Welcome to Friday, Boulder. Here’s the news.

Today, John Herrick covers speech from two angles: One of policing, the other of campaigning.

In recent weeks, the Police Oversight Panel, which reviews city investigations into officer misconduct, has received legal guidance from city officials that has left its volunteer members feeling as though they cannot speak as openly about cases as they had previously. Some panel members are worried about legal liability, at a time when they made the rare recommendation that the city fire five officers for alleged wrongdoing.

In his story on speech in campaigning, Herrick covers Steve Rosenblum, a former city council candidate who sued progressive organizers last year for conspiring to defame him. He is defending his lawsuit in the Colorado Court of Appeals, where judges will decide whether the case has merit, or if it amounts to a frivolous attempt to chill political speech.

Enjoy your weekend.

— Tim, reporter

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What to know today

  • Not too hot, not too cold: Sun today with clouds over the weekend. Temps in the 40s and 50s. Goldilocks would be pleased.
  • New transpo projects approved: Boulder City Council last night approved three “multimodal” transportation projects that they will seek federal funding to help pay for. The projects include building new bike lanes, intersections and transit infrastructure along Colorado Ave. and 30th Street. The work is intended to make it safer for CU Boulder students to travel between the east and main campuses. The council will also seek funding to design and build a protected bike lane from Pine St. to Colorado Ave. along Folsom St.
    • The city will seek nearly $10 million to help fund the projects through an application with the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), a regional planning agency governed by local elected officials.
  • Boost for the 2022 budget. City council also approved a supplemental appropriation of $17.7 million to the 2022 budget.
    • According to a city staff memo, some of the additional spending will pay for increases in construction costs — $2.3 million for the North Boulder Library Branch, $1 million for the Flatirons Golf Course, and $2 million for the road and bike path construction on Broadway in North Boulder.
    • The money will also help cover two police lawsuit settlements, debt service, software upgrades, and the purchase of a new Type 3 Wildland Engine.
  • Boulder has a new mayor pro tem: By a vote of 6-3, the Boulder City Council elected Councilmember Mark Wallach as mayor pro tem for the next year. Wallach has served on the council for three years.
    • The mayor pro tem serves as a representative for the city council across the region, state and county. The person in this role also helps with logistics, including setting the agenda for council meetings.
    • Also seeking the title was Councilmember Nicole Speer. The vote is an awkward test of collegiality, political preferences and adherence to a stated tradition of rotating the position each year to the next councilmember based on tenure.
  • Divestment protest: Coinciding with the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit that aims to reveal how the effects of climate change will impact human rights, CU students are planning a march and protest today to try and push the university to divest its endowment and retirement funds from fossil fuels.
    • “We want to push CU to match its financial investments with its values, and to invest in our futures as CU students. We demand a just transition from fossil fuels and futures free from climate catastrophe,” the student group, Fossil Free CU, said.
  • Hit and run by Fairview: On Wednesday, a 14-year-old boy on an electric mini-bike was hit by a “dark-colored SUV” and suffered injuries that put him in the hospital. After investigating the hit-and-run incident, the police said Thursday they had identified and are in contact with the vehicle driver. The child was expected to be released from the hospital yesterday, according to reports.
  • How to interact with mountain lions: With winter coming, so are mountain lions. As the weather gets colder, the large cats have to descend to lower elevations for food, bringing them closer to town. The threat they pose to humans is incredibly low, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be mindful. If you come across a lion, just as you wouldn’t with a bear, don’t turn and run. Instead, try to make yourself as big as possible and, as the city says, talk “calmly and firmly” to it. “Please do not eat me,” you might say.
    • If you’re with children, pick them up or shepherd them behind you to keep them from running and inciting the lions’ predatory itch. Also, your pets would probably be a tasty treat for the mountain dwellers, so be mindful of their whereabouts especially in the evening.
    • Mountain lions have been part of Boulder’s ecosystem for thousands of years. They’re solitary animals that mostly want to be left alone. When relocated, another lion will just take over the vacated territory. So the key is finding a way to live with them.
    • And in the unlikely event that a lion does attack you, feel free to fight back.
  • Election results made official: Last week, Boulder County completed a Risk-Limiting Audit, ensuring our election wasn’t tarnished by fraud and coffee-stained ballots were still counted. The audit was attended by election staff and an audit board made up of 10 Democratic Party and 10 Republican Party representatives. Then on Wednesday, via a video call, the results were certified. So what you see there is what stands. (Our rundown of the results.) We’ll be going deeper on voting turnout data soon.

Go deeper

Boulder citizen panel set up to promote police transparency runs up against limits to what it can say

By John Herrick

More than two years after Boulder’s city council established a civilian oversight panel to review investigations into misconduct by the Boulder Police Department, the volunteer-led panel is growing: It will soon expand from seven members to 11. The move will allow members to have more resources to review more city investigations into alleged police misconduct and shine a light on any potential officer wrongdoing. 

The panel is a core part of the department’s transparency pledge in its plan to “reimagine policing.” Its expansion comes after complaints of overwork, underpay and high turnover in its first two years. 

But the growth of the panel and breadth of its review capacity comes at an awkward time. 

As the panel enters this new phase, in recent weeks, members were given legal guidance from city officials that has left them feeling as though they cannot speak publicly about cases of alleged police misconduct as much as they had previously, according to current and former panel members. 

Some panel members told Boulder Reporting Lab they are now worried about their legal liability if they say too much. 

“We have received a lot of communications and a lot of advisements in the last week that has made our work extraordinarily challenging,” co-chair Daniel Leonard, assistant director of marketing at CU Boulder’s performing arts program CU Presents, said during the panel’s Nov. 10, 2022 meeting. “We have a lot of work to do and we were owed better.” 

Panel member Taishya Adams, the first Black woman to serve as a commissioner to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, echoed Leonard’s concerns: “All of the sudden, there is this need to create some additional hurdles to ensure the level of transparency that we had all agreed on.” 

Continue reading…

Former Boulder City Council candidate defends his defamation lawsuit against local political organizers

By John Herrick

More than a year after former Boulder City Council candidate Steve Rosenblum filed a lawsuit accusing local organizers of conspiring to defame him, he has made his first argument in defense of his case in the Colorado Court of Appeals. 

The judges will decide whether the case has merit — which would allow it to proceed toward a trial — or dismiss it as a frivolous attempt at chilling free speech. 

In a Nov. 23 filing, Rosenblum’s lawyers drilled down on the central premise of the lawsuit — that several politically active Boulderites, who ran campaigns against him in the 2021 election, allegedly conspired to spread false and defamatory information to damage his reputation. Rosenblum lost his bid for Boulder City Council. 

The organizers include Eric Budd and the Boulder Progressives — a candidate committee that helped elect city council candidates running against Rosenblum — plus three of its members. 

Continue reading…

Through Dec. 31, the Colorado Media Project and NewsMatch will each match your new monthly donation to BRL 12X or DOUBLE your one-time gift, up to $1,000. This means your gift can fund triple as much vital journalism for Boulder County and help us continue to build a great local newsroom. Give today to triple your impact!

BRL picks

👩‍🚒 Lefthand Fire Station Grand Opening: At 10 a.m. on Dec. 3, the new $3.4 million station will celebrate its birth with a ribbon cutting, tours of the station, and Abos pizza. The new station will allow for better gear and engine storage, a place for firefighter training, and more space for firefighters to eat and sleep so they can be on hand on red flag warning days.

🌍 Right Here, Right Now climate summit: Now happening at CU and continuing through the weekind is the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit. The summit will address the interconnectedness of human rights and climate change. If you go, you’ll also find some of us at BRL there, since we’re among several partners.

❄️ Colordado Chautauqua WinterFest: “Celebrate the holiday season at Chautauqua with this beloved annual tradition!” On the menu: tree lighting ceremony, horse-drawn carriage ride, an historic cottage tour, festive market, guided hikes and more. Tickets $25-$95. Children under 2 free.

🎄 Donate to EFAA’s holiday drive- reminder: Through Dec. 9, the Emergency Family Assistance Association is accepting donations of “new, unwrapped toys and presents for kids and teens ages 0-18.” Some of their highest priority requests are arts and craft supplies, outdoor toys, dolls and Legos.

Covid in Boulder County: Dec. 2, 2022

  • 99 daily new cases (7-day avg.) ⬆️ Up 3% over preceding 7-day avg.
  • 23 patients hospitalized with Covid (7-day avg.) ⬆️ Up from a high of 19 last week.
  • 45% percent of ICU is occupied. ⬇️ Down from avg. of 64% since July 2020.
  • High level of Covid spread: Perhaps not surprisingly if you’ve been following our Covid reporting, Boulder County has once again entered the high community level for Covid-19, according to Boulder County Pubic Health.
    • “Our hospital system is already under strain due to RSV, and the flu season is just getting started. We can all take steps to protect the people we care about, especially our loved ones and community members who are older or immune-compromised. The steps that we take will also support our local health care system during the holiday season,” said Carol Helwig, BCPH’s communicable disease control manager.

ICYMI

Tim Drugan is the climate and environment reporter for Boulder Reporting Lab, covering wildfires, water and other related topics. He is also the lead writer of BRL Today, our morning newsletter. Email: tim@boulderreportinglab.org.