IntenseDebate - RichardKeck

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder County subdivi... · 0 replies · +28 points

Boulder County has an annual budget of more than $300 million. Instead of proposing a tax increase, I believe the County Commissioners should be shifting spending priorities. We're talking about reallocating a little over 1% of the budget. I'm interested in building more awareness of the issues facing governmental bodies in Boulder County. Check out Boulder County Observers - http://www.facebook.com/BoulderCountyObservers.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder may seek annex... · 0 replies · +1 points

Residents of Gunbarrel, in the unincorporated areas, didn't get to vote on the municipalization issue. If we had, this topic might have been avoided as I think we would helped make sure the whole issue would have failed.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder County commiss... · 0 replies · +4 points

Many voters are frustrated with our Commissioners. It is a fair critique in my view.

According to the story, Mr. Gerstle is saying about $3 million per year will solve the problem. Boulder County's annual revenue is $321 million. If the Commissioners cannot find 1% of the budget to shift to this problem, then I'd suggest they don't want to solve the problem without increasing taxes.

Digging into this issue with the Commissioners is like entering a Kafkaesque tale where byzantine documents with circular references are used to justify bad public policy that serves the agenda of the Commissioners.

12 years ago @ Longmont Times-Call - Boulder County commiss... · 0 replies · +1 points

Many voters are frustrated with our Commissioners. It is a fair critique in my view.

According to the story, Mr. Gerstle is saying about $3 million per year will solve the problem. Boulder County's annual revenue is $321 million. If the Commissioners cannot find 1% of the budget to shift to this problem, then I'd suggest they don't want to solve the problem without increasing taxes.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder County works t... · 0 replies · +1 points

Great point mzfit. The County Commissioners meet during the 9 am - 5 pm window most of the time. We all need to remember they don't have conflicts because they are full-time employees of Boulder County. I sure wish they met in the evenings do gather more input. (A CU student, in political science perhaps, should study the volume of citizen input at City Council, County Commissioner and BVSD Board of Educations meetings. My gut tells me the County Commissioners have comparatively silent meetings.) I also wish we would restructure the County Commissioner "job" so that citizens in the private sector could serve as Commissioners without becoming Boulder County employees who also manage the bureaucracy. Seems like policy setting should be independent of day-to-day operations. We should remember the City Council and BVSD Board of Education have administrators to run the day-to-day operations.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Denver taking a page f... · 0 replies · +1 points

Just as Silicon Valley is larger than any single city, I hope our community realizes that the opportunity for Colorado is not about Boulder or Denver. Instead the discussion is and should be about the entire state.

Startup Colorado - http://co.s.co/ - speaks directly to this goal and includes leaders from around Colorado.

The objective should be encouraging innovators to make Colorado their home.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Sean Maher: More of ou... · 2 replies · +17 points

Thanks for the candid comments RealLiberalBldr. It is great to learn the history.

Was the true agenda clear to the community back when this all started?

I mean was it marketed as creating recreational opportunities or just fostering growth in Lafayette, Louisville, Superior, Erie and Longmont? I'm sorry I know you said it was about growth control -- didn't it just result in growth somewhere else?

Current citizens what do you want? Yes, we may be newcomers, but we pay taxes and have the votes to elect people who can carry out an agenda that is appropriate today.

I think Sean Maher makes some great points.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - CU tuition hike funded... · 2 replies · -4 points

It seems to me CU-Boulder is the largest single employer in town, do you want an excellent Chancellor with a long-term perspective on the campus and community or someone less capable who will work for a really low salary? How many of us commentators could raise more than $40 million in donations and step up to support the audacious goal of $1.5 billion? Do you want CU-Boulder to be known for striving for and achieving excellence in the competitive market in which competes or do you want it be known for an administrative team that will work for the lowest salaries in its peer group? How long do you think it will take for CU-Boulder to become part of less respected peer group? I'm guessing we could reduce the administrative salary base pretty quickly with this strategy. Of course, I'm not sure we would this result either.

To be clear, I think our nation's university system is far from perfect, but I certainly want both talented not-for-profit leaders and talented for-profits leaders to compete.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder manager: City ... · 0 replies · +7 points

Unless cell signals are jammed in the BCC meeting rooms, enterprising groups ought to be able to simulcast anything they want using the internet.

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Evans: If it walks lik... · 0 replies · +3 points

Great column and comments. Now, how do we establish district based voting that really counts? I think a Republican might at least run if we had districts. Then we would at least have a debate during the election season.

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