Opinion: Boulder’s next mayor will have some great opportunities

This November, Boulderites will vote for mayor. It’s important to remember that the whole city council, including the mayor, will still vote on all ordinances, resolutions and motions. The mayor’s most visible role will still be running the meetings. But an elected mayor could make a big difference in how meetings are prepared for and how outreach is handled. Improving both processes would improve both how Boulder’s government is perceived by the citizens and the quality of the council’s decisions.

An example is the recent decision by the council to allow e-bikes on certain Open Space trails. The vote was 8-0 to allow e-bikes. From council members’ lack of response to the strong majority of speakers who testified against allowing e-bikes, it appeared that council members had made up their minds before the meeting. So, testifying was apparently a waste of time. (I spoke, and the experience was like talking to a wall.)

What difference could an elected mayor have made? For example, he/she could have required the staff to provide more balanced statistics. Conflicts between bikers and hikers most often occur on narrow trails that allow bikes, a relatively small portion of the total OS trail system. The staff could have visited these spots, asked hikers and bikers about their immediate experience, and provided that to the council.

That information would have been especially illuminating because there was no recognition that e-bikes, because they reduce effort so much, could multiply the number of bikes in an area. This would hugely increase the conflicts because faster bikes would conflict with slower bikes as well as hikers. The argument made that allowing e-bikes would reduce greenhouse gas emissions is nonsense. Less able folks could ride their e-bikes to the trailhead and then hike from there. The staff’s legal analysis focused on the steps the council would need to take, but failed to detail why the Charter’s permission for “bicycles” on OS did not include e-bikes, since e-bikes were almost non-existent when the Charter amendment allowing bicycles was passed.

An elected mayor could have ensured that all these points were fully illuminated in the agenda material because he/she would not be beholden to the rest of the council for his/her position. An elected mayor could have asked questions of the citizens who spoke (and even invited some to speak), to further illuminate the contrary points that citizens made. All this might have made some council members rethink their preconceptions. And at a minimum, citizens who testified would have known that their views were heard.000

Regarding the CU South decision, an elected mayor could have pushed for a detailed analysis of the relative costs and benefits of floodproofing at-risk buildings versus building a dam along U.S. 36, which might not prevent flooding coming from the Viele Lake area. Given the increasingly severe rainstorms right along the Front Range (like this week), flood-proofing buildings is looking a lot better.

Also, the rumor is that CDOT has rejected the city’s request to build the dam in CDOT’s right of way. That would force the dam further to the south, pushing it into more areas with endangered species, and creating even more environmental impacts as well as being an obstacle to the issuance of permits. Then, even if the council had kept the dam as an option, they would have had a ready alternative to shift to that would save years and potentially tens of millions of dollars. (The numbers are based on my own analysis, apparently, the only one done on the costs of local floodproofing.) Getting the floodproofing done sooner would potentially save a lot of buildings, assuming that heavy rainstorms, like this year’s, continue.

A directly elected mayor might challenge the Housing Advisory Board’s current plan to hold a closed-door “retreat” and put this decision before the council to avoid possible violations of Colorado’s Open Meetings Law. The COML case law seems clear on such matters: “If the record supports the conclusion that the meeting is rationally connected to the policy-making responsibilities of the public body holding or attending the meeting, then the meeting is subject to the open meetings law, and the public body holding or attending the meeting must provide notice.”

Finally, a directly elected mayor would be able to state the obvious. For example, that the Police Oversight Panel was improperly structured and should be reconstituted more like other city boards. And that residents should have a say about whether their own neighborhoods get up-zoned, as the council seems set on imposing.

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