Steve Pomerance

The City of Boulder is working on a wish list of projects that it may ask the taxpayers to fund in an upcoming election. What is also needed is an equivalent effort to look at alternatives to general tax increases as a way to fund public infrastructure. For example, the suggested $43.2 million for street improvements could be funded by imposing parking fees in all employment areas. Boulder has something like 60,000 in-commuters. And we are on the edge of having a very serious traffic congestion problem, caused to a significant extent by this in-commuting. Parking fees would raise needed funds, and at the same time encourage car-pooling and buses. The city could charge private lots a fee on a per space basis, which would be reduced if parking charges were put in place. Such fees, together with an Adequate Public Facilities ordinance like Fort Collins has, that requires new development to pay to maintain transportation levels of service, could eliminate the need for future tax increa...

On the GMO front, the county commissioners are faced with sorting through lots of facts and opinions, but I have not heard much about the widespread use of certain herbicides leading to the evolution of “superweeds.” According to “The Growing Menace From Superweeds,” Scientific American, May 2011, weeds are developing resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in RoundUp and other herbicides. This process parallels the evolution of bacteria to resist certain antibiotics, and is accelerated by widespread use. Companies like Monsanto may make a profit by creating a GMO that resists a herbicide, and then promoting both this genetic variant and the herbicide. And farmers may do better in the short term, although even this is under debate. But the GMO/herbicide combo seems counterproductive in the long term, and that is what will ultimately count. In the utility arena, Xcel has filed for a rate increase that, according to reports, will raise rates about 4 percent, nearly a $5 milli...

The role of the mayor in Boulder’s government has undergone some significant changes over the 30 years I’ve been involved in local politics, even though the basic form of government has remained the same — the weak mayor-strong city manager system. Although the structure generally works well, sometimes it needs a few fixes. Many of the current concerns over the selection of the mayor stem from people thinking that the mayor has a strong (or sometimes excessive) influence over what the council works on and the outcomes of the meetings. Similar concerns existed when I was elected to the council. Our solution was to create the three-member Council Agenda Committee (CAC) to work with the city manager on the agenda, a job previously relegated to the mayor, with help from the deputy mayor. You might not think that simply adding one more person would make any difference, but at least for a number of years the CAC worked very well. The reasons our CAC worked were multiple: First, the thi...

Tuesday’s Boulder City Council vote to limit trail building on Anemone Hill, to exclude mountain bikes from its north and east sides, and to ask the Open Space board to study a mountain bike link up out of Boulder Canyon and then west to Four Mile Canyon, was exactly the right thing to do. Anemone Hill is the long ridge between Boulder Canyon and Sunshine Canyon (the west extension of Mapleton Avenue.)  Anemone Hill has a rich and diverse wildlife habitat, especially on its north side, which faces Sunshine Canyon, where most of the rejected trails were proposed to be built. Indicator species (which give information on the health of the habitat) that live in that area include Northern goshawk, Abert’s squirrel, black bear, and wild turkey. Building trails every couple of hundred yards on the ridge’s north face would have destroyed much of this important habitat. The east side, because it is so accessible from Settler’s Park off Canyon and Centennial Trailhead off Mapleton, i...

Voting yes on Ballot Issues 2B and 2C will allow Boulder to take the necessary steps to determine if it should become Colorado’s 30th municipal electric utility. 2C authorizes the City to form the utility, but only if stringent financial, reliability and environmental safeguards are met. 2B, which only costs the average household about $1/month, provides funds to complete engineering plans and obtain the legal decisions necessary to finalize costs. If an independent third party expert determines that rates at start-up will not exceed Xcel’s, and all other conditions are met, Boulder could form a municipal utility, with local control, competitive rates, long term price stability, increased renewable energy, and a 50 percent or higher reduction in CO2 output. Profits that now go to Xcel become savings to Boulder ratepayers. Our energy dollars stay at home. We can remove the restrictive rules on solar installations, promote local innovation, and attract hi-tech businesses. Or Xcel mig...

Voting yes on Ballot Issues 2B and 2C will allow Boulder to take the necessary steps to determine if it should become Colorado’s 30th municipal electric utility. 2C authorizes the City to form the utility, but only if stringent financial, reliability and environmental safeguards are met. 2B, which only costs the average household about $1/month, provides funds to complete engineering plans and obtain the legal decisions necessary to finalize costs. If an independent third party expert determines that rates at start-up will not exceed Xcel’s, and all other conditions are met, Boulder could form a municipal utility, with local control, competitive rates, long term price stability, increased renewable energy, and a 50 percent or higher reduction in CO2 output. Profits that now go to Xcel become savings to Boulder ratepayers. Our energy dollars stay at home. We can remove the restrictive rules on solar installations, promote local innovation, and attract hi-tech businesses. Or Xcel mig...

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...