phmurphy

phmurphy

100p

2,000 comments posted · 1 followers · following 0

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Ed Byrne: Initiatives ... · 0 replies · +10 points

Apparently you aren’t reading my response before you respond.  You say a “few people” who happen to live nearby, but there was never a vote of the entire neighborhood, which may have resulted in a different outcome.  The fundamental principal of democracy is that the majority rule without oppressing the minority.  Letting the neighborhoods vote on a planning issue is like having a house of representatives, or a representatives of houses so to speak. 

You cannot just build a strawman based on speculations and expect that to hold water.  Your assumption that residents are too stupid to understand planning issues is presumptuous and condescending.  Apparently you are a NIMBY regarding the right to vote. 

Tabor may cause problems, but if so, there is nothing preventing a vote to correct the problems.  If there is nothing correcting the problems, perhaps the problems are not that bad.  The reason 300 and 301 exist is that the problems that 300 and 301 seek to remedy HAVE become severe enough.  But we won’t know for sure until November 4th, that is unless you just want to take away the voters right to vote on 300 and 301 because they might be too stupid to figure out what is right. 

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Ed Byrne: Initiatives ... · 3 replies · +9 points

That is your opinion, both about what killed the initial Junior Academy  plan and what the neighbors wanted.  Now if there had been a vote, you would actually know what the neighbors wanted.  At this point your opinion is just that, opinion and not based on facts. 

Yes, there will be questions, and those questions will require answers.  Currently, the questions exist, with the answers produced by those who do not live in the neighborhoods, or if they do, they do not have the neighborhood approval that is documented.  Fear of a just and fair system that requires some level of litigation is a definition of tyranny. 

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Ed Byrne: Initiatives ... · 11 replies · +21 points

Here once again is the double speak routine. First Boulder is so innovative and creative, but we need to end that since allowing resident to have direct input options is dangerous. The first strawman is that neighborhoods will fight good planning. Really? Perhaps neighborhoods will only fight bad planning and will accept good planning. The presumption that the majority of residents in any neighborhood are not intelligent enough to understand good planning is insulting and indicates a fear of the electorate rather than a representation of the electorate. That fear itself indicates a fundamental attitude flaw.

Vote YES if you think you are intelligent enough to recognize good planning from bad that will directly affect your neighborhood, Vote NO if you don’t think you are intelligent enough to handle it.

Vote YES if you think that development paying its own way makes sense, Vote NO is you think that we should share the costs of business risks.

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Phil Wardwell: Muni co... · 1 reply · +10 points

What Mr. Wardwell has also missed is the fact that Xcel does not have to share anything outside the city if it doesn’t want to. IT DOESN’T WANT TO, THEREFOR IT DOESN’T HAVE TO.

If Boulder wants to be an island, it will have to pay for all the bridges to the island. Failed court cases, failure to reveal the true financials of the Muni, and claiming to be a victim rather than incompetent, is really getting old.

What Boulder really cannot do is claim that the lost time and money have been worth it. The off-ramp claim was constructed to avoid real critical review.

All of the Warwell statements that included Xcel’s response as “None” is pure strawman construction. Xcel doesn’t have to respond to any of those questions, rather it is Boulder’s responsibility to file a complete application, and if they don’t, it is their incompetence that is revealed.

As Karey has mentioned above, what Boulder is trying to avoid letting us know is that the cost of separation will exceed the $214 million and now they are in the death throes of trying to create a soft landing of excuses and blame.

That is a human response and sad to observe, but it is costing us $8,500 per day for this smoke screen. That money could be used as solar incentives for 4 homes, or windsource incentives for even more, or Renewable Energy Certificates that would ultimately allow us to achieve our 100 renewables goals without a team of expensive lawyers and a redundant bunch of highly paid self promoters.

NO-vember = NO Occupation Tax = NO Muni.

A retired Erie lawyer doesn’t get to vote, we do. What is beginning now is the ending of the Muni.

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Slighted by PUC staff,... · 0 replies · +23 points

VOTE NO AGAINST THE OCCUPATION TAX IN NOVEMBER.

NO-vember = NO Occupation Tax = NO Muni

Remember that what Boulder City Council will not let us vote on is the continuation of funding for the MUNI "exploration". Democracy is not their friend. It barely passed before and it would most likely fail now.


8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Slighted by PUC staff,... · 1 reply · +39 points

What is clear is that Boulder Energy Future is not collaborative, but rather:
incompetent (a failed application),
deceitful (the “Day One” scam),
completely non-transparent (secret executive meetings, NO DETAILED CASH FLOW Analysis),
blind to the their own claims for urgency (no real carbon reduction until 2022 at best),
dumb as a rock (for not seeing that RECS, as well as solar and wind incentives are real and work)

The additional cost of building the separation facilities that will be required for ALL Boulder County customers is so exorbitantly huge that it will blow the $214 million maximum out of the water. Even without that additional cost, based on the boooogus cash flow analysis I had to sue the city to obtain, our rates would increase 30% over Xcel’s after the “Day One” deceit is revealed. Did you know that there are many homes on the west edge of Boulder that are in the county and not the city and they alternate along the same street with homes that are in the city. Each and every one of those county homes will require the construction of separate power lines. That is just one example of the HUGE cost that BOULDER will have to bear.

The Muni is rotting on the vine, and the stink is wafting through the town. For reasons that I attribute to pure vanity, many on city council are still accepting the long string of failures, both legal and financial that the Muni has created, and will continue to create.

To see how much carbon reduction we could have already achieved with the same money that is being spent to pursue failure and for lots of real critical review see the following:
YouTube videos.
https://youtu.be/a02Nm07Cu18 - Vanity not Sanity

https://youtu.be/AA7iL1ijj-Y - Capitalized Interest

https://youtu.be/EGMoF98x0To - Rate comparison fail – Too Much and too little

https://youtu.be/CO4lTlLV5mQ - Faster Better Cheaper

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Christopher Brauchli: ... · 0 replies · -1 points

Calling this like Tabor is total crap. This is not a tax issue, this is a neighborhood issue and a City of Boulder issue. This is neighborhood control and, business/development needs to pay its own way issue. Comparing it to Tabor is a cheap trick. Might as well compare it to killing African lions. 300 and 301 give the power to stop stupidity and the power to not be robbed, back to the people. Sorry, that is a good thing not a bad thing. If this is comparable to Tabor, what part of Tabor prevents neighborhoods from having input into what happens in their neighborhoods, and what part of Tabor prevents development from paying for the full cost, rather than “sharing” the cost with everyone. What if I wanted to “share” the cost of building or remodeling my house? Can I get “development” to share that cost?

Why is honesty such a flawed concept?

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - David Biek: No on 300 ... · 0 replies · +13 points

Everything the author listed as wrong is actually right. Tougher and more critical review is not a bad thing, but a good thing. The fact that the author can't see that reveals his fatal flaw. He is a simple minded and can't handle complicated issues. The fact that he wants to exclude the costs to the public, an only include he costs to the developer is just a little bit of a tell.

Perhaps the permitting is a quagmire, the question is, is it good or bad quagmire. Adding the input of citizens can NOT be considered a problem, and requiring development to pay its way can also NOT be considered a problem unless you want to nullify citizen input and have the citizens pay the cost of development. Simple really.

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Micah Newell: Losing f... · 4 replies · +28 points

The most idiotic thing that I have seen is the claim that one day of data is adequate as "before" data. They take us for fools.

8 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Bob Greenlee: It\'s ti... · 0 replies · +1 points

If it were cost effective, Xcel would probably already use it or be buying into it. What are the real costs, and what are the real environmental impacts. These giant batteries don't come from thin air, Hydrogen storage is dangerous and the bigger the storage, the more dangerous, kinetic flywheels are only good for taking care of short spikes.