Why is Boulder sending out another biased survey?

No doubt many of you remember the surveys the city of Boulder sent out a couple of years ago that were so biased as to be essentially useless other than as propaganda pieces. Well, last Friday I and many others received another one of these sell-jobs enticingly titled “Family-Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods.”

Translating, this means adding the maximum density to the still surviving lower density parts of Boulder that the council can do without violating the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan...

Mark McIntyre opined on Oct. 4 that occupancy limits for unrelated individuals are “immoral.” I’ll contribute some context and facts, since McIntyre’s blanket condemnation left little room for either.

First, hundreds of U.S. cities, and nearly all college towns, limit unrelated occupants in residential structures. The City of Boulder recently surveyed occupancy limits of 60 peer U.S. college towns. Fifty-five percent of them allow only three unrelated or less, and 32 percent allow only two unrelated. Online searches reveal hundreds more U.S. cities with occupancy limits…

The Camera Editorial Board’s Sunday, August 27 editorial misses on several levels. The editorial, paraphrased, essentially argues that things have been great here for years, but Boulder needs to get with the times and “change its ways.” Exactly how much of what people hold unique, beautiful and sustainable about Boulder will be left, after the Camera Editorial Board’s commandment to change? Change into what?

Ranked choice voting (RCV) is a voting system where the voters rank order the candidates using a grid on the ballot that has the candidates’ names down the left side and columns labeled first, second, third, etc. across the top. Voters fill in the ovals in the grid to “rank” order the various candidates. 

The problem with RCV is that its structure can arbitrarily drop the candidate with the most support, so we could very easily end up with a mayor who is not the people’s preferred choice. But it does pretty much guarantee some finality. (The only problem is if it ends up with a tie at any point, which is highly unlikely with tens of thousands of voters.)

As the election season heats up, housing affordability is once again a key issue.  Those in the majority on City Council, who align themselves with the self-named “Boulder Progressives” have repeatedly endorsed free market approaches: build more (and more) and prices will automatically fall. But there is no evidence to support that view. Not in Boulder…

A man on meth drove his truck into a Boulder park where homeless people congregate and sleep (Sept. 19). A few weeks ago, two women overdosed in the park. In May, five homeless people overdosed in the park in 36 hours. Today’s Daily podcast (NYTimes Sept. 22) covered a homeless man’s plight as he tried to get off fentanyl only to find himself convicted of murder. Listen to his description of what fentanyl does to the body and the challenges of getting clean. It’s enlightening…

Positions on density and growth policies in Boulder have become a hot-button, divisive issue of late. The debate is centered around the issue of Housing, both its affordability and availability. Boulder has a problem of not having enough housing for all the people who want to live here, particularly those who work here and commute in from elsewhere. The solution it seems, is to provide more housing and also increase the occupancy in existing housing stock. However within the context of Boulder's limited-growth environment this is not easy as it will require relaxation of Boulder's limits to density and occupancy and other changes in its limited growth policies.