Below are Boulder Weekly’s five questions for Boulder City Council candidates, and their answers.

Question 1: What are three achievable goals that you

would champion in the next two years?

Matt Appelbaum

Creating programs

and policies that will result in significant reductions in energy use,

particularly in the commercial building sector. Perhaps not

“achievable” due to dependence on regional consensus and perhaps

voter approval, but creation of a funded, definitive plan to greatly increase

transit mobility in Boulder and the northwest corridor. Embarking on new

approaches to maintaining diversity in Boulder with creation/preservation of

(at least “relatively”) affordable housing via zoning, density,

housing regulations, etc.

Ed Byrne

1. Revitalization of

the Subcommunity plan concept.

2. Require evaluation of public/private

partnership alternatives to ordinance and regulatory proposals, whenever

substantial voluntary progress is being made

3. Identification of customer

service moments of truth for all city departments, particularly those with

regulatory enforcement authority.

Macon Cowles

1. Assess flood

damage and set new priorities for the Stormwater/Flood Management Utility,

based on what we learned from the recent flood.

2. Form a municipal utility.

3.

Reduce carbon emissions of tenant occupied commercial buildings.

Jonathan Dings

Community Eco

Passes, increased use of public transit, biking and walking in commuting, and

restoration of proposed cuts to Human Services funding.

John Gerstle

1. Decrease in

carbon emissions related to electric power generation, by moving ahead with

municipalization.

2. Agreement between the City and the County regarding the

continuation of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan to ensure continued

cooperation for effective land use arrangements

3. A city-wide ecopass program —

to promote bus ridership and diminish car miles for local residents.

Kevin Hotaling

1. Transfer the city

vehicle fleet to carshare. This model has been proven to save cities money,

reduce environmental impact, and provide new transportation options for

low-income residents.

2. Transform “Transit Center” dreams into

“Tech Center” success. Our critical housing and office shortages

won’t be solved by building the same old boxes around a non-existent train.

I’ve proposed that we breathe new life into this industrial neighborhood by

allowing heights up to 165′. This would create a true center of commerce for

Boulder and simultaneously protect the character of the rest of the city.

3.

Repeal one dim-witted law. Over the past two decades, Council has imposed

countless new laws … but has never once seen fit to roll one back. I intend

to make history by finding a law that was a mistake and then returning that

freedom to the people of Boulder.

Micah Parkin

1) Develop a

sustainable local food system – do the analysis necessary and put policies in

place to set us on this path (examples and reasoning previously discussed).

2) Create

an affordable and reliable local electric utility that uses at least 50%

renewable energy.

3) Finance and implement a Community-wide Eco-pass.

Andrew Shoemaker

(1) Reduce traffic

and fuel consumption and emissions within the City by removing all barriers

(such as fares or even EcoPasses) for certain high frequency intra-city routes

(e.g., Skip and Hop), like the 16th Street Mall in Denver. Additionally, the

City and RTD should begin working on a community-wide EcoPass and significant

incremental progress on regional transportation plans.

(2) Develop a viable

regional housing plan/proposal in Boulder County to address the needs of our

growing senior demographic with fixed incomes, as well as the inability of

health, safety, educational, and other public servants to live in or near

Boulder. This ties into our significant transportation problem.

(3) Immediately

address behavioral problems in the Boulder Creek Path, downtown, and other

public areas, while at the same time increasing our support and focus on

assisting at-risk youth and homeless families and transitional individuals.

Greatful Fred Smith

Implementation of a

1. City Income Tax,

2. City Minimum Wage,

3. City 18 y/o Minimum Drinking Age

Sam Weaver

While these goals

may not be completed in two years, I believe substantial progress can be made

on each. Implement a municipal electric utility or a substantially restructured

agreement with Xcel to perform a rapid switch to renewables in our electrical

supply and 50% carbon emissions reductions within 5-7 years. I will champion

keeping the process going to determine the final costs and likely benefits of a

muni, maintaining forceful negotiations with Xcel to discuss alternate

partnership structures in parallel. Adopt commercial energy codes. Begin with

baseline measurements of all commercial buildings over a given size, then

proceed to convene a public process about how to best have the commercial and

industrial sector assist in meeting Climate Commitment goals. Begin a City and

community process of integrated planning regarding how buildout will look with

our current zoning plan, and if the current plan matches with the vision of the

community.

Mary Young

1. Continue and make

progress on the collaborative effort to create an effective policy for

commercial and industrial energy users to invest in energy efficiency.

2.

Direct city manager to direct staff to begin the process of amending our

Accessory Dwelling Unit ordinance.

3. Finding a way to pay for the Eco Pass.

Question 2: What are the most important policies Boulder

needs to implement to ensure that it reaches and maintains sustainability?

Matt Appelbaum

Reductions of energy

use in residential and commercial buildings via more education, incentives,

building codes, and, as needed, regulation; a municipal electric utility or

equivalent would help enormously by allowing us not only to procure renewable

energy but to greatly improve incentives, rate structures and programs in this

regard. Reductions in VMT via much increased provision of accessible

alternatives – transit both local and regional (including completion of

FasTracks), completion of the bike system and improvements for commuters,

complete streets, parking districts, etc. Targeted density increases that may

help provide more affordable housing, particularly for city workers.

Significant improvements in waste management/recycling. Firm, long-term fiscal

sustainability so that we can maintain the high level of services that attract

creative peopl! e, ensure economic vitality, and allow pursuit of innovative

programs. Continued vigilance on Open Space protections.

Ed Byrne

Reconfiguration of

our human settlement patterns. Our 65-year experiment with auto-dependent

planning must come to an end. We are part of a regional interdependent economy

with workers and jobs scattered hither and yon. We need to create primarily

self-sufficient subcommunities within Boulder and connect them efficiently to

each other and to our regional neighbors, whose workers and jobs are part of

our carbon footprint, whether or not we care to acknowledge it. Development of

local agriculture is critical, as is economic resiliency — the need to identify

potential supply chain disruptions like those created by the tsunami in Japan

and the floods in Pakistan. Like a climax ecosystem, our region must optimize

our use of natural resources, while minimizing our waste generation and energy

consumption. Boulder may win lot of awards, but there’s a lot of work left.

Until we make significantly more progress, we’re being swept downstream with

everyone else.

Macon Cowles

1. All emissions

must be accurately counted, because you cannot manage what you don’t measure.

2. Take control of the electricity distribution system so as rapidly reduce

carbon emissions while increasing the production of electricity through

renewable energy. 3. Achieve an 80% reduction in carbon emissions of existing

buildings by 2050. 4. Adopt land use regulations that transform residential

areas into 15-minute neighborhoods, and that increase density appropriately to

make the City more urban. 5. Adopt building codes so that new buildings will be

net zero buildings by 2030. 6. Electrify most existing direct fuel uses, such

as transportation and home heating and cooling.

Jonathan Dings

As indicated in the

Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, “Applying a sustainability framework to

decision-making in Boulder means considering the issues of environment, economy

and social equity together.” We are well-positioned with regard to progressive

environmental policies generally and with regard to Open Space, and mostly need

to protect what we have in place while fostering economic vitality and social

sustainability. An important area of potential environmental improvement rests

with encouraging residents and commuters to use public transit more regularly,

which I believe can be attained through making Eco Passes more readily

available and providing greater outreach.

John Gerstle

To reach and

maintain sustainability, Boulder should: * move ahead with the municipalization

of electric power utility, so that it can diminish carbon emissions related to

its power supply and put the control of rates, incentives and programs in local

hands. * diminish single person occupancy auto use, by providing and

encouraging more environmentally sustainable transit alternatives, including

bus, carpooling, bike riding, etc. * continue to diminish waste disposal

impacts my increasing recycling levels – and by requiring businesses to have

recycling programs to minimize waste disposal requirements and diminishing the

waste being sent to landfill. * Establishing limits to waste production and

pollution emissions – including the private use of pesticides and other

substances which can impact neighbors adversely

Kevin Hotaling

This is primarily a

design problem and will require many creative solutions. That said, there is

one glaring flaw in Boulder’s infrastructure that our city continually refuses

to acknowledge: you cannot build a sustainable city if you freeze in place

mid-century sprawl. Boulder has historic neighborhoods and iconic streets that

we should diligently protect. We also have have expansive parking lots and

blighted industrial areas east of 28th that are ripe for redevelopment. The

city’s one-size-fails-all zoning practices actually push construction out of

this region and into the very places we had intended to protect. In order to

achieve our energy, transportation, economic and social goals, we must take

decisive action toward enabling high density redevelopment. By simply relaxing

some of the onerous restrictions applied to underutilized properties, we can

create real sustainability without impacting the rest of the city.

Micah Parkin

The impacts of

climate change – from record wildfires to recent floods – are increasingly

evident and devastating. Greenhouse gas neutrality and preparation for impacts

should be top priorities. 1)Boulder electric utility – could quickly increase

to 50% renewables and have equal or better rates and reliability. It’s likely

through this path we can achieve the most the quickest and demonstrate

additional benefits. 2)Transportation – Boulderites ride the bus 2X, walk 3X,

and bicycle 21X the national average. Still, transportation is 22% of Boulder’s

ghg emissions . Community-wide Eco-Passes, complete streets, bike paths and

walkable neighborhoods should be priorities. 3)Sustainable Local Food Policy –

to increase access to locally-grown, healthy food. 4)More water conservation

policies and 5) preparation for more big floods – climate change will likely

increase both droughts and floods regionally. 6)Local population growth – at

some point systems and infrastructure limits are exceeded. We must accept

limits.

Andrew Shoemaker

During my tenure on

the Planning Board, I assisted in the redraft of the Boulder Valley

Comprehensive Plan (BVCP). “Sustainability” in the BVCP means

“considering the issues of environment, economy and social equity

together. An action or decision in any one of these areas will have consequences

on the others.” I agree that these three policy goals are the key to

ensure “sustainability” in Boulder, and they should guide the City’s

decision-making.

Fred Smith

Environmental,

economic and social sustainability should be linked to a progressive income tax

structure that evens out the taxation for Boulder citizens. Local communities

should have more ability to make financial decisions about sustainability, so I

would put efforts to have the state allow cities to implement an income tax.

Sam Weaver

There are eight

major areas to focus on for sustainability: population, food, energy, water,

land use, transportation, economy, social services. The manners of

implementation of each area have impacts on environment and nature, but for 150

words, the most significant are population, energy, land use, and

transportation. For preserving natural habitats and stabilizing population,

land use planning is crucial, and maintaining a compact city and a vibrant open

space system are required. Compact city form also enables lower-impact

transportation systems in which transit within the city is more easily done by

walking, biking, and buses. Low-impact public transit systems between compact

cities are also more convenient (thus more often used) and easier to construct

than in a sprawling urban area. Finally, energy systems must be as

non-polluting as possible, an! d fossil fuel resources are unsustainable,

finite, and damaging. Using them for power production, heating, and

transportation must be phased out.

Mary Young

Policies that deal

with Climate Change. Without addressing this overarching issue of our time,

economic and social sustainability will become more and more difficult. City

Council is currently considering a CO2 emissions reduction goal of 80% less

than 1990 levels by 2050. If passed, in order to successfully implement this

target we would need a set of results based policies to achieve the goal. For

example, it could mean the establishment of accountability for predefined

annually incremented reduction milestones that are evaluated in a timely manner

and adjusted in a timely manner when not met. The advantage of this approach is

that it is quadruple bottom line.

Question 3: Do you support increasing density in Boulder?

If so, where? What would Boulder’s ideal population be?

Matt Appelbaum

Yes, but carefully.

Density of course increases population and certain impacts, but done well can

reduce our per capita environmental footprint, increase diversity, and help

facilitate increased transit and other shared resources. Conventional wisdom

naturally allocates density to transit corridors and “walkable”

areas, and to places that can support various forms of mixed use. While that’s

generally good policy, I would note that allowing far more ADUs and/or relaxing

occupancy limits would add density citywide. And we have horrible, suburban

office parks that could clearly benefit from increases in commercial and/or

residential densities, but such reconfiguration will require considerable

analysis. (There is no simplistic response to the multiple choice question

below re commercial development, hence my all-of-the-above answer.) For the

foresee! able future, Boulder’s population will continue to grow very slowly;

future generations can and should define “ideal” relative to environmental

(taken broadly) conditions we can’t pretend to fully grasp now.

Ed Byrne

Yes, we need

strategically located density in mixed use neighborhood centers serving the

Euclidean (homogenous) residential and non-residential enclaves we have created

during 60 years of auto-dependent planning. We’re doing better, but we have

much work left to be done. As noted earlier, the density should be located

along transit corridors and at transit nodes already well-served by our

existing and future proposed transit and multi-modal system. We should

intensely focus our projects on building the kinds of mixed use neighborhoods

our current in-commuting population might prefer. These 50-60,000 additional

people are on our streets every workday now, but we don’t count them in our

population. Building projects that might encourage them to return to Boulder

while it enlivens our subcommunities, makes sense. We could have 125,000

residents in Boulder by 2050 creating the sort of impacts associated with

50,000 residents in the 1950s, as a direct result of the behavioral adjustments

and environmental policies for which Boulder is justifiably proud.

Macon Cowles

I favor increasing

density along transit corridors and other areas that may be identified in the

Sustainable Streets and Centers project that is in the work plan for 2014. I

favor increasing density in some neighborhoods by permitting alley houses,

granny flats and duplexes. However, I believe that such increases must be done

carefully and in consultation with affected neighborhoods. Such consultation

has resulted in a renaissance in the Whittier neighborhood, for example, which

worked closely with City staff and developers with respect to increasing the

density along East Pearl. This is a textbook example of successful outreach,

partnership between businesses and residents and good planning that has made

the East Pearl neighborhood one of the most desirable in the whole City.

Jonathan Dings

I support some

higher density building in new development, but not redeveloping older

neighborhoods to have higher density. Boulder’s ideal eventual population would

probably be about 10,000 higher than current, to allow for more people who work

here to live here and contribute to our local economy. Whether we reach that

figure depends substantially on occupancy of existing housing stock.

John Gerstle

I do support

increased density for some neighborhoods in Boulder – including downtown in the

central business district, Boulder Junction and the area north of 29th street

mall development on 30th St. Lower and middle-income housing is one of our

greatest needs, and new development of office space instead of housing should

be critically reviewed. Boulder’s ideal population is now close to ideal.

Kevin Hotaling

Every weekday,

60,000 people commute into Boulder. That’s bad for the environment, bad for

business and bad for the city tax-base. Some of these commuters have

consciously chosen to live elsewhere, but many of them have been pushed out by

the ever-increasing cost of housing. Boulder is suffering from a housing

shortage. With CU planning to add 10,000 additional students, we are on the

verge of a housing crisis. We must take decisive action to encourage

development along the 28th and 30th Street corridors. I’ve proposed that

transforming the Transit Center into a high-density Tech Center is the best way

to solve our shortage of both housing and office space. P.S. Anyone who

believes they can dictate an “ideal population” should probably be

running for Supreme Leader, not City Council.

Micah Parkin

PLAN-Boulder

County’s publication “Does Dense Make Sense” suggests adding a little

more density along transportation corridors. I agree with that and think that

walkable mixed use neighborhoods with green space and community gardens in

place of big box stores or underutilized shopping area sprawls would be preferable

in many ways. One example of where I think that would have been preferable is

Diagonal Plaza, and other possibility could be in the area of 55th and

Arapahoe. As I mentioned in a previous answer, I think that we must

accept that there are limits to the population that our infrastructure and

systems can support and still be sustainable. The Planning Dept. expects 120K

people at full build out. I think that our current population is pretty ideal

and that 120K (allowing for more in-commuters to live here) should be seen as

an upper limit.

Andrew Shoemaker

I do not support

increasing density for the sake of adding density. Boulder’s population

increases constantly through by-right redevelopment of properties in the City

and through the expanding enrollment at CU. The City has developed maps showing

where that density will occur. We need to be very careful in our neighborhoods,

as the BVCP expressly calls for sensitive infill development and the protection

of neighborhood character. On public transportation corridors, such as

Broadway, some additional density is appropriate, and I would support such an

increase in those areas in exchange for a community benefit such as affordable

housing. In a perfect world, Boulder’s population would hold constant at its

current levels, and everyone who works in Boulder would live here. It is

impossible to say, today, what Boulder’s ideal population will be 10 years or

100 years from now. There are too many variables.

Fred Smith

There is no ideal

population. I am against the “no more than 3 people in the house

rule.” Boulder should not look for a “right” population. I think

the people of Boulder should determine this themselves and not the city

determine it for Boulder. I’m for in-fill and maximizing capacity in houses.

Boulder should do what it needs to for its own population.

Sam Weaver

I support massive

reduction in Boulder’s greenhouse gas emissions, walkable city neighborhoods,

complete streets, and great alternative transportation options. To the extent

that sensible and sensitive density increases help achieve these goals, I

support them as one tool among many. Dense environments benefit from better

public transit, lower energy use per area, and an easier time walking and

biking to destinations. Much of the City core is already dense, either through

multi-family dwellings in traditionally single-family areas, or by OAUs and

ADUs. Opportunity for densification exists in North, South, and East Boulder

with traditional suburban layouts. I support neighborhood-by-neighborhood

stakeholder engagement to explore additional density through zoning. I also

support all growth paying its way towards public infrastructure. I am not sure

there is an ideal population – that is for each generation to decide. I am sure

there is an ideal Boulder footprint defined by open space and height limits.

Mary Young

Density: Yes, along

the 28th and 30th Street corridors, as well as the 55th and Arapahoe corridor.

Ideal population: It has been said that in order for people to have a genuine

effect on local government, the unit being governed should be small enough to

provide for the possibility of easily running into and knowing your elected

officials. We are now at about 100,000 people with a build-out projection of

114,000 in 2035. Given our current representation, that would work out to about

12,600 people per city council member. That’s more than the ideal number of

7,000 per councilor. If effective local government is our goal, we have already

surpassed our ideal population.

Continued in Part 2.