Steve Pomerance

  A few days ago, I was watching the video of the Dec. 15 City Council meeting to find out what happened with the ordinance addressing on-line and other petitioning matters. I heard a number of council members complaining bitterly about “ad hominem” attacks, presumably related to comments made by citizens about the performance of the city attorney. As a former council member, I can understand their upsets. But what seems to be missing is any acknowledgement of the existence of some serious underlying problems. Just for example, relative to this ordinance, I had sent in some obvious corrections to the ordinance. It was missing the 180-day limit on signature gathering, and it continued the city’s self-created exemption from state requirements for petition formats, which leaves the city without complete legal standards. But nothing was fixed. This is far from the first time I’ve taken on mistakes that never should have happened. For example, in the recent election, the council p...

Boulder has one of the most educated citizenries of any city in the U.S., and Boulder citizens are very knowledgeable and strongly engaged in the issues that affect our future. Unfortunately, many citizens have lost trust in the city’s processes. Our City Council should take advantage of the recent retirement of City Manager Jane Brautigam to resolve many longstanding issues so that our city government works better for Boulder citizens. The next city manager must have the ability and interest to successfully manage “policy projects” – those efforts that address the significant issues and opportunities in such difficult areas as: flood planning; the new Xcel franchise and getting to a clean energy future; and growth issues, including jobs/population balance, affordable housing, transportation planning that actually reduces congestion, and keeping Boulder livable. For policy projects to succeed, the manager must ensure that citizens are involved early and often. That includes using...

I’ve heard many misconceptions as to what would happen if we sign this franchise with Xcel Energy. So I’ll try to try to clarify a few points. Regulated for-profit monopoly investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs) like Xcel are not the norm. Competitive markets, including some multi-state, exist in many areas of the U.S. Rural electric associations operate in other areas. And around 2,000 municipally owned utilities operate across the U.S., with 29 in Colorado, including Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, Colorado Springs, Aspen, Glenwood Springs, and Gunnison. This current regulated for-profit structure was created about a century ago. The companies’ goal was to eliminate competition, and “capture” their regulators (public utilities commissions, or PUCs) by limiting them to operating in a reactive mode. That way, the companies secured both market control and profitability. These IOUs then invest as much as the PUCs will allow in power plants, transmission lines, etc. For exam...

A number of people have asked me about this year’s bumper crop of ballot measures. Here’s my brief take. The big money ones are Amendment B, repealing the Gallagher Amendment; Proposition 116, reducing the state income tax; and Proposition 117, requiring voter approval for certain new state enterprises. The argument for repealing Gallagher started with some small districts that are predominantly residential and where property values have not risen like in the majority of the state. So Gallagher’s mechanism, which lowers residential property taxes to keep a statewide balance between residential and commercial taxes, has cut into their revenues. But eliminating Gallagher will just raise everyone else’s residential property taxes even faster. The solution needs to be focused on solving the small districts’ problems, not just throwing out what has worked so well in keeping residential and commercial taxes in balance. Prop 117 requires voter approval for many fee-funded “enterprises.” This ...

The “Our Mayor, Our Choice” ballot measure failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. But the Boulder City Council voted 5-4 to put it on, anyway. The council fixed a number of problems that both the petitioners and city staff had ignored. But the council failed to address the fundamental problems that a directly elected mayor will face within our governmental structure, as well as the serious flaws with this measure’s mandated “ranked choice voting.” Ranked choice voting (RCV) is a system where the voters rank order the candidates using a grid on the ballot that has the candidates’ names down the side and first, second, third, etc. across the top. Voters fill in the ovals in the grid to “rank” order the various candidates. Obviously, this could get tedious and mistake-prone with lots of candidates, which we’ll likely have, because there are no restrictions on who can run. Worse, we could easily end up with a mayor who is not the people’s optimal choice. Imagine a ra...

Over the last months, Boulder officials had a number of closed-door meetings with Xcel Energy. They appear to be following the rules for executive sessions (rejected by the voters in 2017) where nothing is revealed other than the basic topics. Given this lack of information, citizens attempting to provide input in the public comment sessions were unable to give detailed feedback. These agreements, almost 100 pages of dense text, are now public, and predictably, have serious flaws. For example, a critical question is enforceability: What happens if Xcel doesn’t live up to the terms? The only recourse provided is for Boulder to “opt out” of the agreements. The first real opportunity is five years after the Public Utilities Commission approves the agreements. 2026 at the soonest and very far in the future. Worse, the agreement’s “opt out” language is completely garbled: “The city will notify the company that it will end the franchise, if by vote of the City Council or of its intent ...

Clear information has been lacking about the rules on the city’s petitioning process. Here are the basics from state and local law: The 1970 home rule amendment to the Colorado Constitution Article XX added Section 9. This grants citizens the power to amend home rule city charters, and directs the Legislature to set the rules for such charter amendments. It also added Section 8, which states that this amendment supersedes any parts of the constitution that are not consistent with it. In 1971, the Legislature passed its Home Rule Act to implement Article XX’s amendments. Its legislative declaration in C.R.S. 31-2-202 states that it supersedes all other provisions. In C.R.S. 31-2-210, the act set the signature percentages and timing rules — 5 percent of registered voters for “regular” (council) elections, 10 percent for “special” (all other) elections, 90 days to collect and submit signatures, and signature submission to be done by 90 days before the election. Boulder Charter Sec...

In 1970, Coloradans passed the “Colorado Home Rule for Local Governments Amendment,” adding Article XX, Section 9, to our state constitution. It states in part: “The general assembly shall provide by statute procedures under which the registered electors of any proposed or existing city and county, city, or town may adopt, amend, and repeal a municipal home rule charter.” Then in 1971, the Legislature implemented this section by adopting C.R.S. 31-2. It declared in C.R.S. 31-2-202: “the policies and procedures contained in this part 2 are enacted to implement section 9 of article XX of the state constitution, adopted at the 1970 general election” and that “this part 2 shall supersede” prior parts of the state constitution. C.R.S. 31-2-210 allows 90 days for circulating and submitting charter amendment petitions, requires submission by 90 days before the election, and requires signing by 5 percent of registered electors for “regular elections” – when council members are elected and...

The Open Space Board of Trustees finally did what the City Council and the Water Resources Advisory Board have failed to do. The OSBT conditioned the use of open space for flood control on city staff taking a serious look at upstream options. This could potentially avoid both a view-blocking dam along U.S. Highway 36 as well as destruction of important wildlife habitat. This examination of a broader range of options is long overdue. Also, thanks to council member Mark Wallach for raising two big equity issues – which creeks should get the flood control money to maximize the benefit/cost ratio, and who should pays for the University of Colorado Boulder’s expansion agenda, CU or Boulder citizens. That these questions still exist exposes the fact that this process was mismanaged from the beginning. South Boulder Creek was one of multiple tributaries that flooded in 2013. It’s the biggest, but others, including Bear Canyon Creek, Bluebell Creek, and Skunk Creek, also had very signifi...

The “direct election of mayor” initiative is fatally flawed. This initiative, which emerged a few weeks ago, is so flawed that the proponents should withdraw it and not submit it again until they have addressed its obvious problems. And for those council members who, because of the coronavirus’s impact on signature gathering, seem attached to the idea of simply putting initiated measures on the ballot without doing detailed analysis, this is a perfect example of why not to do that. Under this proposal, Boulder would end up with seven council members and a mayor, eight in total. Even numbers don’t work, because they lead to deadlocked votes on many issues. That’s why councils have odd numbers of members. What happened here is that the petitioners reduced the number of council members getting four-year terms in each council election from four to three. As a result, there would be three four-year term members in one odd-year election, then another three in the next odd-year election...

This year Boulder has three citizen initiatives in process. Two are ordinances: One requires the city government to pay for lawyers to represent renters that face eviction. The other diverts certain tax money currently collected on our electricity bills to subsidize renewables. The third amends the city charter: It requires the city to allow all housing units to be occupied by one person per bedroom plus one more, and units with fewer than four bedrooms to have four people. Given social distancing and that the online petition system is still not operational, the probability of these making the ballot is low. But it’s still useful to discuss some of the details and implications, so that people who are asked to sign petitions are aware of what might happen if these actually pass. I’ll take the “eviction” one on first, with the rest to follow in future pieces. The No Eviction Without Representation act requires that the city provide legal representation in any proceeding where a ten...

Recent months have been really scary. Everyone is threatened by the coronavirus. Testing is way behind where it should be. The stock market is dropping at record rates, and the economy as a whole is slowing dramatically. Many people are being pushed to the edge, both economically and health-wise. But within this bleak scenario, there are things to be thankful for. Our local and state governments are doing a very good job with the resources and technology that they can access. Walking in neighborhoods is a pleasure, with people greeting each other — at the appropriate physical separation. We have our open space, where we can get out and enjoy nature. I recently hiked the southern portion of the Mesa Trail and was greeted by truly spectacular views of the Denver skyline and the eastern plains. The air was clearer than I ever remember seeing in my 50-plus years in Boulder. I also had time to read a book that I’ve put off for years — “The March of Folly,” by Barbara Tuchman, first p...