Jerry Shapins: West Pearl: City must be willing to act boldly

I walk downtown regularly and am also participating in the current Downtown Visioning process that is exploring the future of Downtown Boulder. There are so many engaging and supportive ideas that are emerging that recognize both the public interests for walkability, sustainability and establishing a delightful experience for all, while also exploring the reality of expanding tourism here and the strength of the downtown economic engine. Balancing those demands with the rigorous and overly complex regulatory constraints in Boulder — with an anxious public that distrusts local governance — makes this issue critical to today’s public officials and citizens to act boldly for the short term, and to be responsible to the future generations who will live here.

West Pearl offers a world of amazing opportunities to move forward, rather than caving into the forces of negativity and no change and delay.

Think about the possibilities for a unique car-lite public space and commons that are connected yet different than the mall and provides beautiful, elegant and safe green places for events, social interaction, play, dining, art and innovative urban recreation all tailored to Boulder locals, as well as to the folks visiting from elsewhere and the current business engine that supports us all.

Finally, think about the changing land uses regarding vacant spaces and short-sighted zoning and critical housing, arts space, cultural and equity needs and the opportunity to strengthen the core of the community by planning and acting for those surgical changes now.

Opening up the street to do the same car-centric space on West Pearl simply is not enough. We need a compelling vision to unite us all with our hopes and dreams for a pedestrian-friendly, inspiring and unique space and the core of a possible creative district at West Pearl.

Jerry Shapins, Boulder

William B. DeOreo: Election: Is it too much to ask that election laws be enforced?

Is Gary Garrison a journalist or a member of the County Clerk’s public relations team? He presents as facts the theories that the clerk is using to defend her lack of proper monitoring and surveillance of the remote drop boxes, and accuses me of fomenting doubt in the election process by asking questions about how the laws and rules of the State are being implemented.

If you haven’t already done so, please go and read my complaint and the extensive documentation I put together on the issue. If you do so you will see that we are asking the court to decide exactly what the clerk’s responsibilities are with respect to monitoring the ballot boxes. This is the proper way to resolve these types of disputes, not in the editorial page of the Daily Camera.

Molly Fitzpatrick asserts that her only responsibility is to collect some video records that might be useful to the police in the event that the ballot boxes are vandalized. I believe that when the Colorado Legislature wrote in CRS 1-5-102-9 that, “A drop off location must be located in a secure place under the supervision of a municipal clerk, an election judge, or a member of the clerk and recorder’s staff” that it means exactly what it says, and that all remote ballot boxes are to be supervised by the clerk or a member of the election staff.

This is the issue before the court. I am not asserting that there was any systematic election fraud in the past election, but what I am asserting is that if there was, the County Clerk would not be able to detect it with the totally inadequate video surveillance systems at the boxes.

William B. DeOreo, candidate for House District 10, Boulder