Steve Pomerance

Many of you are probably familiar with Lorie Smith, a website designer, who asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block enforcement of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. This Act would have prevented her from refusing to create wedding websites for same-sex couples. Apparently, Ms. Smith’s objection comes from her religious beliefs, and the case is being argued regarding whether her combined First Amendment rights regarding freedom of speech and free exercise of religion are being violated. Rather than jump to a conclusion, I’ve tried to sort out the arguments being made. But the analogies and parallels that I’ve read get increasingly convoluted. Finally, I found a government website called “Constitution Annotated — Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.” Reading through the First Amendment section, it became clear to me that even the most extensive and sophisticated arguments will not resolve such issues. So, I tried to step back from the details and asked myself what the ...

 I’m sure many of you read in the newspapers recently that the Earth’s population of humans has now reached 8 billion. To put this in perspective, human population reached 1 billion in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1960 and 4 billion in 1974. The UN projects there will be 9 billion by 2037, and then (hopefully) stop increasing at around 10 billion in the 2080s (data per Population Connection’s white paper). The planet’s human population has doubled since many of us first became aware of the existential threat of global warming due to excessive emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. In the early 1800s, carbon dioxide emissions were relatively small. But by 1950, the world’s carbon dioxide emissions totaled around 6 billion tons per year. By 1990, this had almost quadrupled, reaching more than 22 billion tons per year. Now, emissions are over 34 billion tons each year, according to Our World In Data. As a result, Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14 degrees F...

The city council recently took up the issue of allowing more “accessory dwelling units” in single-family neighborhoods. An ADU is a self-contained apartment within a single-family house or in a separate building on the same lot. Currently, Boulder has significant limits on ADUs, including requirements for off-street parking and density limits, like allowing only 20% of houses in a 300-foot radius to have ADUs. These were carefully worked out several years ago. Now, some council members are pushing to allow all single-family homes to have ADUs, both internal and external. That would allow three units on every lot — two ADUs plus the main unit — though with the proposed 900-square-foot size limit, this could look like a duplex plus another house. And even with a constraint of, say, a maximum of five unrelated people, it would effectively turn every lot into a small condo development, since ownership could be through an LLC whose members change with whoever is living there. Interestin...

I spend a lot of my time hiking and scrambling in the mountains. I find it immensely rewarding to focus on where I put my feet and hands, and look at the scenery, landscape and geology, which is more-or-less like it was before humans over-occupied the planet. And I think that the risks, however slight, add to the experience of being just a small piece of nature. Coming back down to our current political reality in Boulder is always a shock. But being in the mountains gives me some perspective — at least I hope it does. My observation is that although big decisions may engender strong feelings, they do not have to be so highly polarizing as they are now. Fundamentally, having the full set of real facts and proper analysis kept in the public view has always reduced controversy, narrowed the set of realistic options and made it more difficult to take extreme positions. I offer the CU South controversy as case in point. In my opinion, the problem started with the lack of consistent awarene...

Proposition 123 is a state-level initiative to direct taxpayers’ money into affordable housing programs. Ignoring the myriad details, Prop 123 doesn’t institute the preconditions I would require before supporting using state taxes for affordable housing. First, any state-level affordable housing funding should have as a prerequisite that the region is adjusting its zoning to balance jobs and housing growth. Simply put, if a city continually adds more and more job development (office, commercial, industrial, etc.), then it needs to balance that with an adequate amount of housing. And for those who think that continually adding jobs makes a place better off financially, Boulder’s seminal Jobs/Housing Study twenty years ago showed that, at best, it’s break-even regarding operating costs and a net loser when you consider growth-related capital costs. (By the way, Boulder failed to do this balancing with the East Boulder Sub-Community Plan — a missed opportunity.) Second, all job develo...

Please find the full presentation at the following link: CU South debate PPT v3.pptx

  Last Friday, I participated in a debate with former Mayor Sam Weaver about the CU South annexation referendum ballot measure. The Boulder Rotary Club sponsored it at their regular meeting at the Jewish Community Commons. The first thing on the screen, before the debate even started, was the ballot title, “Shall Ordinance 8483, regarding the annexation of CU South, be repealed?” The announcer cleared up the confusion resulting from this oblique wording by explaining to the audience that a “yes” vote supported repealing the annexation itself, and not some peripheral issue. I thought that this was incredibly thoughtful of the Rotary Club. The council should acknowledge having put a confusing title on the ballot and publicly clarify what the ballot measure means at their meetings. A few issues emerged in the debate that I thought deserve some quick comments. The statement that a “500-year” detention pond is “not feasible” is really a statement about CU’s unwillingness to provide ...

Please find the full presentation below: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xmjmpFcsRzsilhdNe5bQTiHfCAvUKUu-/view?usp=sharing

  I attended the court hearing last Thursday on the challenge to the ballot title for the referendum on the CU South annexation passed by the council a year ago. (Note: The council could have held a special election last January, avoiding eight months of delay.) The judge ruled that she did not have jurisdiction, basically because of the council’s amendment a few years ago to the Boulder Revised Code that said that no state laws apply to the initiative, referendum and recall processes, other than those related to certain criminal offenses. (The Code contains laws passed by the council; the Charter can only be amended by citizen vote.) Since neither the Charter nor the Code contain any procedure for challenging ballot titles, the judge, and the rest of us, were left hanging.  Additionally, because of this amendment to the Code, there is not even a legally required format for the petition itself. So that gets made up by the city (also unchallengeable, by the way). And that t...

  The decisions around how best to protect Boulderites from flood damage and risks are complex, given our location at the base of steep foothills. I was the lead council member in the late ‘80s for Boulder’s first efforts on flood protection and have followed the CU South process closely, so I’m familiar with the issues. And information circulating now is, to a large extent, misleading and biased. First, the flood protection provided by the proposed “100-year” detention pond on South Boulder Creek is inadequate and incomplete. The fundamental problem is that, in a large storm like we had in 2013, water flows into SE Boulder (much of which is a floodplain) from multiple sources — South Boulder Creek (SBC) from Eldorado Canyon, Viele Channel from Viele Lake area near Shanahan Ridge, and multiple local drainages. And we can expect more “atmospheric rivers” as the climate warms. So, some flooding is inevitable. The proposed flood detention “pond” only addresses one source — SBC. Fl...

  A completely unnecessary dispute is occurring over the ballot language for the referendum vote on the CU South annexation. The referendum’s committee of petitioners think that the city’s language does not adequately identify exactly what is up for a vote. Thus, a voter who is not familiar with the situation will not know if a YES vote or a NO vote will reject the annexation, or neither. As a result, the petitioners have proposed alternative language to clarify this matter. But most of the city council is defending the staff’s proposed language as necessary and adequate. The staff proposal is, “Should Ordinance 8483 regarding the annexation of CU South, be repealed?” The petitioners’ counterproposal is, “Should Ordinance 8483, which annexes the land known as CU South and sets the terms thereof, be repealed?” The obvious problem with the staff’s language is the word “regarding.” Unless the voter knows that 8483 is the ordinance that actually annexes CU South, he/she would wonder ...

  I thought Camera readers would be interested to hear from other former council members about the proposed shift to even-year council elections. I contacted over a dozen former council members with whom I’ve stayed in touch. Eight volunteered to share their thoughts. Below are their comments in alphabetical order. Cindy Carlisle: Boulder’s non-partisan odd-year elections focus candidates and the electorate on an informed discussion of local candidates and issues. Electors aren’t distracted by the noise and money of national campaigns in even years. Citizens concerned about the city’s future and how it’s shaped participate, examining items both mundane (capital improvements) and exotic (Campaign Finance Reform!). Roughly one-third of the city, some 35,000 people, are CU students living here for, generally, four years. Changing local elections from odd to even-numbered years only to attract a transitory population — who can vote now — seems counterproductive to sound governanc...

  I’ve been studying the flood situation again, and it is becoming increasingly clear to me that (1) the proposed “100-year” detention pond for South Boulder Creek will not stop the areas that flooded in 2013 from being inundated again, and (2) the related Annexation Agreement that allows massive development on CU South is full of holes and should be repealed. Let’s be straight about the 2013 flood. Much of Southeast Boulder is a floodplain, created by South Boulder Creek, Viele Channel and other local flows. Given climate change and the resulting stronger storms, even if a storm centers on the Eldorado Springs area and drains into South Boulder Creek, it is a virtual certainty that this “100-year” pond will overtop with some frequency; so the downstream area will be flooded anyway. But if the storm centers a few miles further north over Southwest Boulder, water will come down Viele Channel, completely missing the detention pond. Then the water will do just what it did in 2013 — ...

  Why not ask the people? This all started when I saw the Boulder city staff’s proposal to increase the climate action tax to expand Boulder’s investment in reducing our carbon output. I applaud these efforts, having been involved in renewable energy projects since 1975 when I built my solar home, and in 1982 when I designed Boulder’s solar access ordinance. But why are we not requiring that all new buildings be net-zero in energy use? With all the new technology and the availability of community solar, it’s totally feasible and reasonably economic. If the council is not willing to take that step, why not poll the citizens to see if there is political support? What also caught my eye was the additional $1.5 million for wildfire prevention efforts. After the Marshall and NCAR fires, this is clearly a very serious issue. So I contacted the city council about the fire risks associated with unhoused people camping on city lands. The response I got back from one council member was...