This commentary is by KC Becker, who served on the Boulder City Council from 2009 to 2013. She was one of Boulder’s elected state representatives from 2013 to 2021, serving on the House Finance and Capital Development committees. She served two years as House majority leader and two years as speaker of the House.
This November, Boulder voters are being asked to approve up to $400 million in debt, repaid through property taxes, to fund capital improvements across the city. I understand the impulse behind it. Some of these projects are very worthwhile. But I cannot support the measure because the process used to develop it falls far short of the process the city followed for capital improvement projects in the past. And the price tag is too high for a plan this thin on specifics.
I was on the Boulder City Council in 2011, when the city put a capital improvement bond before voters. Then, the process didn’t start with a number and a list handed down from City Hall. It started with people. The city manager assembled a committee of 15 residents who held public meetings over several months. At those meetings, city staff and residents alike could propose and present capital projects, out in the open, in front of their neighbors. That committee then considered all those proposals and built a prioritized list, one that the public had watched take shape from the very beginning. Anyone who wanted to make the case for a project got to make it. The public got to see all the presentations, and city staff had to explain their proposals. Committee members could question any project.
That is what real public involvement looks like. The process didn’t start with a poll in which the city asked how best to persuade residents. Instead, it was a visible and detailed process where the priorities were discussed out loud before a final list was sent to city council for inclusion in a ballot measure.
Just as important, the 2011 measure asked for a modest, sustainable tax increase. A smaller ask meant a smaller list, a tighter scope and far less room for costs to balloon once the money was actually being spent. Discipline on the front end bought discipline on the back end.
This year’s measure asks for a great deal more but offers far less in return. The dollar amount is significantly higher than what Boulder asked for in 2011, but the level of detail about what that money will actually build is far lower. While the 2011 process gave voters a specific, publicly vetted list of projects, this year’s language is vague, giving the city wide latitude to change which projects get built, how much gets spent on any of them, and how they’re prioritized.
That combination of more money, less specificity and built-in flexibility to move the goalposts is not a recipe for public confidence. It’s the opposite. Voters are effectively being asked to write a check first and find out what it paid for later.
Real cost estimates need to be produced for each project on the list, not a single lump sum covering everything at once. And those estimates can’t just be handed to voters as finished numbers. The public needs to know how each estimate was built: what assumptions went into it, what scope it assumes, what contingencies it includes, and what would cause it to change.
If the city wants Boulder voters to trust that this money will be spent well, it should show its work the way it did in 2011: Bring back the public process, not just a public relations campaign. Hold the open meetings. Let residents and staff propose and defend specific projects in front of each other. Publish a real, prioritized project list, with real per-project cost estimates and the reasoning behind them, before asking for a dollar, not after. And for projects of this scale, take voters to see them. Offer tours of the sites and facilities in question, so people aren’t asked to fund something they’ve only seen in a slide deck.
Boulder has already proven it can run a capital improvement process that voters can watch, question and trust. This measure doesn’t live up to that, and until it does, I’m voting no.
As co-chair of the 2011 residents’ committee that KC refers to, I agree with her that the process 15 years ago was far better at determining community needs and desires. Rather than this year’s top-down $400 million city staff wish list, which will almost certainly fail at the ballot box, in 2011 we asked the community what they wanted and how much they were willing to pay for it. Folks, this is the biggest tax increase in Boulder’s history. Tell city council and city staff that they need to go back to the drawing board and consider community needs and taxpayer capacity. — Bob Yates (Boulder City Council 2015-23)
Thanks Bob!
Thanks KC and Bob. Please keep speaking out and educating voters.
Thanks Bob & KC;
This town is getting a little too full of itself. Better be careful this mentality can lead to a crash & burn. Analyze all your construction projects more carefully. Tear down and rebuild can be out-of-control expensive and not always necessary . It is never been more appropriate then now to say better “go back to the drawing boards”
Excellent, KC. The City could apply its well-received public engagement policy to build a solid solution to these important infrastructure challenges. I hope there is strong engagement with the east civic center as well.
I couldn’t agree more! I have generally voted for tax increases, when I felt public funds were being managed responsibly, but I will be voting NO on this measure. The trust and goodwill that I felt towards city management has evaporated to the point where I think “irresponsible” is not too harsh a word for what is happening to a place I care deeply about. I urge others to vote “No” on this ballot item, even though there are valid needs for capital improvements, because we need to send a message to city management that a serious realignment of city expenditures and citizens’ priorities needs to occur.
When a city survey shows less than 50% support for a proposal, that’s a clear sign for Council to pause, listen to voters, and go back to the drawing board. PR campaigns and threats of eliminating city services aren’t the way to build public trust, and they’re not a substitute for the accountability and transparency taxpayers deserve. Vote “NO” on this ballot measure, and vote for candidates this November who will prioritize hiring a City Auditor.
Boulder voters have seemingly never met a tax they didn’t like, a bizarre and distressing track record. But this will be the Waterloo.
Boulder’s $521 million annual budget and 1,528 employees are already at the extreme high end of cities of this size; asking citizens to approve $400 million dollars in debt without specifically stating how it will be used will be a step too far.
I’m sort of glad this is on the ballot, because it will lose, and result in an important shift in city politics: We will need to be progressive and financially accountable at the same time.
Agreed Buzz. Thanks
Thanks, KC. I hope Boulder Reporting Lab will do some “deep dives” on Boulder’s 2027 budget request, the Alpine-Balsam expenses, as well as these bond measures. The community deserves better education before voting. KC points to communications coming from the City as “public relations”, and we deserve factual detail. We also need public process changes she has recommended.
With the closing of pools and rec centers, the city is proving incapable of planning for routine maintenance, and renewal and replacement needs, of the capital assets it now has. Until it can prove its ability to manage its current assets properly, it would be irresponsible to approve more funding to build more stuff that needs to be tended to.
As Buzz says “Boulder voters have seemingly never met a tax they didn’t like”. That has been my experience for the last 48 years of my residency. That is in part because we almost always support the cause. But now is the time to say, “We may support the cause, but is this the right ballot measure?” We are entering a time of great economic uncertainty for many voters, and I predict that tax increases will be viewed with much more skepticism than in the past. Especially this ballot measure.
City council is so focused on promoting teamwork and facilitating the work of staff in any way they can, they’ve not only completely lost sight of their responsibilities to their constituents – such as demanding clear details and accountability when it comes to spending and outcomes – but they have circled the wagons around staff priorities to the point that they are literally indistinguishable from staff. They really seem to feel that their main goal should be to protect and defend staff at all times. It’s great to have good productive working relations with staff, but protecting staff should not be their priority when it comes to governing the city.
Excellent KC! I am very supportive of the (vague) goals. But raising property taxes for these goals should have been management. It’s a clear “no” for me at this time.
KC Becker is right, and her point deserves more than a nod. I’ve lived in Boulder since 1961, and I spent twelve years as a CU regent voting on capital budgets and bond financing, long enough to learn that a project list without honest per-project numbers is a promise, not a plan. I’ve voted for most of the tax measures this city has put in front of me. I did it because I could see what I was buying. That is the difference here. As KC clearly articulates, in 2011, residents sat in a room, heard the proposals, questioned the staff, and built the list themselves. This year we are handed a number and asked to trust the sorting-out later. Four hundred million dollars is not a number you hand over on faith.
Trust in local government is not built by campaigns. It is built by showing the work. Publish the projects. Publish the cost estimate behind each one, and the assumptions underneath the estimate. Let people walk the sites. If the needs are as real as the city says and some of them plainly are, that record will make the case better than any mailer ever could. Boulder has done this before. Doing it again is not an obstacle to the bond. It is the only thing that would earn it.
(Jim Martin Past CU Regent)
Thank you KC, Bob, Jim, and others. Excellent insights and very helpful comments. I vote NO on the $400m bond.
KC is right: this looks like a “spending” plan, not an “investment” plan. Successful capital investment programs are built on a foundation of needs, objectives and guiding principles. What needs should the City be addressing? (Climate resilience? Housing equity and employment opportunity for the Z and A generations? Reduced energy dependence?) How should the City engage with residents, workers and businesses in defining needs, objectives and guiding principles (and only then, projects): And how would the City track and report progress and achievement? Shopping list capital programs tend to flail and fail. Underestimation of costs is almost inevitable; how will the City readjust a program that has no overarching framework? The resulting public dissatisfaction and debate can lead to loss of credibility and support for capital investment. This $400M proposal is not ready for prime time.
Thanks Jim! Good to see you pop up in this conversation!