Steve Pomerance

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...