[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Issues with 2015 Boulder Community Profile

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Weaver, Sam


Fellow Council Member,
 
I have a major concern about the 2015 Community Profile which I flagged at the Tuesday study session, and have dug further into.  The jobs trends shown in the 2015 Community Profile make no sense on a simple read. 
The jobs chart shown in the profile indicates that we have lost a net of 300 jobs since 2000, while adding 3 million net new square feet of non-residential buildings in the City.  This is deeply unbelievable, and I do not support including the jobs trend chart in any finished work product the City distributes.  
 
I understand that the job count methodology has changed, and that some number of earlier years have had their figures adjusted with the new methodology.  It is critical to me that the ‘back-casting’ to all prior years with the current methods
(even if an estimate) be done very soon so that we can understand our growth rates as we move through the comp plan process. If it is too time-consuming to adjust the former data, an issue I would like to see discussed with a price and time estimate, I do not feel that the chart should be presented at all, because it does not accurately represent the reality of our trends.  If Council, staff, and the public do not understand how data is gathered and processed, there will be further mistrust in our presentations of growth and development, a result we should try to avoid.  Simply appending a few years of jobs figures using the current counting approach onto a trend line that uses a different counting approach for earlier years makes the trend line deeply suspect, engendering distrust of all of the information.  In the current polarization around growth and development, incomplete or inaccurate information from the City is damaging.  I appreciate establishing a more accurate counting method on which to base our projections, but
I do not support showing trend data that is not corrected with the new method.
 
All the best,
 
Sam Weaver
Member of Boulder City Council
weavers at bouldercolorado.gov
Phone: 303-416-6130