Although we have frequently and enthusiastically commended Boulder County Commissioners Will Toor and Cindy Domenico and former County Commissioner Ben Pearlman on their work for Boulder County over the past years, we are compelled to express our disappointment in and disapproval of their recent decision to appoint Mr. Pearlman as Boulder County Attorney. A conflict-of-interest is inherent in a decision by a small public body to select one of its own members for a position that it controls, particularly when all of its members are part of the same political party and are generally allied on the issues which have arisen before it. This conflict results in an appearance of impropriety that seriously weakens the public trust in the fairness and openness of local government.

The appearance of impropriety created by the Pearlman appointment is exacerbated by similar, past personnel decisions by prior sets of Boulder County Commissioners. The damage is further compounded by the cascade of replacement appointments, precipitated by the Pearlman selection, which has and will be made by a relatively small core of Democratic Party workers, instead of voters in primary and general elections.

We question the need for the apparent haste with which Mr. Pearlman was appointed and submit that a more prudent course of action would probably have been the designation of an interim County Attorney, followed by a permanent selection after two new Commissioners are elected next fall. We also urge the current County Commissioners to adopt—and current and future County Commissioners to enforce—a rule that would prevent a sitting Commissioner from being appointed to another County position during his or her term in office or immediately after it ends.

Sisk conservation easment locations (from Boulder County Commissioners' agenda packet)

This year, Boulder County spent almost $600,000 purchasing conservation easements. The county has spent more than $23 million over the past decade and around $66 million since the conservation easement program began. Meanwhile, county commissioners are considering a proposal that threatens to devalue all those easements—perhaps even render them worthless.

Near the intersection of Highway 36 and Boulder County Road 71N two miles northwest of Lyons is a 1,500-acre property that is under conservation easement (Boulder County staff memo). It is a beautiful piece of foothills land, and it’s one of the largest parcels under conservation easement in the county. It provides great wildlife habitat. Deer and elk herds regularly pass through. Elk bugle there every fall. Bobcats and coyotes roam the property, and mountain lions and bears occasionally make an appearance. The land is uninhabited, it’s quiet, and at night it’s completely dark. For five successive years in the 1990s, Boulder County bought a series of five conservation easements on this property. Total taxpayer spending on the easements was $1.5 million. Neighbors of the property who knew the landowner at the time say her primary goal was to prohibit any and all residential development in order to preserve the land for wildlife. For the past 15 years, that goal has been accomplished. Now it is at risk.

Sisk conservation easement (foreground) from Blue Mountain Road. Photo by the author.

Someone else now owns the property, and this week county commissioners are considering rewriting the five easements so that they become one easement—one easement that allows the landowner to build a 6,000-square-foot house on the property. Boulder County Parks and Open Space has offered two primary explanations for the county’s consideration of this change. One is that if the current owner wanted to, he could sell each of the five easement properties to different individuals, and “Boulder County staff is concerned about the potential impacts that separating the property into five pieces might have on the habitat the property provides for wildlife.” The current conservation easements don’t regulate fencing on the properties, but the new, consolidated easement wouldn’t regulate fencing either. How, then, would wildlife be impacted if the conservation easement land were owned by five different people? Why would elk care who owns the land they’re grazing?

The other explanation the county has tendered for rewriting the conservation easements is that the landowner’s lawyer claims the easements are ambiguous and could be interpreted as allowing the landowner to build a separate house on each of the five parcels. I’ve read the contracts, and they expressly prohibit residential construction—naming as a prohibited use of the property “the construction, reconstruction, or replacement of any structures…” There is a little more legalese to the prohibition, but the wording is not ambiguous. Perhaps the county feels it will avoid a lawsuit, saving taxpayers money, if it simply rewrites the easement now. But what’s to stop the current or future owners of this property from suing (or threatening to sue) the next time they want a change to the easement? How can taxpayers have any confidence that the county will work more vigorously to uphold the new conservation easement than it’s to working to uphold the current set of easements?

What’s going on near Lyons has ramifications for conservation easements throughout Boulder County. After all, what does a conservation easement buy for taxpayers? It doesn’t provide ownership rights in the property. It doesn’t give taxpayers the right to hike or bike on the property, or to use it in any way whatsoever. We have no more right to step foot on this land than on any other private property in the county. A conservation easement is nothing more than a contract prohibiting certain uses of a piece of land by the landowner. If the county is willing to rewrite that contract to remove those prohibitions just because the landowner asks it to, the contract has no teeth. Does the conservation easement, then, have any value at all?

I’m outraged that the county is considering allowing residential construction on this land. I live near the property and would love to see it remain pristine. But I’m more upset as a Boulder County taxpayer. The county paid $1.5 million to prevent residential construction here, and now—for no significant benefit to taxpayers or wildlife—the county is considering rewriting the easement to allow residential construction. What message would that send taxpayers, whose money the county continues to pour into new conservation easements every year?

Worse, what kind of precedent would it set—not just for this agreement, but for all the other conservation easements that the county has invested so much money in? What’s to prevent every other property owner with a Boulder County conservation easement from hiring a lawyer and petitioning county commissioners to make changes? Would the county fight harder to preserve smaller easements than to preserve 1,500 acres in which it’s already invested $1.5 million?

And for owners of large properties who are currently considering selling the county a conservation easement, shouldn’t a major revision in the terms of the Lyons-area agreement be reason to pause? The county seems to be saying that regardless of what’s written into a conservation easement contract today, commissioners might well revoke its most important provisions once ownership of the property changes hands. All the owner has to do is ask in the right way.

I see this proposal as a threat to the value of all the easements my (and your) tax money has paid for over the years. If it strikes you the same way, please join me at the hearing to discuss the issue on Tuesday morning, December 20, at 11 a.m. in the Commissioners’ Hearing Room, Third Floor, Boulder County Courthouse, 1325 Pearl Street, on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder.

Boulder County market farm (photo by Meaghan Huffman)

Democracy is decidedly out of fashion in 21^st-century American political culture. Indeed, one could argue that democracy has been out of fashion for decades. At this time, it seems almost truistic to note that what is often styled “representative government” is all too frequently representative of little more than private interests, special interests, and corporate interests. We have become narcotized to the contemporary reality that corporations and lobbyists often dictate law and policy—and unabashedly do so to a most disturbing and unprecedented extent.

The reasons for the demise of American democracy are not far to seek. For decades, tens of millions of Americans have routinely abdicated their right and responsibility to vote. Long work hours, incessant entertainment, bread and circuses of all kinds have kept many, if not most, Americans entirely out of the political process. And from at least as early as the 1970s, American corporations have been rapidly consolidating power and influence at the expense the American people. In his well-received 1995 book, When Corporations Rule the World, David C. Korten noted: “what we are seeing is a frontal assault on democratic pluralism to advance the ideological agenda of corporate libertarianism.”[1] The above-mentioned influences—and there are many others—have spawned our current political system, an impenetrable network of bureaucracies which have little desire or use for public “intervention”: we the people are expected to leave policy to the politicos.

This is no longer acceptable, as if it were ever acceptable. The evidence is all too clear: blind faith—or any faith—in our current political process and leadership is neither prudent, responsible, nor democratic. The nation-wide “Occupy movement” would seem to be an inevitable consequence of the decades-long status quo of corporate control of our political institutions. Meanwhile, here in Boulder County, an epicenter of all things organic, the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on the county’s publicly owned open space has been a source of alarm to the majority of residents of Boulder County in recent years. Boulder County citizens, highly informed and deeply concerned about the irrefutable dangers of GMOs, have found themselves consistently “shut out” of the crafting of public policy, and the governing bodies of Boulder County have consistently resisted public input.

In response to this unacceptable and undemocratic state of affairs, a local gathering of concerned citizens has recently forged The Citizen’s Cropland Policy, which is based upon the policy statement proposed by Boulder County Parks and Open Space. The Citizen’s Cropland Policy significantly improves and expands upon the original document in such a way as to preserve and sustain tens of thousands of arable acres of open space for future generations.

Context and Chronology

To better understand the background of the Citizen’s Cropland Policy, it might be helpful to briefly revisit the recent history behind the current GMO controversy in Boulder County. In 2003, local farmers were given permission by the Boulder County Commissioners to plant genetically modified BT corn on land they leased from open space in Boulder County. From 2001 to 2011, the area allotted for Bt corn expanded from 347 acres to over 2000 acres. At the time, few Boulder County citizens were aware that GMOs were being grown on 25,000 acres of their Open Space croplands.

The watershed year in the controversy was 2009.  That year six Boulder County farmers sought permission from the Boulder County Commissioners to plant genetically modified sugar beets on Boulder County Open Space. The still unresolved request ignited a public outcry, raised local awareness of the presence and implications of GMOS on publicly owned open space, and precipitated regional, national, and international press coverage.

To address mounting discontent throughout Boulder County, the Boulder County Commissioners created the Cropland Policy Advisory Group to assist the staff at Parks and Open Space. Two central goals of the consortium were: 1) to explore the purported benefits and potential risks of GMOs; and 2) to apply findings to the end of creating cropland policy. In 2011, the nine-member Cropland Policy Advisory Group (CPAG) comprised “three conventional farmers, two organic farmers, a representative from an organic dairy, and three at-large citizens.”[2] And in February, they began the process of crafting the policy. The 2011 Boulder County Parks and Open Space Cropland Policy Draft notes the following:

CPAG meetings were open to the public for observation; public comments were taken in written form and forwarded to CPAG for review; at the request of members of the public, a public input session was added the to CPAG schedule.[3]

In spite of such “appeals” for public observation and input, not a few Boulder County citizens felt their presence and input decidedly unwelcome at the CPAG meetings held in Longmont, Colorado in 2011. Moreover, their pleas for caution and their own extensive research—over 1000 pages of peer reviewed studies, articles, and public comments providing information on the dangers of GMOs—were summarily ignored in the final CPAG documents. And aside from minority reports filed by a few members of CPAG and a mere two articles, no documentation was to be found other than sources provided by Monsanto. Clearly, a new vision was in order.

So in true democracy fashion, a group of citizens, scientists, growers, farmer and policy wonks, took it upon themselves to craft the Citizens’ Cropland Policy to put forth as an alternative management policy for the 35,00 acres of Boulder County citizen owned Parks and Open Space agricultural lands. The eight guiding principles for the management of Boulder County Open Space agricultural lands are as follows:

1.  Boulder County Open Space (BCOS) agricultural lands will be managed with a focus on soil quality and health & sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices.
2.  The use of BCOS agricultural lands will be prioritized for food, fiber and fodder production that support local markets and provide direct benefit to the citizens of Boulder County.
3.  A multi-characteristic mapping and inventory of all BCOS agricultural lands shall be conducted and maintained to identify and rank the Highest and Best Use of all parcels.
4.  Testing and monitoring for soil health and other factors will be performed yearly and the data maintained as part of the mapping and inventory of all BCOS ag lands.
5.  GMOs are prohibited on BCOS agricultural lands.
6.  Glyphosate and neonicotinoid pesticides are banned on BCOS agricultural lands.
7.  A moratorium on the use of biosolids (sewage sludge) will be implemented until a thorough evaluation can be completed on the risks to BCOS agricultural lands.
8.  As with cropland, grazing land and livestock operations should be preferentially managed using sustainable and regenerative agricultural production principles and prioritized for local food and fiber production.

The Citizens’ Cropland Policy was grafted alongside and within the original CPAG document so the two documents may be compared side-by-side. This table can be accessed at www.bcccp.info.

On Thursday, December 8^th, the County Commissioners will be holding a public hearing beginning at 6:00pm at The Longmont Conference Center, 1850 Industrial Blvd in Longmont to hear public testimony regarding the Open Space Cropland Policy. Sometime this month, they will decide if they will continue to allow the planting of GMOs on Open Space lands.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

A critical joint meeting of the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee and the Food and Agriculture Policy Council took place in Longmont, Colorado on November 15th. The Citizen’s Cropland Policy was presented and was met with immediate praise that evening. Twenty-four hours later, the Boulder County Food and Agriculture Policy Council rejected the continuation of GMOs on Boulder County Open Space, advocating a phasing out of the undesired technology. And 24 hours after that, the Parks and Open Space Advisory Council voted 5 to 4 for a phase out of GMOs from Open Space land.

Shanan Olson, an organic farmer and member of Boulder County’s Food and Agriculture Policy Council stated:  “In my lifetime, this is an unprecedented act of democracy that I’ve never seen before.” As Americans struggle to reclaim their long lost freedoms, let us hope that what is now “unprecedented” may one day become the norm.

I was invited by the editors of the Blue Line to write this piece after they saw some of the comments I had written for a utility industry newsletter that’s been following Boulder’s initiative to form its own utility.   I must admit that I’m not familiar with all of the details and the history, but after spending nearly 40 years working in the electric business, I can offer a few insights.

The first thing to realize is that what we in the business call publicly-owned utilities are not a cure-all for the ills – real and perceived – of being served by a for-profit, or investor-owned, electric utility.  Research by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory shows that on average, there’s not much difference between the rates charged by investor-owned utilities and publicly-owned utilities though of course there are exceptions at both ends of the spectrum.  In some cases, local utility control leads to innovation and more responsive service as exemplified by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which serves Sacramento California, and Austin Energy, which serves Austin Texas.  In other cases, local utility control becomes enmeshed in city politics and utility revenues become a cash cow for the city, as is the case in Los Angeles, which has the largest municipal utility in the country.   Many of the country’s rural electric cooperatives are among the most risk-averse businesses you’ll find, while others have gotten themselves in financial trouble by taking on ancillary functions without understanding the businesses or the risks.

The second thing to realize is that a Boulder municipal utility will remain dependent on Xcel Energy for at least a decade and possibly longer.  Boulder will need Xcel’s transmission system to carry power from wherever it is produced, whether by fossil-fired plants, renewable energy plants or a combination of the two.  Since it sits squarely in the middle of Xcel’s Colorado electric grid, Boulder will need balancing services provided by Xcel’s fleet of power plants to ensure reliable service.  In all likelihood, Boulder will have to source at least a portion of its bulk power supply from Xcel for a period of time until other arrangements can be made.   Although this places Boulder in a less-than-ideal commercial position, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a number of rules over the years that are intended to protect smaller utilities embedded in the service territories of larger ones.

A Boulder municipal utility will no longer be regulated by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.  Instead, either the city council or a separate board will be responsible for management oversight, prices and terms of service.   On the positive side, a local regulator might be more willing to tolerate, or even require innovations that Xcel might be reluctant to go along with or the PUC might be reluctant to approve.  For example, some elements of the Smart Grid City idea could be implemented differently and at much lower cost.  On the other hand, local regulators could be more easily swayed by public opinion to take actions that negatively influence the municipal utility’s long-term viability.

Since the renewable energy content of electricity consumed by Boulder residents was a major issue in the decision to explore a municipal utility, it’s worth pointing out that electrons can’t be color-coded.   Renewable energy purchased from wind and solar farms enters the grid much like streams that enter a lake, and electricity withdrawn from the grid by business and residences behaves like streams that empty a lake.  There’s no way to direct the flow from one point to another without building expensive new transmission lines that neighbors don’t want anyway.  In fact, it’s entirely possible at least some of Boulder’s renewable energy could be purchased in Texas or portions of the Midwest that can’t physically deliver it to Boulder.   Consequently, Boulder residents need to get comfortable with the idea that the flow of physical energy out of a wind farm that has a contract with Boulder is separate and distinct from the flow of money to that wind farm.  Of course, renewable energy could also be purchased from solar panels on the roofs of homes and businesses in Boulder and wind turbines that feed directly into the Boulder distribution system, which would keep some of the money spent on renewable energy purchases in the community.

Forming and operating a municipal utility is a complex, time-consuming and potentially risky undertaking.  If it’s handled badly or if it’s done for the wrong reasons, consumers are going to see higher costs while failing to enjoy any benefits.   If it’s done well, the citizens of Boulder have an opportunity to pursue distinct environmental and policy objectives that a large utility with service obligations across Colorado cannot.  My advice to those of you reading this article is to educate yourselves and stay engaged with the process.

from Boulder County Parks and Open Space poster (http://bit.ly/pcX5BJ)

The issue of genetically-engineered (GE), or genetically modified organisms (GMO), crops is not an easy issue for our community to tackle. It’s proven to be divisive in Boulder in the past and it touches on two things many of us hold dear, food and preserving open space land.  The challenge for Boulder County Commissioners and Parks and Open Space staff will be to find a way to balance the concerns about GE crops with the need to do what is best for county-owned cropland.

On the one hand is the anti-GMO activist perspective based in large part on a deep mistrust of Monsanto, the company that developed the technology, and the biotech industry in general. On the other hand is the argument that GE crops should be considered on open space land because they help farmers to soften the impact that farming has on the environment and help farmers to remain financially viable.

The topic is relevant today – and is rapidly heating up – because Boulder County Parks and Open Space staff have put together a draft Cropland Policy for the county-owned agricultural lands.  According to the county website:

The Cropland Policy is designed to address the gap between the Parks and Open Space department’s daily management practices and the County Comprehensive Plan’s directives regarding the management of open space and agricultural land. The policy will outline the guiding principles that our staff will use to make management decisions on open space properties managed as cropland.

The anti-GMO activists would like to turn publicly-owned cropland into a place to take a stand in the war against Monsanto, the biotech industry, large corporate agri-businesses and globalization.  They are urging the Boulder County Commissioners and POS staff to take a stand on this issue by just saying no GMOs on public land.

In many cases, an underlying assumption of the anti-GMO position is that the fallback position is organic farming. It’s an easy mistake to make — at the grocery store, if we want to avoid genetically modified foods, we buy organic.  Unfortunately, from a farming point of view, that just isn’t the case. Rather, the alternative to GE crops is conventional non-GE crops — the decision to make the transition to organic is not simple and looks at a whole different set of criteria.

While we all might like to see more organic farming in Boulder County, the route to more organic production isn’t likely to come from banning GE crops. The barriers to entry for organic include both production and marketing challenges. Organic has proven successful on relatively small acreages, for instance 3-12 acres for a market farm or, in the case of a wholesale vegetable operation, up to 200 acres. However, scaling organic up for larger tracts of land and for crops like wheat, corn, barley, alfalfa and oats is a challenge that has not yet been successfully tackled in Colorado on a wide-scale basis.

In addition to the production problems, there is the fact that there isn’t ready market or infrastructure in Colorado for organic grains and other field crops. Encouraging more organic farming in Boulder County and Colorado means tackling both production and marketing challenges.  There is work being done in both of these areas, but solutions will take time.

A big part of the reason that so many farmers have adopted GE technology over the past decade is that the technology allows them to lessen the impact of farming on the environment, something that matters to farmers even more than it matters to the rest of us. Without the option of using genetically-engineered technology, farmers will have no choice but to revert back to using conventional non-GE seeds and in the process, undo many of the conservation improvements that have been made over the past decade that have lessened agriculture’s footprint on the environment.

The alternative to taking a political stand on the issue is to pursue a policy that is based on local environmental and economic considerations. The introduction of GE crops have enabled farmers to substitute less risky pesticides for more risky pesticides and adopt practices, like conservation tillage, which help to reduce soil erosion and improve soil health.

No matter what happens with the GE policy, a core part of the Boulder County Parks and Open Space policy moving forward is likely to be the adoption of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) policy framework with the goal of minimizing pesticide use on county-owned cropland. Boulder County is lucky because we already have many progressive farmers who have adopted many of the core IPM practices but these tactics should be encouraged and supported moving forward for all tenants.

The challenge for Boulder County policy makers is to look past the exhortations to use our cropland as a battleground, to respond to the legitimate and relevant concerns about GE technology and to adopt a policy that promotes a way of farming that is healthier for farmers, healthier for the environment and healthier for the rest of us.

While it might sound good to just say “No” to GE crops as a policy for Boulder County Open Space, it is important to not lose sight of the fact that there will be instances where a GE crop, used within an IPM program, could provide significant environmental and/or economic benefits to the county. In those cases, we need the option to say “Yes” to specific crops as a means towards protecting our environment (including people, water, soil quality, birds, insects and biodiversity) and promoting the overall economic well-being of the county.

Outgoing City Council member Crystal Gray

My beautiful, good friend Crystal leaves stylish council shoes that will be very hard to fill. She is a fierce activist and a neighborhood-loving downtown denizen. She is indomitable, optimistic and a force of nature. I’ve often joked to people that like Oprah or Marcelee, Crystal doesn’t need a last name.

Crystal, first and foremost, speaks for Boulder’s neighborhoods – and has for decades.  As a landscape architect with a keen eye for design, she recognizes and advocates for regulations and public and private projects that benefit our town’s neighborhoods. Trees, trees, trees and the maintenance of public spaces are her passion. But know that this passion is based on a landscape architect’s credo that shade and beautiful public spaces are really surrogates for a vibrant and caring community.  Historic preservation has the same meaning and importance to her.

She served a term on the Open Space Board of Trustees and knows our open space lands as well as anyone. Before Crystal was on council but after her term on the OSBT, she would show slides during Open Comment of open space properties that had been recently purchased.  She rightly believed that each acquisition was cause to celebrate, and that both the council and the larger community should be aware of each new piece of our common ownership.

Crystal has been a staunch supporter of open government. When a majority on the City Council (including me) voted to put a charter change on the ballot that would allow for council executive sessions, she spoke eloquently against this change. Her view prevailed with the voters. She has been a watchdog for breeches of council rules and for the right of all citizens to see open and honest council deliberation, not pre-cooked decisions.

Crystal almost always walks to our council meetings, while I drive. Our unspoken tradition has become that I drop her off at home after council. It’s always dark, often late. At Crystal’s direction, we’ll often drive through downtown, marveling at the people out on the mall or the beauty of our town.  We talk over the evening’s topics and decisions, often giddy with happiness at the way the night has gone. I will miss these times terribly.

It doesn’t take a PhD to understand the outcome of Tuesday’s City Council vote, despite the Daily Camera’s (11-3-11) efforts to explain the election through a national anti-incumbency lens. I believe City of Boulder voters were simply voting with two main issues in mind, and those resulted in incumbents George Karakehian and Ken Wilson receiving fewer votes than two newcomers to the Council.

The first issue the Camera correctly identifies: both Karakehian and Wilson opposed measures 2B and 2C, with Wilson’s campaign materials even toeing the line with Xcel’s and other opponents’ scare-mongering arguments.

However, the Camera fails to identify a second, perhaps more important issue that led to Karakehian and Wilson receiving fewer votes than Suzanne Jones, Liza Morzel, and Tim Plass: Open Space use policy.  Both Karakehian and Wilson voted to support building a mountain bike trail on Anemone Hill in October, whereas Morzel opposed it and was reelected with the second highest number of votes.  Karakehian and Wilson were also two of four candidates supported by the Boulder Outdoor Coalition (BOC), which “advocate[s] stewardship, access and appreciation of public lands,” per their web site.  “Access” is their key word, in case there’s any confusion.  The BOC’s other two endorsed candidates failed to win seats on the council.

I believe that Boulderites support stewardship, access, and appreciation of Open Space, but we also recognize that we have something special, particularly in the West TSA that shouldn’t be seen merely as another playground.

For mountain biking specifically, Boulder has developed off-road biking opportunities on three sides of town, what with the new Valmont bike park and the recently opened trails in the Dowdy Draw area (which I use regularly and will note are suffering from ever-widening trails from bikers and hikers traveling the edges).  The West TSA, however, remains the equivalent of Boulder’s national park, an area of special attention for preservation, and more of a space for nature and of spiritual retreat than a playground.  I suspect many other voters in Tuesday’s election support this view, and voted accordingly.  So consider Tuesday’s results not as an anti-incumbency reaction, but one instead of thoughtful consideration of what values our community should hold going forward.

October 24, 2011

Dear Mr. Eves –

Thank you for taking the time to send Boulder voters a letter detailing Xcel Energy’s opposition to ballot measures 2B and 2C. I typically don’t send letters of thanks to those who waste ink & paper to fill my mailbox with threats, pseudo-truths, & baseless supposition. However, as a previously undecided voter on the question, your note helped me cast my vote in favor of 2B/2C this afternoon without trepidation.

Now, Mr. Eves, I appreciate that, as an officer of Xcel Energy, you are duty-bound to act in the interest of your shareholders, but, that does not absolve you of the responsibility to be up-front with your customers or afford you license to play fast & loose with the truth. Your claims that 2B and 2C necessarily incur or somehow constitute a “hostile condemnation process in the courts” involving “years of litigation” are simply not true – they are baseless supposition at best. In fact, I see the situation as quite the opposite: Xcel controls whether this process would go smoothly or be mired by what you describe as “litigation and uncertainty” simply by the level of cooperation the Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) exhibits (or chooses not to) in divesting distribution & generation assets at a fair market value. Or, on the other hand, PSCo has sole discretion in making these threats a reality by acting in a retaliatory manner by inflating sale prices, throwing forth technical barriers, and complicating demarcation to try and retain control of grid assets or mire the municipalization process in costs, delays, and negative press.

However, that, or any other red herring – be it costs, Xcel’s claimed progress towards renewables, or fancy glossy marketing materials & slogans from Xcel aren’t what cast my ballot for me. These are all distracting accoutrement adorning the core of the issue: Xcel Energy is responsible, by nature, to its shareholders and the profit motive. Intrinsically, there is nothing wrong with this notion. In fact, as a shareholder of many corporations, former employee of a major corporation, and a founder of my own, I truly appreciate that idea. But, I also appreciate the deeper implications it has for energy policy in Boulder. I’m not interested in the fancy portmanteau named programs Xcel has touted as “innovative” in renewable capacity (many of which were done in part or in whole to meet state or Federal mandated generation-mix or clean-air requirements, I might add). I’m also not convinced by Xcel’s claims, graphs, and thick glossy-stock printed collateral boasting a “proven track record” in renewable energy. Instead, as an astute investor, businessman, and shareholder, I’m particularly swayed by certain facts gleaned from your annual report, balance sheet, and investments, which frankly speak louder to the issues than any letter you might send my way (speaking directly to facts that Xcel has largely kept off their talking points prompter on the issue, for obvious reasons!).

Anyway you slice it, Xcel is “big coal”, and has not been “responsible” by Boulder customers (let alone nature). Xcel’s 2010 SEC 10-K filing demonstrates that the PSCo enjoyed a 19% improvement in diluted earnings per share. Of course, the informed voter will not be surprised that this is the case, since Xcel fought for (and was awarded) the nation’s 2^nd highest electrical rate increase (21.4%) in 2010. The story becomes even more sordid when you recall that the primary justification for this rate increase to the PUC was a $1.3 billion expenditure to construct the brand-new Comanche 3 coal-fired plant and the conversion of a former nuclear facility to fossil-fuel based generation.

This is not the picture of the clean and renewable-centric Xcel your corporation has spent millions trying to portray, is it?

There are so many more examples of how the entire gamut of Xcel’s asset mix, investment posture, and business model demonstrate that Xcel is neither committed to renewables nor interested in any other goal than protecting their profit motive and their shareholders’ pecuniary interest (either in Boulder, in the PSCo, or across their entire portfolio of businesses, distribution infrastructure, or generating capacity). In reality, the facts (and history) confirm an even more disappointing outcome: Xcel (and the PSCo) will act in its own pecuniary interest and do only what they must when their feet are held to the (coal) fire to demonstrate a (token) shift to renewables, and not only do they remain firmly encamped in coal country, but they continue to lay deeper foundations there, too. But, I won’t waste your time (or any more paper) waxing poetic about the story the actual numbers tell themselves (I’ll believe an audited 10-K filing over glossy inserts in my Xcel bill/from an Xcel funded PAC any day, by the way).

Instead, I’ll leave you with this thought: after being bullied & threatened by your letter and the various “citizens groups” Xcel has funded to the tune of nearly $250,000.00 (at last count – the number invariably will continue to tick upwards in the final days of the campaign), I’m left with solid confirmation that our energy future is not well-cared for in your hands and should not be in the hands of your corporation. Xcel’s values & conduct in the past decade in how it has done business and, more recently, with how it has approached the 2B/2C question has given me pause and reason to be excited to see even an inefficient, bumbling, and slow government entity take the reins (although I truly believe the City of Boulder can do much better than that and isn’t nearly as incompetent has Xcel has painted them to be!).

Again, Mr. Eves, thank you for clearing the air on these ballot issues – it helped me do something “Responsible by Nature” and vote to find a way to put more naturally responsible leadership in place for my utility needs.

Sincerely,

Basit Mustafa
Boulder, CO Meter #17B782800A

Anemone Hill, ca. 1909-1916 (Carnegie Library)

I am 93 years old, arrived in Boulder in September, 1946, and lived in the uppermost cottage (701) in Chautauqua. I had grown up in New York City, but had been a young naturalist since age 5. When I was twelve I became an  avid birder, and learned my first botany in the field using a book on the trees and shrubs of the New York City region in winter condition. I was given a mint copy of Gray’s Manual of Botany by a biology teacher who had to have the book for a college course but had never opened it. With the help of a lady from the New York Botanical Garden I learned to use this, my first botany book, sitting in the meadows and learning how to use the keys.

By the time I was hired at the University of Colorado, I had already learned the flora of New England and New York State, spent three years in Iowa studying the flora of the mid-western prairies, and five years in the Pacific  Northwest studying the floras of the Canadian Rockies, Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. My early experience was extremely useful here in Colorado, because it is here that all of these geographical elements merge in a very interesting way.

Anemone Hill Trail-Open Space Board of Trustees Recommendation (http://1.usa.gov/rJmBst) click to enlarge

The area now including the Mountain Parks and Open Space was already famous because of the occurrence, in Long Canyon, of the eastern North American Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera, and the colony of a fern, Asplenium  adiantum-nigrum, on Ricky Weiser’s property at White Rocks. There were few trails, and few people, no horses, and no dogs.

I helped the staff of Parks and Open Space in assembling an herbarium of the vascular plants. In addition, Ron Wittmann and I have assembled and provided the open space herbarium with a set of the bryophytes (mosses) as far as we have discovered them. Jim Corbridge and I have published a little book of colored pictures of 75 species of the mostly easily recognized lichens. Urless Lanham’s daughter published a popular account of the plants of the Mesa Trail. My books on the entire Colorado Flora were preceded, in1949, by a mimeographed book on the flora of Boulder County. I have trained a great many students in my field courses by using the Mountain Parks as their outdoor laboratory. One of these, Tim Hogan, has published a new catalog. Perhaps it is not generally realized how much scientific work has been published about this remarkable area (see references). It is internationally recognized as a ecosystem treasure.

When I arrived in Boulder the Flatirons were recovering from an earlier period of exploitation. A quarry scarred the lower face, and great numbers of trees had been burned or cut by the early settlers. Our little town numbered 14,000 residents. We had no idea that population pressure would soon descend on this extraordinary area, so rich in vegetation and wildlife. The mere press of bodies with feet, the automobile exhausts, and deliberate defacing of the rocks soon began to tell, and many residents made plans to move to higher ground close to nature.

Some foresighted individuals got together and began to resist this development. I was active in the preparation of arguments supporting the Blue Line Amendment, and I was a member of the citizens’ committee to oversee the construction of NCAR. The cooperation of the scientists was a strong beginning to a serious effort for preservation, and at the time preservation was the most important mission.

Times change, and memory goes as we oldsters disappear. The turnpike, more water from the western slope, the population explosion, the growth of the university, and our vigorous climb out of the Great Depression has made Boulder a resort. Not only has the town become a city re-created from its lowly birth, but it is now recreated (without the hyphen!). Extreme recreation is the current rage. Climbing, bouldering, mountain biking, and horse riding have taken over. Preservation? Aren’t there other immense areas of mountains and forest easily available?

We no longer have neighbors, we don’t greet each other on the street, we don’t walk, but we have dogs. I love dogs. I had two papillons. My daughter has seven Border Collies, and she trains dogs, but she has to go far afield to find a barn where dogs could get proper training. How many people who love dogs take the trouble to train them, or to train themselves to be considerate of other dogs or people? Where is the millionaire who would donate a center for the training of people and their dogs in what I am beginning to feel is the doggiest town in America. Dogs are just as happy walking beside us on the street.

It was my student in General Biology in 1947 who missed classes before a weekend, and when questioned about his absence, he replied that he had been in jail. It was Joe Matesi, later a physician in Indiana. He had gone up on the third Flatiron at night and painted CU on the face. Subsequently, the CU was modified by the an Oklahoma fan to OU, and later to ICU. The modifications were only temporary, and an attempt was made to erase the original letters. But in the proper lighting, the CU is still visible after 65 years! How many folks riding the Skip even look out the window to see it?

I myself was guilty of a early insult to the area. In the search for a small Christmas tree, Sam Kipp and I cut two small Douglas-fir trees from the upper Bluebell Canyon. At the time, there were evidently no restrictions, but the guilty memory will not be erased.

Centuries after Man has wreaked his havoc on the last places on earth that can be said to be at all pristine, our “protected” places will still recover and outlive us all, but is it too much for us Boulderites to remember the real reasons why we have tried to save what we still have? A week or so ago, I took some of my family to the west end of the bike path in lower Boulder Canyon. I intended to show them the display of mosses that I had seen on the steep slope by the trailside. This was one of the only spots where I had easy access to my four-wheel walker. The slope was totally denuded of mosses. Human feet loosened the soil, resulting in landslides. The mosses, still alive, were only surviving in the ditch at the bottom. Some one or ones simply had to get to the climbable cliff above! Bit by bit, we chew on our finest local scenery and the ecosystem that occupies it.

Let’s agree finally to leave our open space alone!

References

Cockerell, T.D.A. 1905. Tables for the identification of Rocky Mountain Coccidae (Scale Insects and Mealybugs). Univ. of Colo. Studies 2:189–208.

Cockerell, T.D.A. 1907. The bees of Boulder County, Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies 4:239–260.

Cockerell, T.D.A,. 1907. The Protozoa of the University Campus. Univ. of Colorado Studies 4:261.

Cockerell, T.D.A. 1911. The fauna of Boulder County, Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies 8:231—236.

Cockerell, T.D.A. 1912. The fauna of Boulder County, Colorado, II. Univ. of Colorado Studies 9:41–52.

Cockerell, T.D.A. 1917. The fauna of Boulder County, Colorado. III, IV. Univ. of Colorado Studies 12:5–26.

Cockerell, T.D.A. 1927. Zoology of Colorado. Univ. Of Colorado Centennial Series, Vol. 3. 262 pp. Illustr.

Dodds, Gideon S. 1908. Geology and physiography of the mesas near Boulder. Univ. of Colorado Studies 6, No.1.

Hogan, Tim. 1993. A floristic survey of the Boulder Mountain Park, Boulder, Colorado. Natural History Inventory of Colorado No. 13. 63 pp. Univ. of Colorado Museum.

Froiland, Sven Gordon. 1952. The biological status of Betula andrewsii. Evolution 6:268–282.

Henderson, Junius. 1904. Paleontology of the Boulder area. Univ. of Colorado Studies 2:87–94.

Henderson, Junius. 1904. Additional list of Boulder County birds. Univ. of Colorado Studies 2:95–106.

Henderson, Junius. 1909. An annotated list of the birds of Boulder County, Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies 6: 215–218.

Hicks, Charles H. 1926. Nesting habits and parasites of certain bees of Boulder County, Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies 15:215–248.

Juday, Chancey. 1904. Fishes of Boulder County, Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies 2: 113–114.

Ramaley, Francis. 1908. Climatology of the mesas near Boulder. Univ. of Colorado Studies 6, No. 1.

Ramaley, Francis, & Leon Kelso. 1931. Autumn vegetation of the foothills near Boulder, Colorado. Univ. of Colo. Studies 18:239–156.

Robbins, W. W. 1908. Distribution of deciduous trees and shrubs on the mesas. Univ. of Colorado Studies 6, No. 1.

Robbins, W. W. 1912. Preliminary list of the algae of Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies

Rohwer, Sievert A. 1909. The Bembicid wasps of Boulder County, Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies 6:243–248.

Rohwer, Sievert A. 1913. The sawflies of Boulder County, Colorado. Univ. of Colorado Studies 9:91–104.

Weber, W.A. 1946. Botany of the Boulder area. [in] Natural History of the Boulder Area. Univ. of Colorado Museum, Leaflet 13. Pp. 43–46.

Weber, W. A. 1948. White Rocks. Green Thumb, October. Pp. 6–8, 5 photos.

Weber, W. A. 1949. The flora of Boulder County, 200 pp. Mimeographed. Dept. of Biology.

Weber, W. A. 1965. Plant Geography in the Southern Rocky Mountains. Pp. 453-468, in The Quaternary of the United States (H. E. Wright Jr., & D. G. Frey, eds.)

Weber, W.A.2003. The Middle Asian Element in the Southern Rocky Mountain Flora of the western United States. Journal of Biogeography 30:649–685.

Weber, W. A., & J. N. Corbridge. 1998. Colorado Lichen Primer. 48 pp. 72 color plates. Univ. of Colorado Press.

Weber, W. A., & R. C. Wittmann. 2011. Colorado Flora: Eastern Slope. (In press) University Press of Colorado.

Weber, W.A. 2001. Colorado Bryological Hot Spots. 1. Boulder Mountain Park. Evansia 18(4):1430–146.

Weber, W, A. 2007. Bryophytes of Colorado: Mosses, Liverworts, and Hornworts. 222 p., 8 plates. Pilgrims Process.

Weber. W. A. (With S. V. Clark and Vera Komarkova). Map of mixed prairie vegetation, Rocky Flats, Colorado. Inst. Alpine & Arctic Res., Occasional Paper 35:1–66, map.

Weber, W. A. (With Richard Zander). 1997. Didymodon anserinocapitatus (Musci, Pottiaceae), new to the New World. Bryologist 100:237–238.

Weber, W. A. (with Richard Zander). 2003. Anoectangium handelii (Pottiaceae, Bryopsida) in the New World. Bryologist 107:48–49.

Zander, Richard H., & Ryszard Ochyra. 2001. Didymodon tectorum and D. brachyphyllus in North America. Bryologist 104:372–377.

Chamber of Commerce (photo by the author)

With 16 days remaining until the votes are counted in Boulder’s 2011 municipal election, the newspapers and major groups are mostly done with their much-anticipated endorsements of candidates and ballot issues.

Each year, the talk among Boulder’s politically charged activists runs the gamut from the obvious questions of who will endorse whom and when the endorsements will land, to pondering how each group makes their decisions and which alliances will play out with the voters.  Guesses are made all around and there are always some surprises.

This year, for the first time ever, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce issued endorsements in City Council elections. They endorsed a slate of four male business candidates: two incumbents, one repeat candidate, and a newcomer to politics.  No surprise there except this happens to be a year when two women, Susan Osborne and Crystal Gray, who have each brought incredible depth and decades of knowledge to the council, have chosen not to run again.

Employing a well-used move of not endorsing candidates for all five open seats, the Chamber flubbed by ignoring two capable women running for city council this year.  The Chamber’s failure to endorse even one woman seems particularly mystifying when you take a closer look at the two women running for council:

• Lisa Morzel, running for re-election, is a research geologist first elected to council after providing years of leadership to the community during the formation of the North Boulder Sub-Community Plan.  Now having served on council for three terms she is a proven leader and effective policy maker.
• Suzanne Jones, Regional Director of the Wilderness Society, has served on Boulder’s Environmental Advisory Board and the Blue Ribbon Commission II. She brings wide experience working with diverse groups on the national, state and local levels in finding long-term sustainable solutions that make good policy.

In their first attempt at the endorsement game in Boulder, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce managed to lose the membership of the City of Boulder and some other businesses offended by their taking action in a local election.

Additionally, four business-leaning groups chose the same exact four candidates out of the field of thirteen candidates.  Mimicking the Boulder Chamber of Commerce in their endorsements were:

• BARA, Boulder Area Board of Realtors;
• BOC, Boulder Outdoor Coalition;
• FIDOS, Friends Interested In Dogs and Open Space (members of BOC);
• and BMA, Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance (also members of BOC).

Ignoring Morzel and Jones didn’t make these candidates go away.  Both women were endorsed by the Boulder Weekly, PLAN-Boulder County, the Sierra Club-Indian Peaks Group, Save Open Space Boulder, and the Daily Camera.  Lisa Morzel is running for her fourth term and is likely to be the largest vote getter on November 1.  Suzanne Jones has been widely recognized as a high-quality leader causing the Daily Camera to say today, “Suzanne Jones has a wealth of legislative and environmental knowledge…she can understand the positions of a substantial chunk of the constituency.”

In a little over two weeks we will know how the majority voted and that’s what really counts.