Op-ed: Boulder’s values deserve follow-through
I’m a Boulder optimist. That’s because I had the great fortune of growing up here. I went to Boulder High and Naropa, and I delivered the Daily Camera and furniture for Boulder Furniture Arts, one of our town’s great small, locally owned businesses.
When my mom, my kid sister and I landed here on July 5, 1995, with little in the way of money or possessions, Boulder took a family facing food and housing insecurity and launched us on an improbable journey of opportunity that could not have happened anywhere but Boulder. Within one generation, something impossible happened. All three of us found safety, prosperity, community and the foundation to call Boulder home, not just for ourselves but for our children, and one day, I hope, their children. On any given day, I find that people who don’t know me know my mom, or my sister, or our kids. It’s our home, and I love that.
The Boulder I know does not lack ambition. We have climate goals that lead the country, a commitment to housing the people who work here, and a long record of voting to invest in ourselves.
The trouble is what happens after the vote. Boulder ranks in the 97th percentile nationally for wildfire risk, and its wildfire readiness plan sat on a shelf for more than a year. Two neighboring cities each won close to $10 million in federal mitigation grants. Boulder did not apply. That is not a failure of values. It is a failure of follow-through.
We say we want families to be able to live here, yet we have a declining non-student population and fewer total residents than we did a few years ago. We say we value local business, yet downtown vacancy is near 30 percent, about six times the rate in Fort Collins, and a new restaurant waits about 180 days for permits, more than twice the national average. We say we care about the next generation, yet the city spent $366 million on a luxury office building while carrying more than $400 million in deferred maintenance.
Too often we have treated holding the right values as if it were the same as delivering on them.
The answer is not to lower our sights. What we need is more management, capacity, and oversight. Meaning the ability to decide, assign responsibility, deliver and report back. Longmont and Fort Collins operate under the same state laws and the same economy. Last year the average Boulder household lost power for something like 630 minutes. In Longmont it was 19. Our family was out for the better part of a week, huddled inside our poorly insulated historic homestead in the dead of winter.
I wasn’t the only one; residents see this. In the city’s survey this June, 82 percent agreed that delaying maintenance only raises its cost. Fewer than half said they would trust City Hall with more money. And 2K is headed for a historic defeat while still being doggedly defended by our Mayor.
I believe when Boulder voters chose to elect the mayor directly, we raised the bar for the office. The mayor still has one vote out of nine, but voters were demanding more than a ninth vote. We were asking for someone accountable for the city’s direction. The mayor chairs Council, but more importantly is responsible for its agenda, can bring the city, the university, the school district and the county to the same table, and speaks for the city in public. I intend to use every one of those tools, like prior mayors have done.
The job of mayor must begin with ownership. Every priority Council adopts should have a named owner and a delivery date again. On my first day I will ask the city manager for both, in public, and publish the answers within 30 days. Within 100 days the mayor should present a public scoreboard, and every quarter after that I will report what is on track and what slipped, with a new date and a reason. An independent performance auditor should report to Council. And we should maintain what we already own before taking on new obligations. And when council can’t get out of its own way we should go to the people and put it on the ballot all the same.
Then it means applying that discipline to the goals we already share. On opportunity and small businesses, we will institute a 30-day clock for straightforward permits, and an Office of Yes to help residents and contractors navigate the process—including auto-approval if everyday permits are not completed within 30 days. We will work in partnership with BVSD focused on keeping families near schools at risk of closing. On climate and safety, we will establish an owner and a strict deadline for the wildfire plan I helped write, measuring power reliability directly against our neighbors.
Most of this requires discipline more than money. Where it does require money, the cost should be public before residents are asked to pay. I am running my campaign on the same principle. I declined city matching funds, because a city that cannot keep Spruce Pool open should not be paying for my run for office.
I have spent my adult life building here. I built a technology company from Boulder, I serve on the BVSD Bond Oversight Committee, and I helped organize the neighbors who saved Iris Fields.
I am still an optimist. But the question I keep asking is whether a family that lands here today, the way mine did, would get the same chances. Right now I am not sure. Boulder has the values, the talent and the resources to answer yes. What we need is follow-through that matches them. That is the job I am asking you to give me.