Election Day is this Tuesday, November 5th.  If you have yet to vote, there’s still time to hand-deliver your ballot!  Please join us and vote for candidates who are prepared support flood mitigation at South Boulder Creek.

The 2013 Boulder flood put seniors at Frasier Meadows Retirement Community in danger.   The flood risk can be fixed, but in the six years since, Boulder’s City Council has failed to act decisively.   Our senior neighbors at Frasier remain at significant risk.  If you find this unacceptable please vote for candidates who will protect our most vulnerable.

Thanks to the kind folks of the Open Boulder Foundation for producing this excellent mini-documentary about the flood risk for South Boulder, Colorado posed by South Boulder Creek.

“Overnight flash-flooding in Boulder, Colorado:  The sirens have just sounded again in Boulder as growing floods have cut off almost every road to this city of almost 100,000 people . . . “

We need a council willing to work deeply to solve Boulder’s bigger problems like reducing flood risk at South Boulder Creek.  Check out former councilwoman Jan Burton’s piece in the Daily Camera that advocates for a deeper and results-driven approach to governance: Deep work by Boulder City Council required for real results.   Here’s an excerpt:

Jan Burton

Let’s take the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation as an example. This has been a work item for 25 years, brought into laser-focus after the 2013 floods. During my tenure on Council, we made regular, albeit snail-like, progress, adding the CU South property (fundamental to flood mitigation) to the 2017 Comprehensive Plan and directing the Planning Board to document our annexation guiding principles.

But the composition of Council shifted in 2017, and the new majority began slowing down the decision process to delay housing development on the University of Colorado Boulder’s south property. In the process, they dismissed preferred recommendations from the Water Resources Advisory Board, key engineering experts and other key constituencies, including the land owner — causing confusion and back-tracking for all parties involved and ultimately the departure of critical and highly capable city water engineering staff.

Sadly, 3,500 of our residents in south Boulder neighborhoods aren’t any closer to flood protection than they were when I took office in 2015.

If City Council truly focused on Boulder’s top three to five priorities, I believe both they and city staff would be more effective, residents would feel less overwhelmed with the public process, and we’d show more progress. But, how do we get there?

Knowing that 3,500 residents’ lives are at stake, South Boulder Creek flood mitigation could easily become the top area of focus. The next Council, starting their term in November 2019, could publicly declare this as their top priority and one on which they would focus 50% of their efforts in the following six months. This would send a signal to the key stakeholders and partners to clear their calendars for deep work . . .

Click through to read the full piece here.

The South Boulder Creek Action Group values facts.  We support facts-based decision making within the City of Boulder, and we strive for factual accuracy when we communicate with you and others about South Boulder Creek flood mitigation. Here are three information resources we’ve found helpful that you may find helpful, too.

The University of Colorado’s CU South FAQ is a tremendous resource for people seeking to understand CU’s role in flood mitigation at CU South and their plans for the CU South site.  If you’ve wondered why CU wants to annex the CU South property, what type of development might happen on the property, or are seeking info about present and future recreation opportunities, check this FAQ out.

In 2017 the City of Boulder produced a detailed document, the result of extensive public process, called the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.  Check out the Comp Plan’s Guiding Principles, a set of guidelines regarding the annexation of CU South that exist within the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.  The Guiding Principles were created to shape the City’s negotiations with CU.  If you’re interested in understanding what the City of Boulder’s values and aims are related to related to this project, those details are here.

Also, check out the City of Boulder’s South Boulder Creek Flood Mitigation Project page for info about past and upcoming events.  There’s also some good project background here including links to videos, maps and FAQs.

Onset of the wet season highlights the threat of flooding faced by residents in south Boulder, and a letter delivered last week from the University of Colorado to the city of Boulder reminds constituents of the City Council’s bungled effort to reduce that threat.

CU and the city must work together to complete critical flood mitigation on property the university owns. But the city is pursuing a plan that CU has warned, over and over, is dead in the water. CU officials felt compelled on Monday to reiterate this message in writing. They cautioned the city not to waste any more time and money on a plan the university can’t accept.

City officials should listen.

…

During a meeting last August, six of the nine Council members took a look at the flood mitigation concept to which planners awarded the highest marks for meeting project goals and which was developed through eight years and $2 million worth of study, including professional consultation, community feedback, advisory board analysis and countless hours of staff time, and tossed it overboard. Some Council members said a main concern they had with the Variant 2 500-year concept was that flood debris could clog the South Boulder Creek underpass at U.S. 36 and create conditions for residential flooding. But experts, relying on studies and professional experience, repeatedly asserted that such a risk was low. No matter. The Council majority ignored this advice, offering little justification for their doubt beyond expressions of gut feelings. Then-Councilwoman Jill Adler Grano — Grano and Councilmen Bob Yates and Aaron Brockett were the three dissenters — could hardly contain her frustration. “I’m confused,” she said. “We just spent an hour and a half listening to experts tell us it’s not an issue.”

There has long been a hope among some community members, especially in certain south Boulder neighborhoods, that the CU South property could remain open space. And some university critics have faulted CU for what they view as a calculating move in 1996 to buy the property, a former gravel mine, and program it for development despite known complications related to the proximity of a flood-prone waterway. This is not a trivial complaint, and an undeveloped CU South forms a dramatic, natural gateway to the city from the south.

But City Council must make decisions based on present circumstances and contemporary needs, and if Council members themselves harbored ill will toward CU for machinations that occurred more than 20 years ago, such grievance was not part of the majority’s stated opposition to an otherwise promising plan. So what’s going on? It’s hard not to assume that political pressure from anti-development interests is behind at least some of the Council majority’s obduracy.

Whatever the reason for Variant 2’s rejection, it was entirely predictable that pursuit of Variant 1 would lead to the current impasse. CU told the Council it would not participate in Variant 1 500-year. Council chose Variant 1 500-year anyway. Yet it’s as true today as it was last August — no CU participation, no Variant 1 500-year.

What happens now?

The Daily Camera has published two opinion pieces about flood mitigation for South Boulder Creek at CU South in the last week that clarify the current state of affairs.

The first is a column by former Councilwoman Jan Burton that highlights the critical nature of this project while lamenting poor governance at the Council level:  Boulder City Council is leaving residents in harm’s way.

“. . . It should be of concern to every citizen, let alone those in the direct path of South Boulder Creek flood waters, that the city has spent so much time and money on this work only to disregard it in favor of something Council manufactured on-the-fly. Understanding that no one on Council has relevant engineering expertise did not seem to bother six members when voting for something unprofessionally concocted with no promise of success. . . “

 

The second is a Guest Opinion penned by Frances Draper and Derek Silva of CU that outlines CU’s perspective as a collaborative partner: CU offers to partner with city on critical flood mitigation, by Frances Draper and Derek Silva

“. . . CU has no plans to develop the property in the near future and would not have otherwise submitted an annexation application at this time but for the city’s request that we do so. With this application, we are pleased to support the community by donating up to 80 acres of our land to the city — an estimated value of $18 million — for implementing flood mitigation. Over the past three years, we have dedicated significant effort to listening to input and sharing information at numerous city council and board meetings and have gathered valuable input through community engagement, outreach and surveys . . . “