Boulder gets interesting.  Again. 

 

This autumn, five spots on the City Council are up for election.  But because Don Mock is resigning to take over NOAA, SIX spots on the council will change this year.  Further, a group has formed to change the way Boulder elects its representatives.  Currently, all are 'at large' and the nine members elect a 'mayor.'  The new group wants Boulder divided into eight districts, with candidates from each living in each, and the city electing the mayor.

 

It sounds good and reasonable, and in theory it is.  There are things that bother me, though.  To call Boulder a 'weak mayor' city is to be kind.  The office is ceremonial except that the mayor runs the city council meetings.  The office has few powers of note absent emergency.  To elect a mayor separately is silly unless the powers of the office change markedly.  This may be the issue.

 

Since the Johnstown flood, cities have bypassed corrupt incompetence by hiring city managers to deal with actualities and be removed from immediate political threat.  Boulder has a Byzantine bureaucracy of long standing tenants.  By and large, Boulder has benefited from the vision and competence and good will of some amazing public servants through the years.  There are notable exceptions and it cannot continue forever, and embedded petty evil can be difficult to identify, much less remove.  And, it is true that the bureaucracy is distant from the people.  My observation is that's how the folks want it: they can complain and live in the city of their dreams at the same time.

 

So behind the election of a Mayor are the displacement of the sheltered bureaucracy and the politicalization of Boulder's government.  The developers, realtors, and 'business' community want to run the city for their selfish reasons and get it out of the hands of the 'elite' who most decidedly run it now.  But the ‘elite’ have done a damned good job overall.  Everybody wishes they could live in Boulder.  And face it, without the odious restrictions on development through the years, there would be visible homes and apartments on the Flatirons.  Oh yes there would.

 

Further, is Boulder big enough to divide into districts?  And would such small neighborhood representation make the city more parochial and petty?  I think it would.  Look at the school board, and how selfishly parents fought for their own small interests with no apparent thought for the district as a whole.  That could be the Boulder of the future, with class warfare.  Because you just know that those who own real houses don’t want to be represented in a district with large trailer parks.  So the districts will be along unannounced but actual class boundaries.   It will not be pretty.