshop to discuss “sustainable growth and development” as part of the five-year update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP). It doesn`t take a rocket scientist to see that past growth and resulting traffic increases have led to these slower emergency response times. And that given the amount of expected future growth (13,000 more residents and 60,000 more jobs to “reasonable buildout”) and the failure of the city to require that growth pay its own way, the notion of “sustainable growth and development” is an oxymoron. If this growth is pursued, our future is rather grim, with emergency response time being just one of many sacrifices. The response time problem is simple...