Steve Pomerance

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...