George Karakehian has been a member of Boulder City Council for six years. The owner of Art Source International on the Pearl Street Mall, Karakehian is not running for re-election this year. In the back room of his shop, he sat down with Camera editorial page editor Dave Krieger on Sept. 10 to reflect on his council tenure. What follows is a transcript of that conversation, edited for space and clarity.

Q: So let’s start with the hot issue of the day — “right-sizing.” To be impartial about it, removing auto lanes and widening bike lanes, originally proposed for four streets, actually done on one in this phase, Folsom Street. What’s your take on what’s happened?

A: Well, as you know, I was the only council member against it completely. And I got in a little bit of hot water with a fellow council member because I called it an assault on common sense. I looked at it, I looked at the statistics, I looked at what they were trying to do, and none of it made any sense to me. I got home and my wife asked me, “How did it go?” And I said, “Great. It was another 8-1 vote.”

This one still perplexes me. I thought your editorial was right on. I was comfortable with what you said. I don’t think we did a very good job, (I don’t think) staff did a very good job. And I believe they hung out council members, meaning council members, in their zeal to promote bicycling, which pretty much everyone on council, even me, would like to promote. I think I voted for every one, and may have been the only one who voted for the West TSA (Trail Study Area) north-south connection running through open space. Because I believe that bicyclists need a safe way to get north and south.

With that said, this is truly hard for me to understand. I’m hoping that we make some changes to this and the change that I would accept would be allowing it to stay from the north going to Pine Street. That’s it. That’s the area that was the complaint about the highest speeds, through that area. What intrigued me, they were talking about more bicycle safety, and how fast people are going. Well, my fellow council member, Matt Appelbaum, said to me the other day, “If there’s a problem with them going too fast, couldn’t we just lower the speed limit?”

So there were solutions. It was a very safe road in my eyes. It’s one of the roads that I use north-south all the time, multiple times a day. And what I’m doing, I believe, is what citizens are doing. They aren’t going there anymore. I think it’s come down 20 percent. Those people didn’t stop driving. What they’ve done is they’ve found alternate routes, other ways to get through there. I’ve heard merchants who have been very upset. We didn’t consider that.

Tuesday night (Sept. 8), staff came up with some alternatives. They’re going to take out some of the bollards. They’ve got some things to make it safer for bicyclists. They’re going to change some of the colors. But none of those are going to really correct the problem, which is that this was a giant mistake on our part.

Q: I guess the big question I always had was from a traffic engineering standpoint, did anybody look at your total capacity north-south, in the city, to handle the flow of traffic that there is? Do you have adequate capacity, whether Folsom is one lane or two, to handle the north-south traffic volume? Do you have data on that?

A: I can’t tell you whether we have data. I know we have travel times data that they come up with every year. And that shows no increase in travel times almost in 20 years. There are reams of data, but as you pointed out in your editorial, a one-day glimpse is not an appropriate amount of time to look at statistics on a route.

Q: Some council members talk about this primarily in terms of climate change. And yet I don’t see any metrics measuring emissions. You’ve got more idling time because of the congestion, you’ve got fewer cars on Folsom, you’ve got some of that traffic diverted to other streets. So how do you calculate the net effect on emissions? I don’t see any metrics on that.

A: It’s the standard thing that we say here. Everything’s climate change. Everything’s carbon reduction. But we don’t have enough information to determine any of that. In fact, I’ll guarantee you that it’s worse with cars sitting there idling for an extra four minutes or five minutes on a route. There’s no doubt in my mind. And if we had done something that would have gotten people out of cars, like a new bike route, or another way for people to safely get from one place to another, I think you can probably estimate, you know, you’ll get five percent of the people out of their cars now. There’s no way to do this. The ballot box has been stuffed here.

Q: How do you mean?

A: You knew they were giving out fliers?

Q: You’re talking about the bike organizations?

A: Community Cycles.

Q: Yes.

A: Fliers that said, send emails to council and use this route more. My bookkeeper told me, “It’s funny, I was using the road yesterday after 5, and there were, like, a ton of bicyclists. It looked like there was something going on.”

But I’ve been through this before. I know how this works. It gets out to the bicyclists when they’re going to be doing their studies, and they all go bike. It happens every time. It happened on 13th Street when that happened 20 years ago. So the ballot box is stuffed, it still is stuffed. We had emails from out of the state. What’s the other organization called?

Q: People for Bikes?

A: People for Bikes. Form letters came in. I discount those.

Q: But let me ask you among your colleagues, those who talk about this in terms of climate change, given that we don’t have any metrics on emissions and a very limited ability to measure diverted traffic, what do you think is going on? Is it just sort of a belief that this might help, without an empirical basis, or is there an argument to be made for that?

A: I would be the first to look at any data that would indicate what they did here is going to make any difference in carbon. I’d be the first. But no one’s provided that. I mean, I’ve got some great fellow council members, but many of them wake up in the morning thinking about carbon reduction. I mean, that’s great, but give me the data. Give me the metrics. What we’ve done so far has only driven people like myself to other routes. And I’m cutting through neighborhoods. That’s not good business.

Q: Let me ask you about historic preservation because it strikes me that a similarity between these two subjects is a lot of people attach themselves to the general idea, without necessarily looking at how it applies to specific circumstances. So with respect to rebuilding the coal shed and landmarking the bungalow on 12th Street, what’s your take on how those things happened and why?

A: Once again, on 12th Street, I voted against it. I saw no value to that house. I saw no value to the history. The home had no redeeming value in my eyes. Overall, I think historic preservation is an extremely important part of any community. Some of the mistakes we’ve made in our community is allowing some of the historic buildings to be torn down.

In ’73, the city wanted 14th Street to go through, at 14th and Canyon. There was only one problem. The old train depot was there. The city was going to tear it down. The city itself. So an organization I was a part of, the Boulder Jaycees, said, “What are you doing? This is an unbelievable building.” So we raised the money and moved the building. And there are other buildings downtown that have come down over the years prior to people really paying attention to this, that really shouldn’t be gone.

Q: So what’s changed?

A: I think 12th Street is a one-off. I haven’t seen this happening over and over again.

Q: What about tearing up a basketball court to put up a coal shed?

A: Wow. I recused myself from that vote because the gentleman and I live just a block away and I like the guy. I like what he’s done in our community. So I read about it but didn’t have anything to do with it. But on the surface, since I didn’t hear the discussion, how did Boulder come out better? I would rather have fined him, and used the money for future historic preservation, rather than taking out an asset that the community is using up there, by the way. So that one didn’t make any sense.

It just so happens that both are in the historic preservation area. I believe that maybe we’ve gone a little overboard. And maybe that group needs to take a step back and take a breath. Maybe we need to put some other people on the landmarks board that are less preservation advocates and more general folk, so they can give their input about common sense, as compared to, “Oh, we’ve got to save these buildings and that’s just the way it is.” So I think those just happened concurrently, but I’m concerned about that as well.

Q: Let me ask you about the boards and commissions piece. In the “right-sizing” case you have the transportation advisory board, which has been an advocate. In the 12th Street case, the landmarks board was an advocate. What’s your view of what the criteria should be for appointing people to those boards and commissions?

A: I believe what we’ve done is we make political appointments to the boards and commissions. And the planning board is a pretty good example of people being put on there who are just going to say “no.”

Q: To development proposals?

A: Yes. There’s a lot of politics involved in planning board appointments and I would love to see that not happen. I would love to maybe even see some other group appoint the planning board. It’s been a problem. And when you fill a board, I don’t care which one, with too many like-minded people, you kind of get groupthink. And that tends to be a problem. I think some of our boards are broken. I think we’re responsible — council — because we make the appointments. Maybe there are too many bicycle advocates now on transportation advisory board. I can’t tell you. I haven’t looked at the makeup of that board. And maybe there are too many people who are very, very interested in historic preservation, from the preservation side, on the landmarks board. I can’t tell you. I don’t know the entire makeup. But I do know what happens when you have groupthink and you saw it on Folsom.

George Karakehian talks with new council member Mary Young during council’s 2013 swearing-in ceremony. (Paul Aiken/Daily Camera)

“[W]hen you fill a board, I don’t care which one, with too many like-minded people, you kind of get groupthink. And that tends to be a problem. I think some of our boards are broken.” — George Karakehian on advisory groups such as the landmarks board and transportation advisory board.

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Q: In the letters to the editor that stream into our inbox at the Camera, there are two opposite accounts of what Boulder is like right now with respect to development. From everybody trying to pull permits, homeowners to developers, I hear it is as difficult as any jurisdiction in the state. The permitting process takes forever. It’s cumbersome. From the people who are putting up those ballot issues this year, I get, “This place is growing like a weed, there’s all kinds of development, it’s out of control, we need to stop it.” Which of those two views is true, or is neither of them true?

A: Well, from someone who is completing a building, I gotta tell you what a pain in the ass it is to build anything in this community. Go get a building permit. See how long it takes. See the requirements. See the energy requirements. I mean, Boulder is a special place and so it has a bunch of special rules.

However, with that said, the return to people is high. So developers, it’s worth going through what they have to go through because they know the golden ring at the end is big. And so people put up with it. So I think that might explain why they say it’s like it is but they continue to build.

As far as “Boulder’s out of control,” consider the source, and the source is Plan Boulder and Livable Boulder. The folks in those groups have been saying this for 25 or 30 years: “The sky is falling, Boulder is going to hell and we gotta do something about it.” At least that long.

I was here in ’70. Boulder wasn’t that great a town in ’70. Downtown, things were boarding up. There wasn’t much to do. There were people that complained that Pearl Street was going to ruin Boulder when we converted it from a street. There was a large group of people complaining about this: How could you do this to our city? It’s only been one of the most successful walking malls in the United States.

Q: Some “right-sizing” advocates point to that example and say, “Everybody was complaining about that, look how great it is, same thing will happen here.”

A: “Right sizing?” There was already a bike lane. There’s a big difference making the bike lanes wider when you already have an adequate north-south lane there. So they can use that all they want, but I don’t think it fits here.

They say growth is out of control. What’s growth been, a half percent a year of population growth and in that area of commercial growth as well in the last 15 years? Those statistics don’t bear it out. Have we had a substantial amount of growth in the last three years? Absolutely. Did we have no growth in the prior four? Absolutely.

So how much of it is pent up and then how much of it is just, there’s more growth? We do not have many properties left. If you look around this community, make a list of the developable pieces of property. What was done at 30th and Pearl was intentional. It was about — hey, we can’t go up; we have rules. We can’t go out; we have rules. So what do we do? Well, let’s densify an area that’s walkable to food and groceries and other shopping, has great transportation. So that’s what we did. It was intentional. And it’s worked.

“Oh, we don’t like the big buildings.” OK, we’re sorry, but what else are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to provide housing when you can only go 55 feet and we don’t have any land? We intentionally converted and gave a better FAR (maximum floor area ratio) over there for housing than we had. That was intentional. It was going to be office. It was going to be commercial. So we said, “No, if you’ll build housing, we’ll give you a little FAR over there.” It was intentional. It’s worked great. The folks against it are against anything that comes up in this community. I think Boulder is one of the finest places to live that you’ll see in the United States and we aren’t going to hell in a handbasket.

And if you’ll look at congestion, which is what they’ve said for years is the problem, it hasn’t changed. So it’s window dressing. It’s not true.

Q: Can Boulder continue to be what a lot of folks in that community seem to want, which is basically suburban-style neighborhoods?

A: That’s important to a community. I don’t think we should be getting rid of neighborhoods. I really don’t. I think that’s one of the worst things that we can do. Those single-family homes are the backbone of this community and we need to preserve them, which you’ve seen us do. Those don’t go away. But as far as where everybody else is going to live, there’s only so many that can do that. People complain about how many people are driving in, but all of our rules, everything we have done for the last 40 years, is to limit the number of new homes and new developments. And then when we have an opportunity to develop one, we say no because the neighbors are pissed off, and we listen to that, and trump it up by saying it’s about flood issues or water or whatever.

Or like in the middle of Diagonal, we had this sensational development on a piece of property that nobody else will build on. The guy came in with all the right zoning, came in with a project that everybody on council said is wonderful and we sent him home and said we’re not interested. We didn’t tell him the things that he needed to do, necessarily. We’re not interested. One council member says, “Oh, what about the fumes?” Another council member said, “Well, I wouldn’t live there.” And I said, “That’s an elitist thing to say. We’re not talking about you. We’re talking about people that work here. We’re not worried about you.”

We talk about housing here, council included, but when it comes right down to it, when there are some things that we can do, we don’t.

Q: We were talking about how important carbon is to so many of your colleagues, and yet when it comes to building more housing so some of the in-commuters could live here, it doesn’t seem to be a priority.

A: I think there are things that we can do. Don’t get me wrong. I told you a success at 30th and Pearl. We’ve really densified that and added housing. We’ve added housing along 28th Street. We’ve done a fair share of that. We’ve done some. Have we done enough? No.

Q: Metro Denver is growing like a weed. People are moving here. If Boulder grows less, or not at all, what will be the result of that?

A: It’s always been less. We have growth control. We can’t grow by more than 1 percent a year. That’s by law. So no, it’s not going to grow like that. Might it have a spurt year? Yes. Where is it going to go? Denver has all kinds of things that they can take down, that they do take down. We don’t have that here.

Q: You do, you just don’t allow it. Denver’s getting scraped everywhere.

A: You’re right, but we talked about single-family neighborhoods. We aren’t taking down any single-family neighborhoods. That isn’t going to happen here. Some buildings come down and there’s rebuilding, to 55 feet or less, by the way. We have very few areas that we’re going to be able to do that on.

George Karakehian gets serious during an interview with the Daily Camera reflecting on his six years on Boulder City Council. (Cliff Grassmick/Daily Camera)

“They say growth is out of control. What’s growth been, a half percent a year of population growth and in that area of commercial growth as well in the last 15 years? Those statistics don’t bear it out. Have we had a substantial amount of growth in the last three years? Absolutely. Did we have no growth in the prior four? Absolutely.” — George Karakehian on Boulder’s growth rate.

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Q: So will the result be that it continues to get more expensive relative to the rest of the metro area?

A: Absolutely.

Q: Does that concern you, that maybe young people, new families, might be foreclosed out of Boulder?

A: I think they’ll still be here, they’ll just be driving in.

Q: They’ll be working here.

A: They’ll be working here. Because we’ve got great jobs and jobs are going to continue to be here, so you’ll get ’em driving in. But also, kids are making so much money now.

Q: In tech.

A: And what is Boulder? Boulder’s tech. Kids keep telling me, “I started at $80,000.” “Well, what experience did you have?” “Well, none.” None.

But 80 won’t get you a house here, as you know. I want to read something to you. This is on jobs and population balance.

“An attempt to achieve some ideal balance by making housing growth match job growth will cause unacceptable impacts on the quality of life in Boulder Valley. The additional population would create traffic gridlock, increase the overall size of the community beyond a livable dimension, putting unacceptable demand on city services and amenities, such as parks, trails, libraries and recreation centers, create water, noise and air pollution, overtax the resources of the school district and destroy the fabric of the community.”

Does that sound familiar to you?

Q: Sure. It sounds like Livable Boulder.

A: This was submitted to the Boulder City Council May 2002.

Q: By whom?

A: Plan Boulder. The gridlock, the Chicken Little syndrome, the sky is falling, didn’t happen. It hasn’t happened. But they keep at it. The sky didn’t fall.

Q: Well, the commuters create just as much traffic as the residents, right? They all drive cars.

A: But gridlock hasn’t happened. Now, at certain times of the day at certain intersections, you’re going to have it, there’s no question. But again, you go to the results of the city study that they put out every year comparing the same intersections and comparing drive times on those, this did not happen. I could have put yesterday’s date on this.

Q: You say Plan Boulder and Livable Boulder, as you’ve just illustrated, are in this camp of “The sky is falling, no more growth, no more growth.” And yet, I’m told Plan Boulder basically orchestrates the elections, that they are the power base that determines who gets elected to city council, by and large. So how can they be, at the same time, responsible for who’s on council and opposed to what council is doing?

A: That’s a new phenomenon.

Q: Which one?

A: The “opposed to council.” That’s Livable Boulder. They’re the far right, left wing.

Q: Hard to tell which, isn’t it?

A: Which wing, I don’t know the wing.

Q: It seems like a typical conservative movement, actually.

A: Absolutely. And look who’s on council who has made all these decisions. You count through them and see who has been supported by that organization. Everyone, except maybe Andrew (Shoemaker) and me.

Q: Have been supported by Plan Boulder?

A: That’s my guess. And this group, who elected those people, says Boulder sucks right now and if you don’t do something, stuff’s going to hit the fan, and it’s these people who have made the decisions on densification.

Q: So is this an offshoot? Are there still people in Plan Boulder who like this council?

A: You know, I don’t go to their parties, OK? I didn’t have cocktails with them. I’m not happy with them. And I’m especially not happy with the ballot issues because this group that said the sky is falling and this group that elected the majority of council, is now saying council isn’t qualified to make those decisions for you. Let’s override the people that we put in and let’s come up with some new rules that will just shut this city down.

Q: Which is the big objection that you have to the ballot issues? Is it the change in the form of government, taking control away from representative government and providing the potential for government by referendum, or is it the specific effect that it would have on growth on development?

A: Both. I think the council — and this is self-serving, but I’ve been critical of my fellow council members — has done an excellent job over the years. Boulder’s a great place to live. We make all those big decisions. I think we’ve done a good job. Taking power away from council because a small group of people think that council’s doing a terrible job, isn’t the right way to go. We’ll see in this election how many people think Boulder’s going to hell. We’ll see.

Q: What makes you think it’s a small group? Just based on your interaction with your constituents?

A: It’s a small, very vocal group. Again, look at council. They’ve gotten them elected. You go down the list and see that.

Q: As a longtime resident, tell me why so few people turn out to vote. I think you got elected with fewer than 11,000 votes last time.

A: Thanks for reminding me.

Q: A bunch of people have. Ten thousand, 11,000, 12,000 votes will generally get you elected.

A: I don’t know the answer. It’s been that way. It’s just been that way. And I can’t tell you why. But it doesn’t take a lot of voter turnout to get people elected. And the people who are turning out are the friends of Plan Boulder and those organizations and so they get their people elected.

Q: Because they do a good job.

A: They do a great job.

Q: And nobody else really does. What does the business community do in terms of political organizing to represent its interests?

A: I got interviewed at the Conference on World Affairs and they asked me, “Why is it that more business people aren’t attending this conference?” And I looked at this person and I said, “They have jobs.”

Q: But they have a political interest. Why don’t they act on it?

A: Do they? I don’t know that they do. They all go to work.

Q: Most business communities feel it’s important for them to make their voices heard.

A: Well, understand, we’ve gotten some business people elected.

Q: One per . . .

A: Yeah, one per session, I guess you might say. I’m the token. I can’t tell you. They’re all doing other stuff. The chamber does what it does, but they’re not a political organization necessarily. And you have two or three other political organizations. I’ve said for a long time, why do we have to have three different business-related organizations? Why can’t you have one? Why can’t you organize? You obviously have enough money to hire somebody.

Q: Why do you say these ballot issues would shut the city down?

A: I think they will just shut development down completely. There will be lawsuits. What does “pay your own way” mean? Maybe you can tell me what that means. What is your interpretation of “pay your own way?” Is it offset by sales taxes that the employees spend? How do you determine what an office building . . . what about a warehouse . . . does a warehouse have a different way to pay its own way as compared to retail as compared to office?

Q: They leave that to the council to figure out, right? So I’m assuming if it were passed some ratio would be developed in terms of number of new employees you’re bringing in or square footage you’re building, and there’s a cost per new employee or square foot.

A: And how fast do you think that can happen?

Q: That I don’t know.

A: I’m guessing, at the speed we go, that ain’t going to happen fast.

Q: Are you talking about months? Are you talking about years?

A: I think a year. I mean, I’m just guessing.

Q: And you’re saying there would be no commercial development in that period.

A: How could there be? If someone brings in an application, they say, “Oh, we can’t accept your application because we don’t know what it means to pay your share. We don’t know.”

Q: Let me play devil’s advocate. Would it be so bad if you had a one-year moratorium on commercial development if at the end of that year you were happy with the result?

A: I think I would be OK with that probably, but I don’t think that’s the case because I think there will be lawsuits as well. I think this thing will be tied up in the courts. There are a number of projects that are in process right now. Spent millions of dollars and we’ve approved them through site review. You know that pre-site review? What happens to those projects?

Q: I think it says if your building permit application is in, you’re OK.

A: What about Google? Google’s in a little bit different shape, but when they came to me, I said, “I would not wait to build the second phase.” Well, the developer said they’re only building the first phase. So now there’s another phase out there.

Q: Google can afford pretty much whatever Boulder puts in.

A: Well, if they had come up with a number, if they had said it was so much per square foot, at least you could say, “OK, we can still afford that,” or “We can’t afford that; we’d better sell the property and move on.” I don’t think there is a council member supporting either of the ballot initiatives. You can check.

Q: So why have you decided to step down?

A: This is by far the best thing I’ve ever done in my whole life. And my life has been filled with lots of great things along the way. I believe this has been a challenge for me. I’m not challenged a lot just in general business. I’ve had to step outside of my usual pattern of making my own decisions and if I screw it up, it’s my decision. I’ve had to learn, and I’m not the most patient person in the world, I mean, you watch meetings. You know how long they are. A lot of people say, “George, how do you do it?” And I say, “I don’t know.”

The length of the meetings; I can’t do it anymore. I can’t. I have been fighting since the day I went on council, you can look back, “We can’t have meetings this late. It’s not fair to the staff, it’s not fair to the public, and it’s not fair to us!”

Retiring City Councilman George Karakehian in his Pearl Street Mall antique map shop. (Cliff Grassmick/Daily Camera)

“There are so many angry people out there that it’s just not rewarding to me.” — George Karakehian on why he’s retiring after six years on Boulder City Council.

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Q: Why do they take so long? Is it too much talking?

A: Yeah! We’ve got nine people! I try not to say something about every issue. I really do. The other night it was about the emerald ash borer. It’s a very serious thing, but what did I have to say about it?

Look, it’s been a great learning experience for me. I believe I’ve helped, as have my fellow council members over time, helped Boulder get to a very special place, where it is now. And so have the prior council members, obviously.

But I’ll tell you, this year, there are so many angry people out there that it’s just not rewarding to me. Losing Ken Wilson and Suzy Ageton was very hard for me because we sort of shared the load. We were all pretty good in common sense decision-making, even though they were way further to the other political side than I am.

Q: The other side being the left.

A: Yes. Thanks for making a note of that. But they were very smart and a lot of common sense. And in fact, we would sort of tag team. There’s an issue Suzy really knew about, she would take it and I wouldn’t have to spend as much time on it. And Ken would do the same. And I’d do some business-related stuff.

This past year, and I hope this comes out right, because I feel like I’ve been guardian of common sense, and that’s been very difficult on me. And the pressure has been on me on every single vote to know everything that it says in the 400 pages, that I couldn’t go to a meeting and not have spent a lot of time on these issues. I couldn’t.

And don’t get me wrong. There are other people on council that really do some heavy lifting, so this is not a criticism of them. But I’ve had to do this. And I’m 68 and I just couldn’t see another four years, especially with the angry people.

Q: More than before?

A: Way more. “How could you have done this? This is the most awful thing. Boulder’s dying.” And some of the decisions we’ve made. I’ve never seen so many angry people.

Q: As you pointed out, the critics of growth were saying the same stuff 13 years ago. So why are they so angry?

A: Well, now they’re even angry at their own people if you’re talking about, “Let’s not build anything else. Council hasn’t done a good job.”

I can’t tell you specifically what’s happened. I can just tell you that I’m tired. I’m tired of the constant influx of unhappy folks. Take the 12th Street thing. Really, I felt like Andrew and I were kind of the guys going, “What are you people doing?” Lots of mad people about that. So I just made a decision that I’m tired. And I do not want to be surrounded by angry people. I want to go back to my life that I had. I’m proud of what I did and I’m excited about what I did, but I want to go back to, can’t wait to wake up in the morning, don’t have to read 400 pages and sit through three hours of public comment where people get up and tell us how stupid we are.

Q: Should city council members be paid more?

A: I think only if we change the form of our government. What I’m afraid of, if I were paid more, people would expect more out of me.

Q: In terms of time, you couldn’t do much more. But let me argue with you for a minute. Basically the council has to be people who are independently wealthy or never sleep. It’s a fulltime job that doesn’t pay anything.

A: I don’t know if independently wealthy is the right word. But wealthy enough. I think that connotes multi-millionaires and I don’t see that on council. I think council should be paid more, but I don’t know what the right number is.

Q: Is any of it frustration about those 8-1 votes?

A: No. None of it. It’s about some of the decisions, but they made the decisions and they have to live with them. No, I feel like I’ve gotten my shots in. I feel like we’ve made some great decisions over the years.

Q: Best decision on council since you’ve been there?

A: I knew you were going to ask that. The upzoning of 30th and Pearl.

Q: So you’re a big fan of Boulder Junction even though the train, which was sort of the whole idea, never happened?

A: I never thought we’d ever get a train. I’m on record.

Q: Even when RTD was saying heavy rail’s coming to the northwest corridor?

A: What I said then was, “So who wants to take a slow train to Denver? Do you really think commuters are going to be on a slow train? No.” And then the city screwed up, on the curve. How stupid is that? No, I really believe what we’ve done there will make a major difference in Boulder. It already has.

Q: In terms of what?

A: The new housing and the new jobs.

Q: People complain about how it looks.

A: Are there things that I would have done differently? Probably. But there’s nothing out there that’s offensive to me. The Solana? I wouldn’t have built the Solana to look that way. But I don’t care. It’s their property. Do you really want me to be building their property? I am so proud of what we’ve done there. And if we use our brains on the Pollard site, then it’ll be a real community over there.

Q: Worst decision in your six years?

A: “Right-sizing” Folsom.

Q: When you dig down to the bottom of that, what do you see?

A: This was all staff-driven.

Q: Does that bother you?

A: Absolutely. And I voiced my opinion on that. This was, as I said the other day, Bob Greenlee’s quote, this was a decision in search of a process. And then you’ve got council, who have big hearts, and they want to do anything that is pro-bike, walking, alt modes, reduce carbon, they wake up in the morning thinking about it. So this was easy. Staff laid it out, and they also laid council out. This is going to turn into an election issue.

Q: In this form of government generally, council is supposed to set policy, staff is supposed to execute it. How does it get turned around?

A: We agreed to look at this stuff in the transportation master plan. I got a call six months ago, can’t remember who, and they said, “Do you know they’re going to narrow Folsom?” And I went, “No, I know nothing about it.” I heard it from somebody else. The process has been bad. They didn’t involve the business community. They did some token stuff.

So that was the worst. It truly is. I mean, I look back and I go, “What have we done that I think was so bad that I’d remember it,” and there isn’t much.

Q: Do you think there’s any chance that gets reversed, or do you think that’s here to stay?

A: I think it gets reversed.

Q: Do you really? By this council or by the next one?

A: I’m going to work very hard over the next month and a half.

Q: Last thing. Any advice you would give the voters of Boulder as they go to the polls this fall, coming off council, six years of experience, what should voters be thinking about, what should they be looking for?

A: When I ran, I said, put common sense back in city government. And to me, they need to elect someone with common sense. I know that’s hard to suss out, but having been in business for all those years, there’s lots of decisions and things that I’ve had to do, and I’ve had to learn how to work with people. I’d say, keep your eyes open. Please don’t elect someone’s puppets. Let’s go with some people whether they’re left or they’re right, that actually have some common sense about them and can make good, common-sense decisions.

Dave Krieger: 303-473-1354, kriegerd@dailycamera.com. Twitter: @DaveKrieger