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Boulder stands at a crossroads. Two decades ago, the voters enacted wise policies, such as Open Space and the Danish plan, that have served as our guide. This vision showed us how to have a livable city. Now this course has brought us to a new fork in the road. The thriving city we are now must choose whether to be a balanced city or the center of a sub-metropolis. We need to make a choice. We can keep moving toward more growth and less sense of community or we can restore the spirit that shaped the vision that created today's Boulder: mutual tolerance, trust in the values of our citizens, and respect for our environment.
What Can Be Our Future?
I envision Boulder County as a web of balanced communities each with jobs and a tax base adequate to its population. Our citizens will enjoy both the best jobs possible and a sense of spaciousness and freedom. Government will work at a new level of efficiency and responsiveness. And its citizens will gain satisfaction from parti-cipation in decision making at all levels of involvement.
Transportation
The transportation system must work for Boulder's current land use patterns, rather than requiring massive increases in population density to support "big bus" solutions. We can reduce congestion with innovation solutions, for example licensing private cars for use as taxis or mini-buses. I have been a strong advocate of cost-efficient measure for safer bicycling, such as pedestrian/bike paths on back streets and bike lanes. I will turn these ideas and others into working realities.
Affordable Living
The health of the community requires that we and our children be able to live here in all the phases of our lives. Ways the city government bring this about include:
1. Managing commercial growth to reduce the competition for housing and to fight for the best jobs possible for all Boulderites.
2. Reducing taxes by ending the current subsidies for growth. (The citizen's Slow Growth! Initiative (2A) will do all these; the ordinance passed by the current city council does none of them.)
3. Ensuring that significant levels of permanently affordable housing are included in new development and experimenting with alternative solutions such as co-housing and co-operative housing.
Sustaining Our Neighborhoods
Tools such as parking permit programs, neighborhood-specific zoning and neighborhood representation in development review must be used effectively to preserve neighborhoods. Neighborhood residents should be regarded as one of our best information resources for decision making.
Vote YES on (2B) the
Careful Choice Charter Amendment
Because major land use decisions are often ir-reversible, we need to verify community backing for these decisions, either with a supermajority of city council or a majority of the voters. That is why I wrote Careful Choice. Careful Choice retains the current referendum rules but lowers the number of petition signatures required for annexation zoning, upzoning, projects more than 25,000 square feet, and growth allocation systems. Minor land use decisions, non-land-use decisions and decisions supported by 7 or more city council members will NOT be affected by Careful Choice.
Vote YES on (2A) the
Slow Growth! Initiative
Increased traffic congestion and air pollution show that we are nearing the natural limits of our environment. Matching commercial and industrial growth to our current level of residential growth will result in less in-commuting, less competition for housing, and greater regional cooperation. Making growth pay its own way will result in lower taxes and greater financial support for our schools and it will end the subsidy to luxury home building.
How To Make Council Yours Again
VOTE for Kevin Rooney:
Kevin has a B.A. in Sociology from S.U.N.Y. Albany and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Tennessee State University. He worked as an automotive engineer and has worked the past 14 years translating technical documents from Japanese to English. Kevin lives in North Boulder with his wife of 13 years and their 6-year-old daughter.
Endorsed By: