Steve Pomerance

Under the system proposed by the City Council and approved by Boulder voters (with no alternatives provided for us to consider), a sitting council member with two years left in their four-year term can run for mayor. That council member only must resign their council seat if they are elected as mayor. So, if they lose, they retain their council seat for two more years, and there are four council vacancies to fill. But if they win, the council candidate that got the fifth-most votes gets the now vacant fifth seat. As a result, the voters have total uncertainty as to how many open seats there will be. Will there be four or five open seats on the council to be filled in the upcoming election? For example, this year, if council member Nicole Speer wins the mayoral race, there will be five open seats, and if she loses, there will be four. But the voters only get four votes, even though there might be five open seats. That makes it very difficult for everyone, including candidates deciding w...

Sometimes it’s worth digging into past situations so that we can learn and avoid repetitions. For whatever reason, in the last few weeks several caught my eye. Many of you know of the 311 Mapleton project that replaced the old Memorial Hospital buildings with senior housing and facilities and is now under construction. The original “promise” by the developer, in exchange for building only eight permanently affordable units on the huge 311 site, was to develop the Fruehauf property on 33rd Street with over 100 units of affordable housing. There was a big controversy over a possible conflict of interest that one council member had in voting for this, and it barely was passed by the council on a 5-4 vote.  Somehow this commitment regarding the Fruehauf property was never properly documented. As a result, the city was not going to get any affordable units other than what was on the 311 site. But now, according to Boulder staff, the developer has finally decided to give the undeveloped ...