Working to bring common sense government to Boulder, Colorado
More and more Boulder citizens are concerned with the following issues;
Density, Growth and Housing
Our city just feels too crowded.
It seems more dense, over-built and less pedestrian-friendly.
Small, local businesses are struggling.
Although a lot of housing is being built, much of it is not affordable and not suitable for families.
Building height restrictions and some of our light industrial areas are in danger of being eliminated in the service of more housing.
Our neighborhoods are threatened by a city council majority who clearly want to increase occupancy and make changes to our zoning regulations, eliminating single family zoning.
Driving through cross-town traffic during the day is daunting.
Safety and Crime
Differences in community opinions on policing are making it difficult for our police to provide public safety.
Homelessness is a serious issue with many causes but not enough is being done to manage it. The reality is that we have very good outreach, but we are unable to really get these people the help they need.
We struggle to address the impacts of crime, drug use, mental illness and illegal encampments by those who refuse our help. Addiction and mental health are the core issues and we are failing at both.
The city’s model of Housing First to address homelessness is a failure due to inadequate case management, support, wraparound services, and no expectations. This model is also unsustainable. We can’t house every unsheltered person passing through and shouldn’t be prioritizing the worst behaved.
There are some paths, walkways and outdoor public spaces that we must now avoid for our own safety.
Environment
The quality of the natural resources of our Open Space system is deteriorating by overwhelming usage demands placed on it.
The impacts of too much impervious ground coverage, noise and light are not being addressed.
Boulder creek is often not safe for humans to swim in due to high human E-coli levels.
Our flood mitigation plans are inadequate, exposing our neighborhoods to more destruction like we experienced in 2013
Government
Our Boulder-Progressive/City Council majority has its own narrow agenda and doesn’t seem interested in representing all of us.
Our Boulder-Progressive/City Council majority defies the will of the voters by passing, as new legislation, a bill, which was recently defeated as an initiative, that increases occupancy everywhere in the city.
Public accountability enabled through voting transparency is difficult when no easily accessible City Council member voting list is kept within our government.
Ideology often supersedes the will of the voters. Our City Council was the ONLY Colorado municipality that was willing to cede control of our local land-use to the state government
But we are not alone. Many ‘liberal’ cities are experiencing problems similar to Boulder’s. Both of the groups below were featured in a recent New Yorker article (‘What’s Wrong With San Francisco - Really’). They were shown to be examples of what a population can do to pull itself up by the bootstraps to fix problems like ours.
If you too are concerned with the issues we’ve laid out above, then please explore our website and consider joining our effort to make our City Council more informed and responsive to ALL of Boulder’s citizens.