[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Charter / ballot issues

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt

Colleagues,

Since I won't be at the April 24 study session on potential charter / ballot issues for this November, here are some initial thoughts:

-- I know that staff is taking a hard look at our campaign finance regs to see if any changes would require a charter amendment or some form of voter approval, or if they could simply be enacted by council ordinance.  Obvious issues to examine are our disclosure rules (how to ensure that all contributions/expenditures are captured), timing of reports (given how elections have changed due to early voting), state/federal changes that might affect us, "membership" organizations and what they are required to report, etc.

-- I'd still like to ask our voters to allow us to expand to the OSBT to 7 members.  Just the OSBT.  It's already called out in the charter, there are clearly many points of view that could/should be represented, the board takes on many complex and controversial issues that are of great interest to a large number of our residents, etc.  No other 5-member board, in my view, meets those criteria (although TAB might come close).  I'd simply add both new members in 2013, with one serving a 1-year term (so that person could be replaced by the very next council), and the other serving a 3-year term (so no single council gets to appoint more than 3 board members).

-- And I think we should finally fix the flaw in council pay calculations that limits us to four meetings/month.  When this was enacted, in fact I think council typically did have four meetings/month, with few extras, and with no recess.  But as we all know, that is not the case now, and this approach leads to sometimes strange timing of meetings as well as clear inequities.  I'd simply ask the voters to keep the per-meeting salary exactly as it is now, but provide for up 52 meetings/year, a simple one per week (yes, we have holidays and the recess, but we inevitably make up for them).  While we'll still have more than 52 meetings in a typical year (and of course we don't count the critical meetings we all attend outside of formal council gatherings), this at least will handle the timing issues and inequities of the current situation.

-- Obviously I think we should put the CAP tax renewal on the ballot, although we should be clear about its mission - and if that mission includes more support for C/I energy reduction, then the proportion paid by that sector should also be reexamined.

-- I'd seriously consider putting the renewal of the .25 sales tax on the ballot this year (unearmarked, naturally...) so that we can have some certainty regarding operating revenues and also put ourselves in a better position, I think, to place some sort of capital projects bonding/tax on the ballot in a later year.

--Matt