By Sam Weaver
Certain traits come down through family, though some tendencies apparently skip a generation. After his World War II deployment, my grandfather served his community as a volunteer firefighter and then town mayor. I seem to have followed in his footsteps in those latter two ways at least.
My public service inclination arose from a desire to protect my home and neighborhood from wildfire, a constant threat living in the Boulder foothills. I joined the local fire department and became deeply engaged with the community and emergency response. In leadership roles I learned how dependent and constrained our small fire district was by other governments – county, state, federal and even a major Boulder pipeline project. A second revelation was how increasingly difficult climate change was making disaster response. I watched the fire season grow longer and hotter over 15 consecutive years – it was grim then, and has only gotten worse.
When I moved into Boulder and engaged civically, my emergency response background and renewable energy expertise informed my work on Planning Board and Council. I learned lots about many important subjects less familiar to me, one of Council’s blessings, but climate mitigation, adaptation and disaster preparedness remained priorities. One lesson from fire service leadership applied to Council – outside governments and powerful organizations determined what subjects we could address independently. To my surprise the situation was more constricting than I’d imagined. There are myriad external restrictions and dependencies fencing cities, and various byzantine constraints and overlapping circles of responsibility abound.
Achieving city goals in areas outside of direct municipal authority requires lots of persistent persuasion and coalition engagement by staff and Council. The constellation of regional organizations within which Boulder operates often restricts our choices. The interlocking webs of control and influence limiting Boulder can be hard to discern from outside the sausage factory.
In future pieces, I’ll explore key regional institutions and their impacts on Council’s policy options. For example, state law bars local rent control, until recently it banned local firearm regulations, and a potpourri of organizations eternally tussle over transportation policy. The city must act within this political reality that imposes barriers on critical issues like housing, transportation, and climate action. Those barriers must be dismantled to meet our goals, so I’ll highlight some important impediments.
I’ll also try to unpack some Council processes to make them more understandable to casual observers. It’s impossible to over-communicate city decision-making procedures since most people tune in occasionally if ever. With the limited time most folks have, the executive summary is all they want, so I’ll work to distill essential points starting with the Council retreat happening this week.
Establishing the work plan for the coming two years is one of the first actions by a new Council. The retreat process is the forum where new and returning Council members, just beginning to establish their cadence and working relationships, explore their policy options. Decisions taken now will weave through Council activity for months or years.
All councilors have passionate causes they hope to advance. City resources are finite, however, community capacity has limits, and there are those pesky layers of external control. The retreat is a facilitated negotiation among councilors and senior staff about deploying resources; what current items should continue, which new ones should launch, and how Council will focus its time and energy. The challenge is often, as now, too many worthy projects chasing too few resources and time. Tradeoffs must be weighed and priorities established within limits of practicality. Another crucial consideration is preserving organizational capacity to absorb the blows of chance. The discipline to leave that last enticing goal for another Council is challenging but essential to harbor resources for unexpected challenges guaranteed to arise.
It’s an exciting time, with the few continuing Council projects leaving space for new initiatives. Timely priorities like analyzing the Planning Reserve for affordable housing will have to be balanced with the grave imperative to enhance preparedness for ongoing climate disruption. The floods and fires will grow ever more formidable and menacing. We must reinforce and modernize our infrastructure, warning systems, evacuation planning, development policies and disaster preparation for the storms that loom. Godspeed to Council in this first important balancing act they are undertaking.
Sam Weaver is a former mayor of Boulder and former volunteer fire chief, both roles that require putting out fires. Collective action in the face of climate disruption preoccupies him, renewables and energy storage sustain him, and wide open spaces make it all worth it.
