Our efforts to municipalize and to right-size Folsom Street remind me of the passion we felt in the 1960s about ending the war. Our absolute certainty about the dangers of the military-industrial complex and the war’s immorality trumped all else. The majority voting bloc on Boulder’s City Council seems to feel just as strongly that kicking the Xcel Coal and Bad Automobile giants in the knee will pay an environmental debt, vindicate us and demonstrate leadership.
Regarding municipalization, there may be better ways to reach our community’s environmental goals than the $10+ million estimated to have been spent, a couple million more in energy taxes being spent annually, and uncounted city employee hours, while still having Xcel’s help in emergencies. Possibilities include incentives for decarbonizing transportation, and less expensive lower-carbon energy resulting from subsidies for citywide distributed energy generation systems including small solar, urban windmills, solar gardens, batteries, and insulation.
Regarding right-sizing, community mobility in Boulder requires good bicycle routes running east-west and north-south, and right-sizing of appropriately selected streets is an important tool to meet the need. It’s unfortunate that the majority voting bloc on City Council has compromised street reconfiguration as a tool by fouling up Folsom Street. We could be taking more constructive steps toward happily achieving the world’s lowest carbon per mile traveled, instead of idling in traffic and angrily wagging green fingers.
As voters consider candidates, we should avoid perpetuating philosophically united voting blocs and instead support candidates who offer a more intellectually diverse reflection of our community, who will make important decisions in public view at, not before, their meetings.
This isn’t a “throw the bums out” letter. All our council members work hard and believe what they are doing is right. But the three incumbents running for re-election and the four who do not have to stand for re-election often vote as a bloc, one that has brought us municipalization, the historic preservation of a coal shed, and the so-called right-sizing of Folsom. The four incumbents will only need to convince one of the five newly-elected members to join them to continue down the path toward municipalizing our electricity and enact almost whatever they wish, whether most of us agree or not.
The council we seat will make financial decisions concerning momentous issues: Municipalization, buying and rebuilding the Broadway Boulder Community Hospital campus, building out the Civic Area, subsidized housing at the Boulder Junction site and others — decisions involving more than a billion dollars in new taxes and debt.
If you believe the sitting City Council’s decisions and initiatives are wonderful, please vote to re-elect the three incumbents running and fill the two empty seats with people just like them. If not, choose from the other highly qualified folks offering to serve. One important thing that the voting bloc, the ninth councilman, George Karakehian, and I seem to agree on is that voting for issues 300 and 301 would be dangerous, disruptive and expensive. Boulder Mayor Matt Appelbaum and five of his predecessors wrote a letter opposing the two citizen-initiated ballot issues. The co-signers said the measures “would pit neighbors against neighbors, leave the city stalled and leave problems of growth and development unsolved.” Another unintended consequence would be having to hire even more city employees to try and make 300 and 301 work.
It is time to end the battle with Xcel, the efforts to make parking difficult and being concerned about how many people are in a car. It is time to elect a council that leads us toward being a happy, healthy, art-filled, low-carbon-footprint city. A model, innovator, and test site for creating environmental, efficient government, and other best practices. A city that demonstrates what is possible, because it can.
Google and other companies want to be in Boulder. The whole world now knows this is a best place to live, retire, raise a family, innovate, walk and breathe on world-class open space, start a company, and eat delicious food.
So please vote, and encourage your neighbors to vote, so a larger percentage of us choose our council members. This November, it should take more than the 11,000 or 12,000 votes that often win a city council seat in a non-national election year.
Vote, so that we can more happily pull the oars together behind strong, more independent leaders on Boulder’s City Council.