Steve Pomerance

Boulder is in a unique position. We are the most flood-prone city in Colorado, right up against the mountains and with multiple creeks running through town. At the same time, we are reliant on water supplies that are very susceptible to climate change. And the 100-year-old Colorado River Compact will multiply that effect on our Western Slope water coming via the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. I want to address the flood issue now, and discuss water in an upcoming column. I’ve been serving for many months now on the city’s Community Working Group focused on stormwater and flood control issues. To cut to the chase, the problem we have is that the Boulder City Council has not provided direction to come forward with a list of specific, actionable items to reduce damage and safety risks from future floods. Additionally, there is no City Council commitment to fund what is needed in our lifetimes. The staff’s informal comment has been that to do what is necessary for all our drain...

The way the decision process for the library district has been presented is that either (1) the City and the County decide to form the district, or (2) the advocates gather signatures to put it on the ballot. Then, in either case, there will be a districtwide vote on the increase in property taxes to fund the district, currently “up to 3.8 mills.” I recently found out that these signers do not need to include a single City resident; they all could live in the part of the district outside the City limits. Also, the tax increase could pass even if a majority of City voters reject it. For example, if Boulder voters reject it by a 500 vote margin but out-of-city voters support it by a 600 vote margin, then our whole library system could be turned over to the library district even though a majority of City of Boulder voters disagree! From my review, state law does try to address this issue. But so far there has been no significant public attention to this concern. So how about simply givi...