Steve Pomerance

  In 1999, a group of citizens placed on the ballot and voters passed what might have been the most important reform of Boulder’s election laws ever. It limited donations to candidates’ “official candidate committees” to $100 per person. Donations to “unofficial candidate committees” (candidate advocacy groups other than the candidates’ OCCs) are also limited to $100 per person.  And coordination between these UCCs and the candidate’s OCCs is strictly forbidden other than cost sharing for advertising space. The initiative petition process has also been reformed. In 2018, the council-appointed election working group proposed, and voters approved, charter reforms that tied the number of signatures required for initiated ordinances to the actual number of voters rather than to the highly variable number of registered voters, limited council amendments after passage to those consistent with the “basic intent” of the measure, and gave the council power to implement on-line petitioning.

  This year’s Boulder City Council election was unlike any other I can remember. Although roughly the same number of people voted, frankly I was surprised that it wasn’t more, given the hot button issues like the Bedrooms and CU South ballot issues. And then there was the name-calling, fake web postings, etc. I don’t ever remember seeing anything like this in past elections. It seems obvious that something is seriously wrong here. And I know people are disengaging, and from my observation, it’s because they think that they don’t count or the processes don’t work. In my opinion, the next council needs to start off with a bang, and not just repeat the last two years’ way of operating, which seems to have suppressed active participation in the process of policy formation, not encouraged it. So here are some suggestions for the first meeting and beyond: Return to calling the first part of the Council meeting what it should be — active Citizen Participation, rather than passive Public