Opinion: There is still a lot of election confusion to clear up

 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before the debate even started, was the ballot title, “Shall Ordinance 8483, regarding the annexation of CU South, be repealed?”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 enough land to build a proper “500-year” pond that is not too deep. A shallow pond could avoid increasing the flow rate under the U.S. 36 bridge and flooding more land immediately downstream when the water starts to flow back into the creek as the creek’s flood flow drops. (By the way, I have been unable to extract from the city the details of these alleged regulations.)

Adequate land is not available because CU wants 129 acres with “500-year” protection for its own development. So Boulder neighbors to the north only get a “100-year” pond for protection. And when the next big flood occurs, as climate change ensures it will, CU’s land will likely be high and dry while the neighbors’ land may be under water. Also, remember that a significant portion of the 2013 floodwater came from the Viele Lake area to the north, and will completely bypass whatever detention pond is built. Thus, measures such as floodproofing buildings and installing sewer lining and backflow preventers should be done irrespective.

Correcting some other misconceptions: CU is not giving the city all of the open space land; CU is selling the majority of it for $37,500 per acre. The housing to be built on CU South, other than 10% of the units, is not required to be affordable, versus the city’s required 25% permanently affordable units for all other development. CU is only required to construct 2 sq. ft. of residential for every 1 sq. ft. of non-residential. (To grasp how small this is, compare your own housing and workspace.) So we can reasonably expect that the on-site students, faculty and staff will fill up all the available housing and then spill over, creating more pressure on prices elsewhere. And the rather opaque water deal apparently exchanges CU’s untreated, seasonal ditch rights for the city’s highly reliable year-round treated water.

In the library district ballot measure, I note that the district’s property tax revenues have no limits on how much they can increase. Everyone knows that housing values have gone up fast, both because we’ve managed to keep the Boulder area relatively nice and because our excessive job growth has put enormous pressure on housing and thus on prices. This rapid price escalation means that the library district’s property tax revenues could grow much faster than costs. Leaving aside other issues, like its unelected governance, etc., the ballot measure should have included a revenue growth restriction: Revenue increases should not exceed population growth plus inflation. That would provide some limits on tax payments.

One issue the proponents of even year council elections have avoided is that elections are not just about voters. Council elections also require participation by citizens who campaign for their preferred candidates, and who contribute money so that information can get out to voters. Having to do this work in an even year, on top of trying to elect good candidates to national, state and county offices, is going to really overload the folks that devote a lot of time, work and money to these activities.

Without this active participation by lots of people, city council races would become effectively partisan, with slates playing a determining role, and lots of money spent obliquely (to avoid campaign finance restrictions). The likely result is unbalanced outcomes that favor those well-heeled interests with skilled political consultants.

Many former city council members, who have been through this multiple times, support continuing our odd-year elections, as do some sitting council members. Shifting to even years will just make our election process worse and should be voted down.

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