Steve Pomerance

To better understand how the city of Boulder should fund our transportation budget shortfall, it’s helpful to look at how we pay for water here in Colorado. Water systems are funded through tap fees paid by new development, and user fees (water rates) paid by all system users. Tap fees pay for water rights, reservoirs, treatment plants, etc. needed to serve new development to prevent lowering of the level of service (LOS). Water rates pay for the electricity, chemicals, personnel, etc. needed to deliver water. Water rates can also correct for the inevitable inaccuracies in tap fees, which are set based on expected use rather than actual consumption. We accept paying for our own water, and indirectly paying for the water that we use at restaurants, golf courses, etc., because we understand that these fees pay for the costs of a limited commodity in a reasonable and equitable way. We treat public transportation facilities in a completely different manner. Only about 20-25 percent of ...

An estimated 2.4 million pounds of CO2 are spewed into our planet’s atmosphere every  second , a billion tons more than last year. Worldwide emission levels are over 50 percent higher than in 1990, per the report from the Global Carbon Project. If we don’t do something radical very soon, we could be faced with runaway global warming, as methane, also a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) escapes from melting arctic permafrost. Even without that, global warming above tolerable levels and frequent extreme weather events could make the Dust Bowl of the ’30s and Hurricane Sandy into regularly occurring disasters. We need to commit to addressing this issue, which is far more important in the long run than the U.S. budget-and-debt crisis. Colorado’s current rules are far too weak. The “30 percent by 2020” renewable energy requirement is actually closer to 26 percent, because in-state renewables get a 1.25 multiplier. And the target for rural electric co-ops and municipal utilities is only ...

The Boulder City Council recently voted to approve the “metrics.” These will measure whether the city has met the minimum standards specified in the charter for authorization to create a municipal electric utility, or “muni.” Even if these requirements are met, the council will still need to decide if the muni’s “value added” is sufficient; that decision is further down the road. One metric requirement has to do with the rates that the muni can charge. The charter says, “The City Council shall establish a light and power utility only if it can demonstrate, with verification by a third-party independent expert, that the utility  can…charge  rates that do not exceed those rates charged by Xcel Energy at the time of acquisition and that such rates will produce revenues sufficient to pay for operating expenses and debt payments, plus an amount equal to twenty-five percent (25 percent) of the debt payments.” Determining rates is generally done in two steps — first, figuring o...

Some years ago I read Robert Rubin’s book, “In An Uncertain World.” Rubin focused on the process of decision-making when the results of that decision are anything but guaranteed. Many times we have to make choices based on very uncertain forecasts; the key is to do the analysis in the proper context, to give it the appropriate “frame.” Last Thursday evening, the Boulder City Council was discussing the planning process for the Civic Center area that runs along Boulder Creek in downtown. The council is faced with some real issues here — many of the city’s buildings are already in the flood prone area, and climate change will almost certainly increase the frequency and severity of flood events. But how much more is not predictable with any level of certainty, at least not yet. So what is the council to do? The council needs to take the perspective of looking back from 25 or 50 years in the future. Just as some are already asking about past decisions, we do not want our successors to...

At the North Boulder Recreation Center on Wednesday morning, a number of people asked for my opinion on some of the ballot issues. So here goes: From the big picture perspective, Ballot Item 2A, the renewal of Boulder’s “carbon tax” (aka Climate Action Plan tax aka CAP tax) is critically important. Even though energy efficiency has a huge potential to reduce GHG emissions (some have calculated up to a 30 percent reduction) and to save money at the same time, it is very difficult to make real gains. Many people don’t have the free time to deal with the daunting prospect of doing energy audits, analyzing cost/benefit calculations, deciding on priorities, and hiring and managing contractors. Boulder has been a leader in integrating all these steps so that a business or homeowner can get things done easily and with assurance that they are making the proper choices. Renewing the CAP tax will allow the benefits of all this previous research and development to be realized. One new appro...

I went to the City Council meeting on Tuesday evening to ask the council to call up the decisions made by the Planning and Landmarks boards regarding the buildings that will replace the former Daily Camera offices. These buildings will occupy the block between Walnut and Pearl from 11th Street to roughly to where 10th Street would be. They will be precedent-setting for our downtown, but the decision process and the council’s struggles with whether to engage are symptomatic of the flaws in how we deal with our downtown. There were a number of other people who also asked that this project be reviewed and that the final decisions be made by our elected officials, and not just the appointed boards. The council spent three hours (unprecedented in my experience) making their decision, 5-3, to not call it up. One council member recused himself for reasons not revealed, and the mayor acknowledged that he was happy that he wasn’t the deciding vote. The board decisions were also close: The P...

The Daily Camera’s story of a week ago “Judge tosses Boulder ballot case, says there’s no right to a secret vote” discussed a case brought by the Citizens Center, a Colorado organization. This group’s claim, in short, is that the mail ballot election system used by some Colorado counties would allow anyone with a modicum of skill to match names to votes, given that they can get access to the ballots, envelopes, and county data-bases as allowed by the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA). This would violate the Colorado constitution, Article VII, Section 8, which states in part, “All elections by the people shall be by ballot, and in case paper ballots are required to be used, no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it. The election officers shall be sworn or affirmed not to inquire or disclose how any elector shall have voted. In all cases of contested election in which paper ballots are required to be used, the bal...

I was at REI last weekend and ran into an old friend, Jeff McWhirter, who is the president of the South East Boulder Neighborhood Association. We got into a long discussion about the possible annexation and development of the Hogan-Pancost property. It’s about 22 acres, off 55th south of Baseline just south of the East Boulder Community Center, and perhaps the last significant piece of undeveloped land Boulder can annex without going into Area III of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. The land is so fraught with problems that this process has been going on (and off) for about 17 years. The current proposal is for 120-plus units, part senior housing, some “affordable” units, and over 60 market rate houses. The issues specific to the site include lack of easy access to shopping and services, poor transit, and, more significantly, serious flooding potential, high ground water and threatened species. Unfortunately the data on these big issues is not the best. Current flood studie...

Seth Brigham’s recent journey through the legal system points out some of the essential conflicts in how confrontations are dealt with in our society. To briefly and incompletely summarize Brigham’s situation, he was tossed out of a Boulder City Council meeting a couple of years ago for appearing in his underwear and raising issues about council members’ behavior. He sued over his treatment; the city settled and paid $10,000. This year, some council members apparently felt that Brigham was a threat because of some other incidents, so the city attorney asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order against him. On Aug. 6, Brigham had his court date about whether the restraining order was to be made permanent. Per the statute (CRS 13-14-102) and as practiced, a temporary restraining order can be issued “ex parte,” meaning that only one side is present to provide information. The real debate is at the permanent order hearing; in this case the judge delayed his decision so th...

The Boulder City Council is in the process of imposing a fee on single use paper and plastic bags, the kind stores now give away to customers. Local governments have the power to impose such “special fees” on many activities. But because of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR – Article X, Sec. 20 in the Colorado Constitution) it’s important to know what the constraints are, so that the city can maximize protection of the environment while avoiding a lawsuit claiming that this fee is a tax and requires a TABOR vote. The council would do well to learn something about the field and not simply rely on consultants. I have seen experts make mistakes, or miss alternative approaches because they didn’t think broadly enough. There are a number of cases, both national and local, that interpret the 5th Amendment’s protection of private property. Local governments have been granted a lot of flexibility in setting fees, perhaps sometimes more than warranted, but this flexibility is not unlimi...

The majority of the current Boulder City Council is pursuing a set of policies that will provide them with increased flexibility, but will cost the citizens of Boulder most of our certainty about our future. For example, the council is debating whether or not to permanently reduce the amount of water committed to Thunderbird Lake to keep it from becoming a marsh. This raises the larger issue about Boulder’s having enough water for a future of a hotter climate, earlier runoff, less forests to hold water, and large amounts of new development. A recent Camera article documented the near term development boom; this is only a small fraction of what will occur with build-out. Numerous forecasts predict our mountains becoming semi-deserts after beetle kill and/or massive fires. This year’s drought almost triggered the second watering restriction in just over a decade; this would have violated Boulder’s supply standard of no more than one such restriction in 20 years. So unless some long-t...

No, this is not a discussion about physics. But it is about a real phenomenon, even if it takes place inside people’s heads. Sitting up behind the council desk in the Boulder City Council chambers can be very disorienting. It’s really easy to start feeling like the council is the center of the universe, and the people in the audience are somewhat unreal, like actors on a movie screen. What’s real are only your own thoughts and opinions. The danger occurs when this is not noticed, or when it just becomes easier to ignore that pesky reality outside the force field. It can sometimes require a conscious effort to break out of this shell and re-connect what you are doing with the outside world. You need to keep reminding yourself that you are there to serve the citizens in the audience and the rest who didn’t come to the council meeting that evening. It’s not about you, but about them. I attended the Boulder council meeting on Tuesday night to offer some comments on the potential ball...

In an excellent Daily Camera article entitled, “Boulder mayor: Financial disclosure, conflict-of-interest rules need review” (June 13, 2012), Mayor Matt Appelbaum said, “It’s really important that people see the council as transparent and that they see us as transparent because we are.” I certainly support Matt’s goal, but the current rules need a whole rewrite, not just a look-over. For example, suppose a Boulder council member said, “I think that the legislation before us would be great for Boulder, but my business will likely be hurt by it.” Most people would say that this council member has a fundamental conflict of interest and probably should not be voting on the matter. But under Boulder’s current laws, assuming that the business is not unique, this would not even be called a conflict of interest, and the council member could participate in discussions and vote. Governments have conflict of interest laws to provide the citizens some measure of assurance that their official...

If nothing else, this hopefully got your attention. It may even have conjured up some unusual thoughts or images. And you may have wondered just what I could possibly be up to. This has to do with Boulder’s charter and the bike race that will now end up on Flagstaff, part of Boulder’s open space system. All parts of open space are limited in what activities can occur there, and on Flagstaff the relevant use is “passive recreation.” The city administration is making the following argument relative to Summit Drive (the road from the gate to the Amphitheater), according to the city attorney’s quote in last Wednesday’s Camera, “‘If driving on a road is not passive recreational use, then a road is not open space as contemplated in the charter,’ he said. ‘If council considers that road to be open space under the charter, we probably should consider banning cars, though that would be a significant change from its historic use.'” Driving on a road, or parking in a lot, is not general...