Steve Pomerance

Earlier this year, the February 6 city council agenda provided notice for Boulder’s first executive session with the opaque explanation: “pursuant to CRS 24-6-402(4)(b) for conference with attorneys for the City for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions regarding meeting management and the First Amendment.” This behind-closed-door session was actually about how the council was finally going to wrest control of its meetings back from the protesters, after a year-plus of almost constant disruptions. I’m happy to see this finally happening, though, in my opinion, it did not require instituting executive sessions, which I don’t support because their privacy encourages bad behavior and deal cutting. Colorado statute 24-6-402(4) states that the public notice of an executive session requires “identification of the particular matter to be discussed in as much detail as possible without compromising the purpose for which the executive...

As many of you know, the city’s 2020 Franchise Agreement with Xcel grants Xcel exclusive rights to deliver electricity in Boulder for 20 years. But Xcel also agreed to give Boulder the right to exit the franchise every five years. This year, 2025, is the first opportunity. The money for undergrounding powerlines, which Xcel denied Boulder during the 10 years we were out of franchise, has been committed for that purpose. So that concern is resolved. And the Legislature finally clarified existing state law guaranteeing equal treatment for all customers to ensure that all Xcel-served areas get undergrounding money, whether in franchise or not. According to all reports I’ve received, the Xcel-Boulder advisory panel, created as part of the 2020 settlement with Xcel, has not produced much of consequence. Thus, there is a significant level of dissatisfaction with what Boulder has gotten, and some enthusiasm for pursuing an alternate path. This dissatisfaction was strongly amplified by Xcel’s ...