Opinion: The upcoming Boulder election is critical to our future


Voters will face numerous ballot items, a slate of new council candidates, and an initiated charter amendment, Ballot Question 310, aka the “Xcel Profit Protection Plan.”
The big tax issues are quite complicated. Ballot Question 2C extends the existing 0.33 percent sales tax for open space that expires in 2018, but converts it into a 0.22 percent tax for open space that would drop to 0.10 percent in 2035, with the remaining 0.11 percent through 2035 and 0.23 percent thereafter going to the general fund. Both of these would be permanent taxes thereafter.
Ballot Issue 2B would increase sales taxes by an additional 0.15 percent from 2014 through 2019 to pay for transportation maintenance, transit, etc. Ballot Question 2D would convert the other temporary 0.15 percent open space tax that expires in 2019 to fund transportation infrastructure from then through 2029 and then be an undedicated tax through 2039.
You might wonder why the tax extension for open space is on the ballot now, when the current taxes don’t expire for some years. With this extension, the long-term revenue stream would be sufficient, but just barely, to allow planned purchases (but not regional trails, urban agriculture, buyout of mineral rights, etc.) to be financed now when interest rates and property prices are low. But with the recent flood damage to open space, estimated at $17-plus million, even these proposed revenues may not be adequate.
Looking at long-term maintenance, the current permanent 0.40 percent open space tax is inadequate even to maintain the properties currently owned. Because the general fund will no longer keep providing $1-plus million to manage the mountain parks lands that were transferred to open space in 2000, the permanent 0.10 percent additional funding after 2034 will still be, at best, only marginally adequate.
Apparently, the real reason this hodge-podge is on the ballot now is that some council members saw this as their last chance to sell a general fund tax (whose needs have not been properly analyzed, and alternative revenue sources and potential expenditure reductions not adequately studied) as a tax extension tied to an open space tax, because open space is so popular.
2D, the long-term transportation tax, is inadequate for the huge problem that neither the council nor the Transportation Advisory Board has addressed. With potentially 60,000 more employees, and tens of thousands of new residents, Boulder must switch transportation funding to some form of user fee, and impose some form of impact fees on new development. Otherwise, the current afternoon rush hour will become all day gridlock. 2B, the short-term tax, should have been done with a maintenance fee that would have charged the school district, CU and the Fed labs appropriately. Apparently politics won out over principle.
Although some good work has been done, like with municipalization, overall the city council culture has changed. Council members rely more on staff opinions rather than doing their own analyses. Council has given up access to staff, so the kind of in-depth conversations that occurred on a regular basis between council members and department heads when I was on the council are less frequent. The word-smithing that I have seen at recent council meetings indicates that meeting preparation is inadequate; the agenda committee’s job is to ensure that motions and backup material are properly prepared so that the council can have a serious debate, not spend their time editing. Unfortunately, the council seems to have accepted these negative changes, albeit unwittingly, or so it appears.
Boulder’s fundamental land use policies are under attack. For example, there is a move to disempower the Comprehensive Plan by removing the county from decisions about annexing the planning reserve, hundreds of acres northeast of town. Also, some legal interpretations are being discussed that would, in effect, vacate open space charter provisions, both on use and on disposal of land. If carried to the extreme and if the wrong council gets elected, Boulder would have no protections against sprawl, with agricultural or open space land potentially becoming housing projects, mega sports complexes, or industrial sites. This may sound far-fetched, but unfortunately it’s a real possibility.
We need some new focus on council. We need council members who will not just accept what they are told without really understanding the facts and logic behind it, who will truly respect the Charter and Comprehensive Plan, and who are willing to take responsibility for protecting what has made Boulder so great.


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