{"id":12932,"date":"2013-10-08T17:37:52","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T23:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=12932"},"modified":"2013-10-14T19:44:52","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T01:44:52","slug":"jonathan-dings-analyst-and-planner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=12932","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Dings, Analyst and Planner"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the third in a series of candidate profiles written by students in Instructor Jeff Browne\u2019s CU News Corps course at CU-Boulder.<\/em> Lars Gesing is a graduate student from Hamburg, Germany, where he worked for several print and online publications, including the daily regional newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Jonathan Dings (from dingsforcouncil.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

Jonathan Dings is a couple of minutes late. \u201cSorry, the bus wasn\u2019t on time,\u201d he explains ruefully.<\/p>\n

In his first run for City Council, Dings works hard to personify his campaign goals. Strongly promoting a more distinct look on transportation issues, he often uses his own EcoPass to get to work\u2014and to interview appointments.<\/p>\n

Dings firmly believes that introducing a community-wide EcoPass <\/em>will have multiple favorable outcomes for Boulderites. \u201cHaving an EcoPass <\/em>means having options,\u201d he argues.<\/p>\n

The father of two is a passionate cyclist, who bikes to work on a regular basis. The EcoPass is an important back-up for him as a bicyclist but he often has to rely on his car. He says a city-wide EcoPass <\/em>would increase the overall ridership of buses and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thereby making the case for having even more bus routes in the city. This effect, Dings explains, would be most important for those areas \u201cwhere bus service isn\u2019t as good as it is in other parts of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

As soon as Jonathan and his wife Lisa Dings moved to Boulder 15 years ago, he started working for the Boulder Valley School District. He then consistently worked his way up toward his current position, chief of planning and assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bring in analysis and tend to ask questions that are related to data,\u201d says Dings, who has a doctorate in educational measurement and statistics, pointing to his \u201cdifferent background than the one most other City Council members have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised near Buffalo, N. Y., Dings went to a small liberal arts college where he didn\u2019t just study for a degree. Young Jonathan also discovered his passion for music, playing the guitar and singing in what he remembers today as a \u201cmild punk rock band.\u201d Over the years, his taste in music slightly shifted\u2014more toward bluegrass and jazz. But his love for playing the guitar never faded.<\/p>\n

Earning a master\u2019s degree in higher education, cognitive development and psychological counseling, and living abroad in Mexico for one year at the age of seven and for a summer in Germany while a high school student all helped Dings polish his \u201cappreciation of how living in America is an advantage in so many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those were the days that laid the foundation for his compulsion to get involved in community work.<\/p>\n

The fight over how and if to increase density within the city affects Dings\u2019s campaign agenda as much as that of any candidate. He advocates slow growth and prefers to focus on \u201cmaintaining the quality of life that we have here,\u201d adding that \u201cwith the outdoors being a critical part of Boulder, we are essentially limited to developing here in Boulder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making neighborhoods much denser would limit the resources available to make major changes to new development areas, Dings explains. He doesn’t support adding density to existing neighborhoods but would much rather prefer to focus on the improvement of underdeveloped areas.<\/p>\n

Though he can\u2019t help but admit that Boulder has a housing shortage, he nevertheless says: \u201cWhat I would focus on more than housing is transit. I want to make sure we have good ways of getting people who are here to study or work into Boulder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former city council member Crystal Gray sees challenges surfacing during the implementation of these plans. She suggests: \u201cProviding a city wide EcoPass and expanding that to in-commuters would take a financing mechanism such as a head tax\u2014which Denver has.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

This approach might well cost Dings votes from members of the city\u2019s business community though.<\/p>\n

John Tayer, president and CEO of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, says that while his organization is a strong supporter of regional transit investment\u2014which reflects Dings\u2019 proposal \u2014\u201cwe also believe that increased workforce housing will provide more opportunities for employees to live and work in Boulder, thus avoiding a burdensome daily commute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray Bridge, on the other hand, favors Dings\u2019s ideas on the density debate. The co-chair of PLAN-Boulder County, an organization fighting for environmental sustainability, argues: \u201cPreserving our open space and limiting city growth are policies that Boulder citizens initiated and value highly. They make Boulder a desirable place to live, and that results in high land values and housing prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dings reasons that to maintain diversity in the city, affordable housing would be more readily and effectively placed into new development areas rather than \u201cretrofitted into existing neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boulder\u2019s most immediate challenge though is to rebuild after the flood, a process during which \u201cthe city might face some budget challenges,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Tina Marquis worked with Dings on the BVSD District Accountability Committee for the last three years. She is convinced that her colleague\u2019s campaign might benefit from the most recent events. \u201cAs the council addresses the very large issues of how to rebuild after the flood and whether or not to municipalize, it will be critical that someone with Jonathan\u2019s ability to analyze data and create processes to evaluate options be on the council.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former council member Crystal Gray adds: \u201cJonathan\u2019s campaign goals are very much in line with good planning principles and the direction that Boulder has taken to make it a desirable community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who wouldn\u2019t sacrifice a couple of minutes of wait for that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the third in a series of candidate profiles written by students in Instructor Jeff Browne\u2019s CU News Corps course at CU-Boulder. Lars Gesing is a graduate student from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1160,"featured_media":12940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[881,3],"tags":[11,97,821,144,871,416],"class_list":["post-12932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2013-cc-candidates","category-featured","tag-city-council","tag-density","tag-election-2013","tag-housing","tag-jonathan-dings","tag-transit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12932"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13004,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932\/revisions\/13004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}