Steve Pomerance

Since it’s Thanksgiving week, I thought some thanks are appropriate for past efforts to keep Boulder a great place to live. Over half a century ago, some citizen-promoted actions made a huge difference: the Blue Line, which restricted the City from providing water service above a certain altitude and preserved our mountain backdrop; the 55-foot height limit, which prevented the proliferation of tall buildings and preserved our views, and the Open Space program, which kept Boulder from sprawling out into the plains and provided access for all of us to nature without having to drive for miles. More recently, for example, the 1982 Solar Access ordinance preserved homeowners’ access to the sun and promoted the use of solar energy. The 1987 Raw Water Master Plan was the first attempt in the country to evaluate the impacts of fossil fuel-induced climate change on a city’s water resources; it led to the purchase of Barker Reservoir plus its water rights, which increased Boulder’s water supp...

This election seemed pretty calm until this last weekend when two postcards showed up from some entities called the “Working Families Power National PAC” and “Colorado Working Families Power.” The larger card, from the National PAC, beat up on Bob Yates, who is running for mayor, and instead advocated the election of Nicole Speer or Aaron Brockett. The other card, from Colorado WFP, advocated for Speer. No doubt most of you have seen the larger card, so I won’t go into its offensive and partisan content. (By the way, WFP National PAC claims to be “progressive,” whatever that now means.) As of Wednesday morning, only the WFP National PAC had filed the required campaign reports with the City. That the CWFP group appears to have not done this apparently puts them in violation of the City’s election laws. However, from further research, it appears that both are actually the “Working Families Party.” Additionally, the PAC group filed as an “Independent Expenditure Only,” which is apparent...