In this ongoing series, Boulder Reporting Lab columnists Brian Keegan and Bob Yates discuss local issues, exploring where they agree, where they differ and what’s at stake for Boulder.
Boulder voters face a decision this November on Ballot Issue 2K, which would authorize the city to borrow $400 million through bonds to pay for new buildings and repair existing ones. To repay the debt, plus interest, the city is also seeking authorization to increase property taxes by up to $650 million over 20 years. For residential properties, this would result in an annual property tax increase of about $400 for every $1 million in actual value. For commercial properties, the increase would be about four times this amount.
Brian Keegan, a CU professor, supports Issue 2K as a way to address years of deferred maintenance. Bob Yates, a former Boulder City Councilmember, opposes it, arguing that the city should rethink its spending plans and return to voters with a smaller proposal.
Bob: Brian, in our last Across the Aisle discussion, we agreed that increasing the number of Boulder County commissioners from three to five was wise, but we quibbled over the best way to elect those five. Now let’s pivot to another ballot measure: Issue 2K, which would authorize the city to borrow an additional $400 million and result in the biggest tax increase in Boulder history. I am against this, for reasons I can explain. But you go first. Why do you think this is a good idea?
Brian: Thanks for teeing this up, Bob. I am a reluctant supporter of Issue 2K, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any enthusiastic supporters. Adding more debt, particularly with high interest rates, is far from ideal.
The reason this bond issue is before voters this year is urgency. City council unanimously recommended putting this issue before voters because there is an expensive and growing maintenance backlog across the city’s aging buildings. Some are used by everyday residents, like rec centers, while others are used by our essential workers, like maintenance crews and police.
The city for years budgeted less than a quarter of the recommended maintenance spending. There is no time machine scenario where we can force previous councils and staff to make different budgeting decisions so this deferred maintenance didn’t fall in our lap. Punting another year means more closures, repairs and uncertainty.
Bob, why didn’t previous councils and city managers do more to address this maintenance backlog earlier?
Bob: They did. I know because I was on some of those councils, at least until 2023. In 2014, 2017 and 2021, the city council proposed, and the voters overwhelmingly approved and renewed, the Community, Culture, Resilience, and Safety (CCRS) tax to repair and replace municipal facilities. Those funds supported rec centers, fire stations, streets and parks.
And, in 2021, city council adopted a Facilities Master Plan, committing annual funding to maintain the facilities we already have. Regrettably, city revenue shortfalls in recent years have prevented council from fully funding this plan, and that’s why we find ourselves short in 2026. It’s a bit like the person who takes a pay cut at work, and then his neighbor asks him why he hasn’t replaced his roof.
Setting aside annual budgetary constraints, we should talk about whether the $400 million that city staff is now asking for in Issue 2K is really the right number.
In September, after the city put Issue 2K on the ballot, city staff discovered a building they could buy and renovate for a new police headquarters at about one-third of the original $170 million that they requested. At about the same time, Councilmember Tina Marquis wisely suggested selling or repurposing the soon-to-be-vacated Tate Municipal Building (City Hall) rather than spending $30 million renovating it. Voila! We just knocked nearly $150 million off the $400 million ballot request. That wasn’t hard.
There is precedent for closely examining city staff’s initial wish lists. In 2011, I co-chaired a residents committee that winnowed a $726 million city staff infrastructure list down to a $49 million tax package, which voters approved overwhelmingly. After Issue 2K fails this year (and it will fail), city council should reconvene a residents panel to see if they can turn a $400 million city staff wish list into something more palatable to the taxpayers.
Brian: While there is no scenario in which 2K passes by a landslide, I don’t share your certainty that this ballot measure will inevitably fail. While I have not seen anyone whipping support for this bond measure, the November election could send another mixed message from voters: rejecting the bond measure while re-electing city councilmembers who unanimously supported it.
One of my biggest reservations in backing Issue 2K was the $170 million price tag for a new police station. That’s already something like five times the cost of the already palatial new Fire Station 3 near Valmont and 30th. At $750 to $1,000 per square foot, that would imply 170,000 to 225,000 square feet of police station, or double the size of the current public safety building. To give some context, 225,000 square feet is approximately the same size as the University Memorial Center student union at CU or almost double the size of the much-debated 117,000-square-foot city building at Alpine-Balsam.
One alternative I’ve heard proposed is splitting the $400 million bond into separate measures for rec centers, police and fire stations, and maintenance facilities. What do you make of arguments that funding for rec center improvements is being held hostage to other projects? And what happens if voters approve funding for shiny new rec centers but reject funding for police stations or maintenance facilities?
Bob: You are right to be skeptical of the $170 million for a new cop shop (more than 40% of the entire $400 million bond proposal). That estimate has swung wildly from $120 million in April to $170 million in August to as little as $60 million with this “newly discovered” building announced at the end of September. It just shows that Issue 2K is not ready for prime time.
Some projects are clearly needed, like the South Boulder Rec Center, which is on its last legs. But the whole package needs to be looked at critically by a team of community members, architects, engineers and construction contractors. I believe that if the right people take time next year to evaluate the city staff’s $400 million wish list, it can be winnowed down to a much smaller and more palatable number. Maybe that means separate, smaller ballot measures for individual projects, like rec centers and fire stations. Or maybe an omnibus package at a much smaller amount.
Brian: One of the biggest debates about Issue 2K interestingly centers on the costs associated with the new Western City Campus at Alpine-Balsam. The money for the project has already been approved, budgeted and spent by previous councils and staff. The outcome of Issue 2K won’t change that.
But the debate has surfaced questions about how the city calculates and communicates the costs of major projects. Critics often include the financing costs when discussing the price of Issue 2K ($650 million versus $400 million) or the Alpine-Balsam campus ($366 million versus $258 million). But would they apply the same accounting when it comes to their pet projects? When voters are asked to fund new projects, how can they make apples-to-apples comparisons when these different but gigantic price tags are floating around?
Bob: Accounting aside, this project at Alpine-Balsam is WAY over budget. When city staff first proposed this to council in 2019, the estimate for renovating the so-called Pavilion Building on the former hospital site was $48 to $58 million, for a project with a much smaller scope. So, here we are, seven years later, and the Pavilion Building alone has cost $143 million, and the total Western City Campus price tag is $368 million, according to city staff.
Regrettably, staff failed to inform council and the community of cost increases along the way. As Shakespeare wrote in “Macbeth,” what’s done is done. But it’s an unforced error by the city at exactly the moment it’s asking for more money for other city projects. I think the right expression is tone deaf.
This fall, as I attend candidate forums and listen to the 19 people who are running for election to city council and for mayor, the word I hear most frequently is “trust.” Candidates recognize that trust between the community and city staff and council has been damaged. Maybe that’s because of the undisclosed Alpine-Balsam cost overruns at the Western City Campus. Maybe that’s because of the overreach of Ballot Issue 2K. Or maybe that’s just because people are feeling frustrated and powerless with what is happening on the national stage.
Brian: The earliest a revised bond measure for funding new building construction could appear on the ballot is November 2027. Odd-year elections have lower turnout than even-year elections, and without council elections as an anchor, turnout is likely to be even lower. Voters in odd-year elections tend to be older homeowners who are especially allergic to new property taxes.
Your proposed community process would also need to move quickly. Ballot language must be finalized in July, leaving perhaps eight months to recruit a committee, evaluate projects and make recommendations. Community members upset about the conditions of the South and North Boulder rec centers may not have the patience to wait another two years for a ballot measure.
Future funding could either be broken up into multiple ballot issues or delayed potentially until November 2028. There is a risk of haphazard prioritization where shiny rec centers get funded while mundane projects for public safety and transportation maintenance languish. In the meantime, the costs of planned and unplanned maintenance will continue to deplete city coffers, residents will have to deal with closures, and the timelines for moving into new facilities could get pushed into the 2030s.
Former City Manager Jane Brautigam said this about the maintenance backlog back in 2011: “It’s not our responsibility today to reduce a funding gap that’s going to occur 20 years from now.” And now, here we are 15 years later with a similar backlog costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Isn’t voting no on Issue 2K just more of the same kicking the can down the road and hoping someone else will address these compounding maintenance costs?
Bob: I am more of an optimist, Brian. In 2011, the residents committee I served on winnowed the city staff’s $726 million list to $49 million in four months, and voters approved the corresponding tax that fall (an odd year). Of course, for the tactical reasons you mention, city council may decide to wait until 2028 to bring another infrastructure tax measure back to the voters. That will be their call. But in the meantime, the city has $100 million already in hand from previously approved tax measures, allocated for the most urgent infrastructure projects. I don’t think city staff will run out of things to do while they’re figuring out the next steps.
Brian: Here’s my closing idea that almost no one will like, which maybe makes it an ideal compromise: Let’s vote for a $400 million blank check now and then start the community engagement process you identified for prioritizing needs. If the $170 million public safety building cost has been revised with an alternative building or the $140 million for only two rec centers gets right-sized, suddenly there is room for other capital-intensive priorities such as wildfire and flood safety, building safer roads or purchasing mobile home developments. Like you said, there is no shortage of work our community needs, so why not get started now?
Bob: You’re right, no one will like it. I certainly don’t. How about we reverse the order: Do the community engagement first, find out what taxpayers want and are willing to pay for, then present a ballot measure folks will actually vote for.
Brian: The decision is in voters’ hands now. Let us know how you’re thinking about Issue 2K in the comments. Thanks for this conversation, Bob. Like last year, we’ll be back after Nov. 3 to take stock of the election results.
