[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: County Sustainability (SST) Tax on the ballot in 2014

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Mertz, Kara


Dear Macon:
 
Thank you for your e-mail. I am in the process of drafting a memo to be conveyed to the county commissioners re: the council discussions on sustainability funding
 and will include a summary of your e-mail in that memo. 
 
In the correspondence to the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), I intend to state that Council took no formal vote, and the high level comments are points
 that individual council members wished to convey. We hope that there are more opportunities to discuss this matter once the BOCC is further along in its deliberations on this subject.
 
Please let me know if this will suffice to reflect your input.
 
Thank you so much!
 
Kara F Mertz
Environmental Action Project Manager
City of Boulder, Community Planning + Sustainability

 
 


From:
 Cowles, Macon 
Sent:
 Wednesday, April 02, 2014 12:43 PM
To: Kara Mertz
Cc: HOTLINE
Subject: County Sustainability (SST) Tax on the ballot in 2014


 
Kara, I had to leave the City Council meeting before the discussion of the City's position vis-a-vis a County SST tax on the ballot in 2014. I met with one of the Commissioners about
 what the County would like to accomplish, and I expressed these ideas to her. I would now like to add them to what you heard last night from other Council Members.

 


1) At present, I am unpersuaded that the burden of an added County tax is worth the SST gains that might flow from funding for new programs, or extending existing programs.

 


2) If the County is going to propose a tax, I think it should be for human services (including housing for the homeless), not for SST. Human Services is where there is a pressing need,
 with the burden now falling unfairly on the City of Boulder to provide additional resources for people in need across the County. The City currently spends 10 X as much per capita on social services as any other city in the County. The City, therefore, needs
 more help in providing for people from across the County who are in need.


 


3) If the County is going to go with a SST tax, then it should direct the money at a sector of GHG emissions that is now inadequately funded and could benefit from focused attention
 and funding: Mainly, transportation improvements. This is an area where additional services and programs are needed to drive mode split, and reduce emissions attributable to the transportation sector. It is also an area where Boulder City programs and other
 cities' programs have been inadequate to the task, and where coordinated cross county and regional extensions make a lot of sense. It is an area, in short, where there is much more legitimacy to a County's program than there would be to, say, a SST tax where
 the need is not well defined by the Commissioners, taking into account available polling data. There is another reason why focused attention on transportation makes sense at the County level: mainly, the County already has very good staff--transportation planners--and
 so there would be no need to create a new department to wisely spend money from the additional tax. 


 


I don't blame the Commissioners for wanting to increase their presence in the SST arena. But the most important project with the greatest potential impact on emissions in the County
 is MuniZ--there is not even a close second. People in the City of Boulder are already shouldering a large burden to see this through to completion, and should not be further burdened with a County tax that takes a bite out of emissions here and there. On the
 other hand, a county wide transportation initiative focused on increasing transportation choices and driving mode split would be a new initiative addressing unmet needs, and really could make a substantial contribution in moving us toward SST--much more so
 than a patchwork of energy efficiency, energy concierge, loan assistance, weatherization and other programs run out of a County SST office.


 










Thanks for the opportunity to provide a response on this item.


 


Macon Cowles


Boulder City Council Member






1726 Mapleton Ave.






Boulder, Colorado 80304


CowlesM at bouldercolorado.gov


(303) 447-3062


(303) 638-6884