Boulder County
Boulder County Ballot Question 1A
Yes x
No
While it may be tempting to consider the good job that
Sheriff Joe Pelle has done when deciding how to vote on this question,
don’t forget the big picture. The question is, should we allow a sheriff
to serve up to four terms, instead of the current three that is
permitted for this office? Other elected county officials are permitted
only three terms, with the exception of the county commissioners, who
can serve only two. This initiative would permit a sheriff to serve up
to 16 years instead of 12, but he or she would still have to stand for
election every four years, of course. So we could always vote the bum
out, if necessary. We think that if we elect a sheriff who happens to be
exceptional, as in the case of Pelle, that person should be allowed to
serve up to four terms. This position is not like that of a state
legislator, where politics and cronyism can play a significant role and
new blood is needed regularly. This is a professional, skill-based
position that takes time to learn, and a good sheriff shouldn’t be
kicked out after 12 years if he or she is serving the public well.
Boulder Weekly urges a YES vote on County Ballot Question 1A.
CITY OF BOULDER
Boulder Ballot Issue 2A
Yes x
No
Ballot Issue 2A asks voters to approve
$49 million of bonds for capital improvement projects, including street
and pathway maintenance, repairing bridges, renovating aging city
facilities, modernizing police and fire facilities and more. The total
repayment costs would be up to $82 million. Those are huge numbers, but,
city Communications Manager Patrick von Keyserling says, 2A would use
existing revenues, not new taxes, to fund the bonds. “There would be no
tax increases if voters approved it,” von Keyserling says. “This doesn’t
impact revenue sales tax at all. These are already existing revenues
that are coming in. So as these other debts are paid off, that frees up
the money to issue new bonds.” The city is asking for this money in
order to make certain vital repairs, like bridges and roads. If voters
don’t approve the bonds, the need for these projects will not go away.
Rather, von Keyserling says, the city manager will have to explore new
ways to fund these projects, possibly by initiating a “pay-as-you-go”
system. The downside of that, though, would be that spreading the
projects out over a number of years would increase costs compared to
paying for them all at once. Note that even the expense-averse Boulder
Chamber of Commerce has endorsed 2A. These are vital repairs, and
approving these bonds would allow the city to get the best price for
unavoidable and vital maintenance at no additional expense to the
taxpayer. It’s a win-win. Vote YES on 2A.
Boulder Ballot Issue 2B
Yes x
No
This is the first of two questions related to the effort to create a municipal electric utility for the city of Boulder.
Issue 2B authorizes the city to increase the existing
utility occupation tax by up to $1.9 million a year to plan for the
utility and acquire “an existing electric distribution system,”
presumably the one owned by Xcel. The tax would expire no later than
Dec. 31, 2017, and would end earlier if the city decides not to pursue
municipalization or launches the utility before that date.
It is hard to swallow such a significant tax increase,
especially because the city could spend a lot of money and then decide
to abandon the municipalization idea. Issue 2B comes down to a couple of
key questions. First, to what extent do we trust the city staff and our
elected city council members to make a sound decision on this matter?
And further, how much is our dedication to local control and powering
ourselves with renewable energy worth? It’s a complex issue, but we
support municipalization. Vote YES.
Boulder Ballot Question 2C
Yes x
No
Like Issue 2B, this ballot question deals with the effort
to create a municipal electric utility for the city of Boulder. Whereas
2B dealt with the tax increase, 2C asks voters to give the city the
authority to create a municipal light and power utility. The key
language here includes the authorization of “programs and improvements
that include, without limitation, generation plants, renewable energy,
energy conservation and distribution systems, with all necessary powers
appurtenant thereto … .” There are, however, some cost limits built in.
The question explicitly states that Boulder will not charge rates
exceeding Xcel’s rates at the time of acquisition. In addition, 2C says
those rates must be enough to fund operating expenses and debt payments,
plus an amount equal to 25 percent of the debt payments, and that the
city will provide “reliability comparable to Xcel Energy.”
Yes, there is some broad language in
here, but we believe there are enough guardrails to keep this from
becoming a money pit, and municipalization is consistent with the
community’s localization and renewable energy priorities. Vote YES.
Boulder Ballot Question 2D
Yes x
No
Ballot Question 2D is one of three questions posed to
Boulder voters this year asking for permission to clean up language in
the Boulder Revised Code. Specifically, 2D deals with the formal titles
of certain city employees and would reword the charter to reflect the
current organizational structure of the city. For example, the city
wants to change “finance director” to “chief financial officer.” The
reason for this, explains Kathy Haddock, senior assistant city attorney,
is that the city already refers to that position as the CFO, and the
charter should reflect that language. If the charter were left
unchanged, both titles would have to be included on official city
documents, which causes confusion; 2D would eliminate that. Ballot
Question 2D also would move the duties of the city clerk to the city
manager’s office, refine some minor duties of both positions, allow the
city manager to hire the city clerk, and eliminate references to the
“city marshal,” a position that hasn’t existed in the city for some
time. It also houses all licensing responsibilities under the chief
financial officer. Voting YES is a clear and easy choice, and we recommend that you do just that.
Boulder Ballot Question 2E
Yes x
No
There are two documents that spell out the workings of the
city of Boulder: the charter and the revised code. Violating the code
is a misdemeanor, punishable with jail time and a fine of up to $1,000,
but violating the charter gets you merely a $100 fine. Ballot Question
2E changes the fine for violating the charter to $1,000, making the
punishment equal to that for other city misdemeanors. Voting YES
would give equal punitive weight to charter violations, creating a
penalty that actually has some heft to it, not an absurd $100.
Boulder Ballot Question 2F
Yes x
No
Ballot Question 2F cleans up some rules regarding
Boulder’s City Council elections, including when council members start
their terms, some language changes and voting machine rules. It also
changes the requirement that a council candidate be a “qualified
elector” to a “registered elector,” to meet a requirement set forth by a
court decision. The charter contained some rules about voting machines
that are now obsolete and also conflict with state rules regarding
voting machines, and 2F would remove them. The question would also
remove some language from the charter that deals with the formation of
canvassing boards, since, as Senior Assistant City Attorney Kathy
Haddock says, the city now defers to state law when forming canvassing
boards. Another change would be to stop listing candidates in
alphabetical order and instead by lot — people complained that
alphabetical listings skewed the results in favor of those with last
names in the beginning of the alphabet. Sounds fair to us. This is a
pretty straightforward question, so don’t be a stick in the mud. Vote YES.
Boulder Ballot Question 2G
Yes x
No
In the pre-TABOR days when the Boulder Revised Code was
written, Colorado had no odd-year elections. City elections always
happened during the even years, but citizens could force special
elections if they collected signatures from 5 percent of the registered
electorate. Now that there are elections held every year, the charter
still allows special elections, should a group of citizens collect
enough signatures, up to 45 days before the regular election, says Kathy
Haddock, senior assistant city attorney. Elections cost money, and the
city would rather spare taxpayers the expense unless an election is
absolutely necessary. If passed, Ballot Question 2G would eliminate the
possibility of having a special election unless citizens can gather
signatures from 15 percent of the electorate. It would also require
petitioners to submit the language to the city manager for review before
gathering signatures, which Haddock says benefits both sides, as it
notifies the city of the petition and allows the signature gatherers to
make sure the wording of the measure reflects their intent. It also
lengthens the time the City Council has to review petitions, adds a
requirement that signatures be no more than 180 days old, and cleans up
some rules the city believed were too specific for the charter. The city
has valid cause to want to avoid the expense of a special election, and
none of the other changes would stop a true grassroots effort of the
people by the people if the cause were right. Vote YES.
Boulder Ballot Question 2H
Amendment To Abolish Corporate Personhood
Yes x
No
Yes, this is yet another example of the Boulder City
Council weighing in on a national or international issue over which it
has no control, but it’s a noble cause. This is a call for “reclaiming
democracy from the corrupting effects of corporate control.” It’s a show
of support for the Move to Amend initiative, which aims to change the
U.S. Constitution so that it overrides the Supreme Court’s Citizens United
decision that essentially granted personhood to corporations. The
January 2010 ruling, which said that the First Amendment prohibits
limits on corporate funding of political broadcasts in candidate
elections, was criticized for equating money with free speech and giving
companies carte blanche to outspend the competition on ads for their
favored candidates. Opponents say that the City Council should be
focusing instead on local matters in its own jurisdiction, and that
stripping corporations of rights would hurt the economy.
But we believe that large corporations should not have the
right to buy our elections, nor should corporations receive the same
rights under the Constitution as human beings. Corporations have a role
to play in our society, but they need to be controlled. They should not
be used to give the people who own them the collective power to drown
out the voice of The People. This ballot question is just symbolic and
in no way binding. We strongly advocate voting YES.
