Participate in Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan - Update
Do you wish that the city planners would let us in on how many more people we are going to pack into our Boulder? Do you wonder how we will know if we have enough water in the future for all the sinks, tubs, and toilets we are approving with such mis-named adventures as “Family Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods” zoning changes? Are you down with the city solving our traffic nightmares by the wishful thinking of 15-Minute Neighborhoods or down-sizing important major streets like Iris?
Then the 2025 update of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) is the venue for all of us to interrogate the city planners and advocate for rational answers. If you aren’t familiar with the BVCP, it is the overarching 150-page city planning document that “provides a general statement of the community’s desires for future development and preservation of the Boulder Valley.” It can be found here in it’s entirety. But you might also want to visit the Boulder County website as the county partners with the city of Boulder in the creation of the BVCP. The current outreach to the public for our views and opinions is being undertaken through a variety of dog and pony shows that is revealing the typical wishes for unicorns and rainbows, with an interesting new twist being that we have a company called MOTUS acting out the musings of participants. So far, the really challenging questions about the future of Boulder that are supposed to be guided by the comprehensive plan are missing in action. A major piece of the public outreach has been started, with the actual public involvement starting soon. 10,000 sort of randomly selected Boulder Valley citizens have been mailed a solicitation to volunteer for something called the Community Assembly. 48 people will be selected to examine and discuss different locations and ways of implementing 15-minute neighborhoods in the Boulder Valley. If you think 15-minute neighborhoods are the most pressing matter for the next 20 years, this effort is for you; however, you will be limited to being an observer if you aren’t one of the 48 people selected. If you have input, you can send it to the city planners along with the many thousands of comments being submitted and leave it to the planners and the city council to divine what the community wants. An alternative that Boulder Action and others are advocating is using Scenario Planning based on current and projected data to create possible future pictures of what Boulder could be and then let the community select the one or a composite that we think is the best option. This injects some reality into this important process, and would allow some real voice for our future. The city has excellent data on current conditions on its web page https://a-boulder-future-boulder.hub.arcgis.com/pages/a-boulder-today. Click on the icons to access the data. The current comprehensive plan is full of fluffy aspirational policies on almost any topic, but they provide no real actionable direction. These policies are used to argue for and against pretty much any city action. Recently, the same neighborhood preservation policies cited for passage of Ordinance 8666 that changed residential zoning districts to allow more density could easily be turned around to argue that the ordinance was destroying neighborhoods. With so many policies, many of which conflict with each other, none of them mean anything and do not provide any real guidance. Boulder can do much better than this! Let us know if you want to join with so many of us who are organizing to make our voices heard in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan update. City ‘Outreach’ - Motus Theater FeedbackThere have been two sessions with Motus Theater thus far in the City's engagement schedule for The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan Update: one at the library on Saturday Feb 1, and a second in Council Chambers on Saturday, Feb 8. We attended the latter. According to communication with City workers, Boulder is spending $160,000 in their efforts to hire actors and play-act our future away, along with mailers to 10,000 with invitations to attend a feedback session. Perhaps a chance to speak for the lucky few, and so on. The only sessions that seem to hold any value in terms of public participation seem to be the upcoming Office Hours on February 20 and March 19. See https://bouldercolorado.gov/events?event_series=7608 for more information. And our reaction to the event with Motus Theater on the 8th? Our most immediate reaction to the “engagement” session on the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, which will guide and inform development issues in Boulder County for the next 20 years, was that it was totally condescending and a waste of time. Motus's prior session was so poorly attended that the city finally started publicizing it a bit more and an unknown non-profit paid some people, including People of Color and Native Americans, to attend so that it would look more like actual engagement was taking place. For one group of Native Americans, whose members were provided those attendance stipends, the event was more than a waste of time. One of them argued that it wasted not only their time, but funds that would have been better spent providing much-needed actual Indigenous input on the BVCP. It also wasted any goodwill that actually including Indigenous voices could have generated. Instead the Indigenous people served as window dressing for "inclusivity and diversity." Still another Indigenous person said he “felt mocked.” The Motus moderator insulted this speaker by repeating back his own words—as she "said she heard them”—as if he could not articulate them well enough himself and as if he hadn't specifically disallowed a repetition of his talk. We were embarrassed for Motus for making this gaffe. Not only were the moderator's actions a violation of all norms of polite discourse with Indigenous people, it was laughably, embarrassingly condescending and mean spirited, especially since the the man had specifically requested they not pretend to interpret him. In the end, he felt both disrespected and unheard. From their literature: "Motus Theater invites you to a special adventure in improvisational theater where you share a short reflection or a story about your vision for Boulder, and then watch professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. The City of Boulder is developing the next Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) to set priorities and goals for future [development] and the BVCP writers want to hear from YOU!" Really? It seemed more like an attempt to deflect any discussion of the Comp Plan. How about dancing bears and more bread and circuses? And rather than visions, how about identifying problems and their solutions” "Motus Playback Theater is here to help you express what you feel will build 'A Boulder Future.' By sharing our stories we can influence the direction of Boulder for the next 20 years!" We're able to express ourselves quite well without play-acting, thanks. Motus took so much time to repeat what others had just said, explain themselves, and act it out that there was no time for discussion or even providing feedback on the BVCP. It felt like speaking before Council: a minute or two to talk and you're cut off. It was at least 40 minutes into the two-hour session before the Comp Plan was even mentioned, and then only because an audience member complained! "Bring your entire family to this fun, informative exploration about the future of Boulder at The Boulder City Council Chambers." Yes, indeed. And baloney. The real intention was to entertain and deflect, not discuss the Comp Plan. We also heard other reactions from citizens who had attended, such as: “This idea is such a load of crap. The Progressives are still avoiding Boulder residents and looking like fools doing so. One could even label the last story [again a contribution from a Native American speaker] as CC & Motus Theatre being 'racist.' Boulder continues to devolve. CC and our elected leaders are pathetic.” “I have found 'engagement with the community' has short time limits that really don't address issues adequately. And they also set the agenda of what will be spoken about. Again, IMO, special interest groups in this town are controlling agendas and I find it concerning.” “I… I’m not sure what to say.... I’m not sure it was effective to decide decades of environmental and financial consequences for the Boulder Valley.”
"Words fail me. This was disgusting." “What a waste of time and money! There was no productive discussion of the BVCP; I guess that was the intention.” ___________________________________________ Guest OpinionBiking Bolder By Trish Emser Boulder has been recognized for years as a top biking city in the US, with hundreds of multi-use paths as well as open space trails. Those of us who casually ride, sustainably commute via e-bike or single track in rugged trails all share the thrill of the ride with scenery that is second to none. What has changed in the past 5-ish years is our ability to destination ride to many parts of the City of Boulder based on the insecurity of bike theft. This trend is not only alarming but it contributes to the loss of downtown business vitality. There was a rumor in early 2024 that bike theft was ‘way down’ and even our local news reporters who covered bike theft spikes in 2023 dismissed the idea of a follow up story. 2024 ended with a 15% increase of bikes stolen as 750 bikes were reported (per Boulder Police Dashboard). This number does not include CU bikes taken on campus and for every bike stolen another 4 were not even reported. By the summer of 2024 we saw a spike in steals with a rising trend of e-bike thefts. During this spike many riders reported that high security bike chains and U-locks that had been recommended as secure were being defeated. Given the trends and ongoing social media conversations about Boulder’s efficient bike thieves, a few citizens, including representatives from CU Police, Boulder Police and several local bike shops (Full Cycle, Community Cycles, Trek) got together. We started having real conversations about what was happening. These constructive and transparent conversations combined with bike theft trend analysis led to the formation of ‘Bike BOLDER’. Bike BOLDER has grown to about a dozen active members and our mission is summarized as: Empowering our community through more equitable bike safety, security and recovery Promoting environmentally friendly transportation
Last year we conducted two ‘Bike Theft Awareness Expos’ and we provided a bike valet with security information at ‘What’s Up Boulder?’. We’ve had a lot of community support and interest; our new website will be launched by February. Our goal is to help inform our community members about bike security and safety, while increasing their cycling confidence. In 2025 we will continue to conduct Bike BOLDER educational events including the support of other community partners. In the meantime, check out the 3 steps outlined below to help you Bike BOLDER! We’d love to hear from you; send your questions to: bikebolder@gmail.com
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