Residents are asking the Colorado Supreme Court to reverse a Court of Appeals ruling that upheld Boulder’s use of stormwater utility fees to pay for the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project at CU South.
The petition for certiorari, filed on Sept. 29, is the latest in a legal fight over the project that has been in the works for more than a decade. The project includes building a concrete spillway along U.S. 36 and creating a detention pond to reduce the risk of flooding for about 2,300 residents who live in the 100-year South Boulder Creek floodplain. Properties in that floodplain have a 1% chance of flooding in any given year.
The lawsuit centers on whether the city’s use of stormwater utility fees to fund the project constitutes a tax. The plaintiffs, Save South Boulder and several Boulder residents, argued that it does and therefore requires voter approval under the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). They also argued the fees violate TABOR because many residents who pay them will not directly benefit from the project.
The lawsuit has stalled the city’s ability to issue bonds to finance the project. As a result, the city said it now plans to fund construction year by year using money from the stormwater fund. This would stretch construction from three years to five. City officials have said the new timeline increases the project’s cost from $66 million to $76.6 million. The city has also said the majority of the site will be closed for construction beginning Monday, Oct. 5.
The same mistakes over and over, destroy nature and its inhabitants to ultimately for profit and the result is global warming, it’s pretty obvious but profit comes first
Who exactly profits from this flood control project, Gary? The people and property whom might be spared the next disaster? As despite all the noise and propapaganda being promoted by a very small group of SoBo residents whom feel entitled to weaponize the legal system with frivilous arguments about TABOR to obstruct an important infrastucture project that our own history and worsening experiences with climate change in 2013 has proven neccessary; there is absolutely no factual, scientific, or engineering basis for their oppoisition nor is “nature” is going to be wholesale destroyed either. As now that this area is closed due to construction, I recommend everyone to walk the trails around the Boulder Res, take a deep breath, and to see how those same structures have been built on the east side to none of the detrimental effects being claimed here.
There are thousands of people standing proudly behind this lawsuit, most of whom have actually read the annexation agreement. We voted twice, yes, in favor of flood protecction (I know I did), but we didn’t vote on the now $104 million (?) cost of the dam project (let alone this three-story, high hazard design). Under tabor, we are supposed to vote on tax increases. The city should have done this right, but instead the people who need flood protection have been thwarted by their own city.
Do these litigants want their neighbors to be flooded?
They are building this “flood mitigation” for the benefit of CU Boulder’s ability to build, not for residents downstream. They want to develop the land and thus need the flood mitigation that the land is already providing.