Letters to the editor: Tara Winer; pro-CU South 302; pro-Bedrooms 300; anti-Bedrooms; encampments
Oct. 20—Liz Fox: Tara Winer: For a safer Boulder
I endorse Tara Winer for City Council! She will work for a safer and more welcoming Boulder. I have served on a board with her and know she follows through on her commitments and is extremely dedicated, respectful and thoughtful.
Tara listens to diverse points of view, is a team player, is super energetic, smart, full of integrity and a visionary.
A business owner, she understands complex situations and can anticipate unintended consequences. She has served on several city boards and worked tirelessly to create one of Boulder's sister cities.
She will be a terrific addition to our Council and in addition to all the skills above, she will bring her strong communication skills along with her special sense of humor.
Boulder needs Tara's voice! Please vote for her!
Liz Fox
Boulder
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Robert Porath: CU South: Vote yes for nature
My echinacea tea bag tag has a Vincent Van Gogh quote, "If one truly loves nature, one finds beauty everywhere."
As the area stands today, there are a thousand paintings, poems, and photographs waiting in the former wet land/gravel pit flood plain that the university wishes to develop as its "South Campus." It is my wish everyone in Boulder, looking with Vincent's eye, visits this site to see what will be destroyed should this Council-approved development project go forward. It will never be the same again.
Intrinsic to its natural wonder is its open accessibility and availability of multiple footpaths to navigate the area. Again, all this will disappear if the university and the City Council have their way. Construction traffic of out-of-town workers will further clog rush hour and the necessity for parking will consume acres of the site, and public access will disappear completely during the city's flood mitigation efforts (which have yet to meet federal standards). Mitigating the flooding of houses built on a historic flood plain may well prove to be a fool's undertaking. My crawlspace in Martin Acres flooded not from Skunk Creek overflowing its banks, but from soil saturation and ground water rise. Rather than seeing the natural world as a source of beauty and inspiration of Art, the vision of the university and of the city seem clouded with consumer dollar signs. We must stop eating the Earth. CU South — Just Undo It. Vote yes on ballot measure 302.
Robert Porath
Boulder
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Maeve Phelan: Bedrooms: It's one good tool
In order to afford to live in Boulder I have relied on shared housing. First, as a renter. Then, as a homeowner. Sharing housing will always be cheaper than living on one's own. Everyone agrees we need more housing affordable for low and moderate income workers. To do this we need to use every tool available to us. We cannot rely on any ONE action. Inclusionary zoning alone will not do it. Buying or building housing is expensive and making it affordable ALWAYS requires some form of public financing. We do, however, have one housing resource that would not cost the taxpayer and it's already built: unused bedrooms. Why not let people live in them? I support affordable housing and therefore support Bedrooms Are For People. Join me in voting yes on Ballot Question 300, Bedrooms Are For People.
Maeve Phelan
Boulder
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Cathy and Jon Swanson: Bedrooms: Take the long view
If "Bedrooms are for People" passes in its current form, imagine our city five years out or more. CU has a 2030 Plan to strive for 60,000 students (Gwen Dooley's commentary Sept. 16). That's 24,000 more students fighting for affordable housing than today's figures. This presents a huge neon Welcome Mat to developers around the country and parents of students to renovate or build bedroom-dense houses for maximum rental pay-off. We can do better with a ballot measure that puts more guardrails on resolving our serious need for more accessible, affordable housing. . . especially since the city does not have viable enforcement for a host of unintended consequences. We urge a NO vote on Ballot 300.
Cathy and Jon Swanson
Boulder
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Elaine Dannemiller: Public safety: The most important issue
I'm not a single-issue voter. Of all the important issues in this election, none is more important to me than electing Council members who support compassionate enforcement of the camping ban.
Every candidate will tell you that they don't want to see Boulder's public spaces used for illegal camps. But only a few have the courage to state publicly that they support enforcement of this law. Those are the candidates who'll get my vote: Steve Rosenblum, Tara Winer, Michael Christy, and Mark Wallach.
Failure to enforce the camping ban has an immediate, direct, and negative impact on all of the other issues: public safety, the environment, and the ability to provide housing support for long-term residents of the county. Unsanctioned camping has brought chaos to so many other cities. Denver recently closed Civic Center Park. How many cities need to serve as a cautionary tale?
There are many shelter and housing solutions to explore; unsanctioned camping should not be one of them.
Too many solutions are conceived from the heart but don't live in reality. Who will secure a "no-questions-asked" shelter? How? I'd like to see a serious answer before I'd ever support one because in reality they can be dangerous. What will the opponents of the camping ban do when a camper says "no, thanks" to every solution? It happens.
We are in dire need of in-patient rehab and mental health facilities. Mental health experts are already accompanying our police for homeless outreach. Assistance is offered with every camp clearing. You can't push pause on the camping ban until there is a perfect solution for every unhoused person. It's dangerous for everyone.
Vote for the four candidates who prioritize public safety. They have the experience, will, and intellect to tackle all of the other important issues.
Elaine Dannemiller
Boulder
